Juvenile Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) survival in Lookout Point Reservoir, Oregon, 2018
Tobias J. Kock, Russell W. Perry, Gabriel S. Hansen, Philip V. Haner, Adam C. Pope, John M. Plumb, Karen M. Cogliati, Amy C. Hansen
2019, Open-File Report 2019-1097
A field study was conducted to estimate survival of juvenile Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in Lookout Point Reservoir, Oregon, during 2018. The study consisted of releasing three groups of genetically-marked fish into the reservoir, and sampling them monthly. Juveniles were released during April 10–13 (116,708 fish), May 15–18 (31,911 fish),...
Laboratory experiments of volcanic ash resuspension by wind
Vicken Etyemezian, Jack Gillies, Larry G. Mastin, Alice Crawford, Robert Hasson, Alexa R. Van Eaton, G. Nikolich
2019, Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres (124) 9534-9560
Fresh volcanic eruption deposits tend to be loose, bare, and readily resuspended by wind. Major resuspension events in Patagonia, Iceland, and Alaska have lofted ash clouds with potential to impact aircraft, infrastructure, and downwind communities. However, poor constraints on this resuspension process limit our ability to model...
Hydrologic balance, water quality, chemical-mass balance, and geochemical modeling of hyperalkaline ponds at Big Marsh, Chicago, Illinois, 2016–17
Amy M. Gahala, Robert R. Seal, II, Nadine M. Piatak
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5078
Hyperalkaline (pH greater than 12) ponds and groundwater exist at Big Marsh near Lake Calumet, Chicago, Illinois, a site used by the steel industry during the mid-1900s to deposit steel- and iron-making waste, in particular, slag. The hyperalkaline ponds may pose a hazard to human health and the environment. The...
Santa Rosa's past and future earthquakes
Suzanne Hecker, Darcy K. McPhee, Victoria E. Langenheim, Janet T. Watt
2019, Fact Sheet 2019-3035
Santa Rosa is no stranger to earthquakes. This northern California city was damaged several times in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by shaking from earthquakes, culminating in the devastating earthquake of 1906, whose rupture passed 20 miles to the west of the city on the San Andreas Fault....
A food web modeling assessment of Asian Carp impacts in the Middle and Upper Mississippi River, USA
Nicholas W. Kramer, Quinton E. Phelps, Clay Pierce, Michael E. Colvin
2019, Food Webs (21)
The invasion of non-native fishes has caused a great detriment to many of our native fishes. Since the introduction of invasive carps, such as Silver, Bighead, Common and Grass Carp, managers and researcher have been struggling to remove these species while also hypothesizing the detriment of further invasion. This study developed...
Invertebrate prey contributions to juvenile Coho Salmon diet from riparian habitats along three Alaska streams: Implications for environmental change
Jess Grunblatt, Benjamin E. Meyer, Mark S. Wipfli
2019, Journal of Freshwater Ecology (34) 617-631
Stream fish rely on a mix of terrestrial and aquatic prey sources. While the importance of terrestrial invertebrates as a food source for stream fish is well documented, the role of aquatic insects that emerge from the stream as winged adult insects (aquatic winged adults) and return to the stream...
Flood-inundation maps for a 23-mile reach of the Medina River at Bandera, Texas, 2018
Namjeong Choi, Frank L. Engel
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5067
In 2018, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Bandera County River Authority and Groundwater District and the Texas Water Development Board, studied floods through the period of record to create a library of flood-inundation maps for the Medina River at Bandera, Texas. Digital flood-inundation maps for a...
Flood warning toolset for the Medina River in Bandera County, Texas
Frank L. Engel, Namjeong Choi
2019, Fact Sheet 2019-3043
OverviewFloods are the most common natural disaster in the United States. The Medina River in Bandera County, Texas, is in the Edwards Plateau, where high-intensity rain rates and steep terrain frequently contribute to severe flash flooding capable of causing loss of life and property. For example, the July...
Evaluating k-nearest neighbor (kNN) imputation models for species-level aboveground forest biomass mapping in northeast China
Yuanyuan Fu, Hong S He, Todd Hawbaker, Paul D. Henne, Zhiliang Zhu, David R. Larsen
2019, Remote Sensing (17) 1-20
Quantifying spatially explicit or pixel-level aboveground forest biomass (AFB) across large regions is critical for measuring forest carbon sequestration capacity, assessing forest carbon balance, and revealing changes in the structure and function of forest ecosystems. When AFB is measured at the species level using widely available remote sensing data, regional...
