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Digital flood-inundation maps for a 15-mile reach of the Kalamazoo River from Marshall to Battle Creek, Michigan, were created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to help guide remediation efforts following a crude-oil spill on July 25, 2010. The spill happened on...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Metropolitan Council, conducted a study to characterize regional low flows during 1932?2007 in the Mississippi River upstream from the Twin Cities metropolitan area in Minnesota and to describe the low-flow profile of the Mississippi River between the confluence of the Crow River...

The Silver River Watershed comprises about 69 square miles and drains part of northeastern Baraga County, Michigan. For generations, tribal members of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community have hunted and fished in the watershed. Tribal government and members of Keweenaw Bay Indian Community are concerned about the effect of any...

Federally endangered Lost River sucker (Deltistes luxatus) and shortnose sucker (Chasmistes brevirostris) were once abundant throughout their range but populations have declined. They were extirpated from several lakes in the 1920s and may no longer reproduce in others. Poor recruitment to the adult spawning populations is one of several reasons...

An investigation to document groundwater levels and stream base flow in the lower Chattahoochee-Flint and western and central Aucilla-Suwanee-Ochlockonee River basins during low-flow conditions was conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey in November 2008. During most of 2008, moderate to severe drought conditions prevailed throughout southwestern Georgia. Groundwater levels were...

A study of the groundwater and stream-aquifer interaction in the Pootatuck River Basin, Newtown, Connecticut, was conducted to analyze the effect of production wells on the groundwater levels and streamflow in the Pootatuck River as part of a cooperative program between the U.S. Geological Survey and Newtown, Connecticut. This study...

An unusually wet winter and spring of 2007 to 2008 resulted in extremely wet antecedent conditions throughout most of Iowa. Rainfall of 5 to 15 inches was observed in eastern Iowa during May 2008, and an additional 5 to 15 inches of rain was observed throughout most of Iowa in...

Management of water quality in streams of the United States is becoming increasingly complex as regulators seek to control aquatic pollution and ecological problems through Total Maximum Daily Load programs that target reductions in the concentrations of certain constituents. Sediment, nutrients, and bacteria, for example, are constituents that regulators target...

In northwestern Arizona, the high-standing, relatively unextended Colorado Plateau abruptly gives way across a system of major west-dipping normal faults to a highly extended part of the Basin and Range province known as the northern Colorado River extensional corridor. The transition from unextended to highly extended upper crust is unusually...

Severe flooding occurred in Aroostook and Penobscot Counties in northern Maine between April 28 and May 1, 2008, and damage was extensive in the town of Fort Kent. Aroostook County was declared a Federal disaster area on May 9, and the declaration was expanded to include Penobscot County on May...

Understanding of the pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus) has increased significantly since the species was listed as endangered over two decades ago. Since 2005, scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Columbia Environmental Research Center (CERC) have been engaged in an interdisciplinary research program in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps...

Acidic mine drainage (AMD) from legacy anthracite mines has contaminated Swatara Creek in eastern Pennsylvania. Intermittently collected base-flow data for 1959–1986 indicate that fish were absent immediately downstream from the mined area where pH ranged from 3.5 to 7.2 and concentrations of sulfate, dissolved iron, and dissolved aluminum were as...

High-flow experiments (HFEs) from Glen Canyon Dam are primarily intended to conserve fine sediment and improve habitat conditions for native fish in the Colorado River as it flows through Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. These experimental flows also have the potential to affect the rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) population in...

A 60-hour release of water at 1,203 cubic meters per second (m3/s) from Glen Canyon Dam in March 2008 provided an opportunity to analyze channel-margin response at discharge levels above the normal, diurnally fluctuating releases for hydropower plant operations. We compare measurements at sandbars and associated campsites along the mainstem...

The McKenzie River is a tributary to the Willamette River in northwestern Oregon. The McKenzie River is approximately 90 miles in length and has a drainage area of approximately 1,300 square miles. Two major flood control dams, a hydropower dam complex, and two hydropower canals significantly alter streamflows in the...

To better understand and partition mortality among life stages of chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta), we used inclined-plane traps to monitor the migration of juveniles in the Kwethluk River, Alaska in 2007 and 2008. The migration of juvenile chum salmon peaked in mid-May and catch rates were greatest when water levels...

Gas, oil, and water production data were compiled from selected wells in four gas fields in rocks of Late Cretaceous age in southwestern Wyoming. This study is one of a series of reports examining fluid production from tight-gas reservoirs, which are characterized by low permeability, low porosity, and the presence...

We explored the use of continuous waterborne electrical imaging (CWEI), in conjunction with fiber‐optic distributed temperature sensor (FO‐DTS) monitoring, to improve the conceptual model for uranium transport within the Columbia River corridor at the Hanford 300 Area, Washington. We first inverted resistivity and induced polarization CWEI data sets for distributions...

Habitat fragmentation resulting from human activities is a major factor contributing to reductions in biodiversity and species abundance worldwide. When movements are restricted, subpopulations become isolated, leading to reduced breeding opportunities, inbreeding depression, and interruption of key life stages. This problem is particularly ubiquitous in riverine ecosystems, where dams, water...

McNary Lock and Dam were completed in 1953, creating McNary Reservoir, or Lake Wallula. The shoreline of the reservoir is federally owned and as a result the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has certain land and fish habitat management responsibilities to balance with other multipurpose benefits. The Endangered Species...

River-aquifer exchange is considered within a transition probability framework along the Rio Grande in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to provide a stochastic estimate of aquifer heterogeneity and river loss. Six plausible hydrofacies configurations were determined using categorized drill core and wetland survey data processed through the TPROGS geostatistical package. A base...

Record flooding on the Santa Clara River of California (USA) during January 2005 injected ∼ 5 million m3 of littoral-grade sediment into the Santa Barbara Littoral Cell, approximately an order of magnitude more than both the average annual river loads and the average annual alongshore littoral transport in this portion...

The central Platte River valley (CPRV) in Nebraska, USA, is a key spring-staging area for approximately 80 of the midcontinent population of sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis; hereafter cranes). Evidence that staging cranes acquired less lipid reserves during the 1990s compared to the late 1970s and increases in use of the...

The higher mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere are particularly sensitive to climate change as small differences in temperature determine frozen ground status, precipitation phase, and the magnitude and timing of snow accumulation and melt. An international inter-catchment comparison program, North-Watch, seeks to improve our understanding of the sensitivity of northern...

Because unionid mussels have a parasitic larval stage, they are able to disperse upstream and downstream as larvae while attached to their host fish and with flow as juveniles after excystment from the host. Understanding unionid population ecology requires knowledge of the processes that affect juvenile dispersal prior to establishment....