Strategic conservation for lesser prairie-chickens among landscapes of varying anthropogenic influence
Daniel S. Sullins, David A. Haukos, Joseph M. Lautenbach, Jonathan Lautenbach, Samantha G. Robinson, Mindy B. Rice, Brett K. Sandercock, John D. Kraft, Reid T. Plumb, Jonathan H. Reitz, J. M. Shawn Hutchinson, Christian A. Hagen
2019, Biological Conservation (238)
For millennia grasslands have provided a myriad of ecosystem services and have been coupled with human resource use. The loss of 46% of grasslands worldwide necessitates the need for conservation that is spatially, temporally, and socioeconomically strategic. In the Southern Great Plains of the United States, conversion of native grasslands...
Influence of climate change and postdelisting management on long-term population viability of the conservation-reliant Kirtland's Warbler
Donald J. Brown, Deahn M. Donner, Christine Ribic, Carol I. Bocetti
2019, Ecology and Evolution (9) 10263-10276
Rapid global climate change is resulting in novel abiotic and biotic conditions and interactions. Identifying management strategies that maximize probability of long-term persistence requires an understanding of the vulnerability of species to environmental changes. We sought to quantify the vulnerability of Kirtland's Warbler (Setophaga kirtlandii), a...
Temporally adaptive acoustic sampling to maximize detection across a suite of focal wildlife species
Cathleen Balantic, Therese M. Donovan
2019, Ecology and Evolution (9) 10582-10600
Acoustic recordings of the environment can produce species presence–absence data for characterizing populations of sound-producing wildlife over multiple spatial scales. If a species is present at a site but does not vocalize during a scheduled audio recording survey, researchers may incorrectly conclude that the species is absent (“false negative”)....
Tsunamis: Stochastic models of generation, propagation, and occurrence
Eric L. Geist, David Oglesby, Kenny Ryan
2019, Book chapter, Encyclopedia of complexity and systems science
The devastating consequences of the 2004 Indian Ocean and 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunamis have led to increased research into many different aspects of the tsunami phenomenon. In this paper, we review research related to the observed complexity and uncertainty associated with tsunami generation, propagation, and occurrence described and analyzed using...
Paleoclimate of the subtropical Andes during the latest Miocene, Lauca Basin, Chile
Melina Feitl, Andrea Kern, Amanda Jones, Sherilyn Fritz, Paul E. Baker, Joeckel . R.M., Wout Salenbien, Debra A. Willard
2019, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology (534)
Uplift of the Andean Cordillera during the Miocene and Pliocene produced large-scale changes in regional atmospheric circulation that impacted local ecosystems. The Lauca Basin (northern Chilean Altiplano) contains variably fluvial and lacustrine sedimentary sequences spanning the interval from 8.7 to 2.3 Ma....
Mechanisms of methane hydrate formation in geological systems
Kehua You, Peter B. Flemings, Alberto Malinverno, Timothy Collett, Kristopher Darnell
2019, Reviews of Geophysics (57) 1146-1196
Natural gas hydrates are ice-like mixtures of gas (mostly methane) and water that are widely found in sediments along the world’s continental margins and within and beneath permafrost in a near-surface depth interval where the pressure is sufficiently high and temperature sufficiently low for gas hydrate to be stable. Beneath...
Small ponds in headwater catchments are a dominant influence on regional nutrient and sediment budgets
Noah M. Schmadel, Judson Harvey, Gregory E. Schwarz, Richard Alexander, Jesus D. Gomez-Velez, Durelle Scott, Scott W. Ator
2019, Geophysical Research Letters (46) 9669-9677
Small ponds—farm ponds, detention ponds, or impoundments below 0.01 km2—serve important human needs throughout most large river basins. Yet the role of small ponds in regional nutrient and sediment budgets is essentially unknown, currently making it impossible to evaluate their management potential to achieve water quality objectives. Here we used...
SUTRA, a model for saturated-unsaturated, variable-density groundwater flow with solute or energy transport—Documentation of generalized boundary conditions, a modified implementation of specified pressures and concentrations or temperatures, and the lake capability
Alden M. Provost, Clifford I. Voss
2019, Techniques and Methods 6-A52
Version 3.0 of the SUTRA groundwater modeling program offers three new capabilities: generalized boundary conditions, a modified implementation of specified pressures and concentrations or temperatures, and lakes. Two new types of “generalized” boundary conditions facilitate simulation of a wide range of hydrologic processes that interact with the groundwater model, such...
Catalog of earthquake parameters and description of seismograph and infrasound stations at Alaskan volcanoes—January 1, 2013, through December 31, 2017
James P. Dixon, Scott D. Stihler, Matthew M. Haney, John J. Lyons, Dane M. Ketner, Katherine M. Mulliken, Thomas Parker, John Power
2019, Data Series 1115
Between January 1, 2013, and December 31, 2017, the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) located a total of 28,172 earthquakes at volcanoes in Alaska. The annual totals are 3,840, 5,819, 5,297, 6,151, and 7,065 earthquakes for the years 2013 through 2017, respectively. This represents an average of 5,634 earthquakes per year,...
A space-time geostatistical model for probabilistic estimation of harmful algal bloom biomass and areal extent
Shiqi Fang, Dario Del Giudice, Donald Scavia, Caren E. Binding, Thomas B. Bridgeman, Justin D. Chaffin, Mary Anne Evans, Joseph Guinness, Thomas H. Johengen, Daniel R Obenour
2019, Science of the Total Environment (695)
Harmful algal blooms (HABs) have been increasing in intensity across many waterbodies worldwide, including the western basin of Lake Erie. Substantial efforts have been made to track these blooms using in situ sampling and remote sensing. However, such measurements do not fully capture HAB spatial and temporal dynamics due to...
Molecular identification of fecal contamination in the Elks Run Watershed, Jefferson County, West Virginia, 2016–17
W. Bane Schill, Deborah D. Iwanowicz
2019, Open-File Report 2019-1064
The U.S. Geological Survey conducted a study using modern methods of molecular analysis aimed at attempting to identify the source(s) of fecal contamination that had been identified in previous studies conducted by the West Virginia Conservation Agency in the Elk Run watershed, Jefferson County, West Virginia. Water samples from multiple...
Spatial distribution of water level impact to back-barrier bays
Alfredo Aretxabaleta, Neil K. Ganju, Zafer Defne, Richard P. Signell
2019, Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (19) 1823-1838
Water level in semi-enclosed bays, landward of barrier islands, is mainly driven by offshore sea level fluctuations that are modulated by bay geometry and bathymetry, causing spatial variability in the ensuing response (transfer). Local wind setup can have a secondary role that depends on wind speed, fetch, and relative orientation...
Evaluating the temperature difference parameter in the SSEBop model with satellite observed land surface temperature data
Lei Ji, Gabriel B. Senay, Naga Manohar Velpuri, Stefanie Kagone
2019, Remote Sensing (11)
The Operational Simplified Surface Energy Balance (SSEBop) model uses the principle of satellite psychrometry to produce spatially explicit actual evapotranspiration (ETa) with remotely sensed and weather data. The temperature difference (dT) in the model is a predefined parameter quantifying the difference between surface temperature at bare soil and air...
Estimates of long-term mean daily streamflow and annual nutrient and suspended-sediment loads considered for use in regional SPARROW models of the Conterminous United States, 2012 base year
David A. Saad, Gregory E. Schwarz, Denise M. Argue, David W. Anning, Scott A. Ator, Anne B. Hoos, Stephen D. Preston, Dale M. Robertson, Daniel R. Wise
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5069
Streamflow, nutrient, and sediment concentration data needed to estimate long-term mean daily streamflow and annual constituent loads were compiled from Federal, State, Tribal, and regional agencies, universities, and nongovernmental organizations. The streamflow and loads are used to develop Spatially Referenced Regressions on Watershed Attributes (SPARROW) models. SPARROW models help describe...
Water-quality and geochemical variability in the Little Arkansas River and Equus Beds aquifer, south-central Kansas, 2001–16
Mandy L. Stone, Brian J. Klager, Andrew C. Ziegler
2019, Fact Sheet 2019-3017
This fact sheet describes water quality and geochemistry of the Little Arkansas River and Equus Beds aquifer during 2001 through 2016 as part of the City of Wichita’s Equus Beds aquifer storage and recovery project in south-central Kansas. The Equus Beds aquifer storage and recovery project was developed to help...
Development and implementation of an empirical habitat change model and decision support tool for estuarine ecosystems
Melanie J. Davis, Isa Woo, Susan E.W. De La Cruz
2019, Ecological Modelling (410)
Widespread land use change in coastal ecosystems has led to a decline in the amount of habitat available for fish and wildlife, lower production of ecosystem goods and services, and loss of recreational and aesthetic value. This has prompted global efforts to...
