Estimating lag to peak between rainfall and peak streamflow with a mixed-effects model
Pamela J. Lombard, David Holtschlag
2018, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) (54) 949-961
We test the use of a mixed-effects model for estimating lag to peak for small basins in Maine (drainage areas from 0.8 to 78 km2). Lag to peak is defined as the time between the center of volume of the excess rainfall during a storm event and the resulting peak...
Suspended-sediment concentrations and loads in the lower Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers decreased by half between 1980 and 2015
Scott Mize, Jennifer C. Murphy, Timothy H. Diehl, Dennis K. Demcheck
2018, Journal of Hydrology (564) 1-11
The Weighted Regressions on Time, Discharge, and Season (WRTDS) model was used to derive estimates of suspended-sediment concentration (SSC) and suspended-sediment load (SSL), their dependence on discharge, and their trends with confidence intervals, for one site each on the lowermost Mississippi...
Variation in home range size and patterns in adult female American crocodiles Crocodylus acutus
Kristen M. Hart, Jeffrey S. Beauchamp, Michael S. Cherkiss, Frank Mazzotti
2018, Endangered Species Research (36) 161-171
The American crocodile Crocodylus acutus is a threatened species that uses relatively deep, open-water habitats with low salinity. Adult female American crocodiles nest on sandy coastal beaches, islands or human-made berms, assist in the hatching process, and can travel long distances to nesting habitat. We satellite-tracked 15 adult female American crocodiles in...
Quantifying anthropogenic contributions to century-scale groundwater salinity changes, San Joaquin Valley, California, USA
Jeffrey A. Hansen, Bryant C. Jurgens, Miranda S. Fram
2018, Science of the Total Environment (642) 125-136
Total dissolved solids (TDS) concentrations in groundwater tapped for beneficial uses (drinking water, irrigation, freshwater industrial) have increased on average by about 100 mg/L over the last 100 years in the San Joaquin Valley, California (SJV). During this period land use in the SJV changed from natural vegetation and dryland...
DDT and related compounds in pore water of shallow sediments on the Palos Verdes Shelf, California, USA
Robert P. Eganhouse, Erica L. DiFilippo, James Pontolillo, William H. Orem, Paul C. Hackley, Brian Edwards
2018, Marine Chemistry (203) 78-90
For nearly two and a half decades following World War II, production wastes from the world's largest manufacturer of technical DDT (1-chloro-4-[2,2,2-trichloro-1-(4-chlorophenyl)ethyl]benzene) were discharged into sewers of Los Angeles County. Following treatment, the wastes were released via a submarine outfall system to nearshore coastal waters where a portion accumulated in...
Harnessing big data to rethink land heterogeneity in Earth system models
Nathaniel W. Chaney, Marjolein H. J. Van Huijgevoort, Elena Shevliakova, Sergey Malyshev, Paul C. D. Milly, Paul P. G. Gauthier, Benjamin N. Sulman
2018, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (22) 3311-3330
The continual growth in the availability, detail, and wealth of environmental data provides an invaluable asset to improve the characterization of land heterogeneity in Earth system models – a persistent challenge in macroscale models. However, due to the nature of these data (volume and complexity) and computational constraints, these data...
Thresholds and hotspots for shrub restoration following a heterogeneous megafire
Matthew Germino, David Barnard, Bill Davidson, Robert Arkle, David S. Pilliod, Matthew Fisk, Cara Applestein
2018, Landscape Ecology (33) 1177-1194
ContextReestablishing foundational plant species through aerial seeding is an essential yet challenging step for restoring the vast semiarid landscapes impacted by plant invasions and wildfire-regime shifts. A key component of the challenge stems from landscape variability and its effects on plant recovery.ObjectivesWe assessed landscape correlates, thresholds,...
Exposure to human-associated chemical markers of fecal contamination and self-reported illness among swimmers at recreational beaches
Melanie D Napier, Charles Poole, Jill R Stewart, David J Weber, Susan T. Glassmeyer, Dana W. Kolpin, Edward Furlong, Alfred P Dufour, Timothy J. Wade
2018, Environmental Science & Technology (52) 7513-7523
Anthropogenic chemicals have been proposed as potential markers of human fecal contamination in recreational water. However, to date, there are no published studies describing their relationships with illness risks. Using a cohort of swimmers at seven U.S. beaches, we examined potential...
Dryland photoautotrophic soil surface communities endangered by global change
Emilio Rodriguez-Caballero, Jayne Belnap, Burkhard Budel, Paul J. Crutzen, Meinrat O. Andreae, Ulrich Poschl, Bettina Weber
2018, Nature Geoscience (11) 185-189
Photoautotrophic surface communities forming biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are crucial for soil stability as well as water, nutrient and trace gas cycling at regional and global scales. Quantitative information on their global coverage and the environmental factors driving their distribution patterns, however, are not readily available. We use observations and...
Diurnal patterns of methane flux from a seasonal wetland: mechanisms and methodology
Sheel Bansal, Brian Tangen, Raymond Finocchiaro
2018, Wetlands (45) 4933-4943
Methane emissions from wetlands are temporally dynamic. Few chamber-based studies have explored diurnal variation in methane flux with high temporal replication. Using an automated sampling system, we measured methane flux every 2.5 to 4 h for 205 diel cycles during three growing seasons (2013–2015) from a seasonal wetland in the Prairie...
Bedrock geologic map of the Littleton and Lower Waterford quadrangles, Essex and Caledonia Counties, Vermont, and Grafton County, New Hampshire
Douglas W. Rankin
2018, Open-File Report 2018-1087
The bedrock geologic map of the Littleton and Lower Waterford quadrangles covers an area of approximately 107 square miles (277 square kilometers) north and south of the Connecticut River in east-central Vermont and adjacent New Hampshire. This map was created as part of a larger effort to produce a new...
Divergent effects of land-use, propagule pressure, and climate on woody riparian invasion
Laura G Perry, Lindsay V. Reynolds, Patrick B. Shafroth
2018, Biological Invasions (20) 3271-3295
Landscape-scale analyses of biological invasion are needed to understand the relative importance of environmental drivers that vary at larger scales, such as climate, propagule pressure, resource availability, and human disturbance. One poorly understood landscape-scale question is, how does human land-use influence riparian plant invasion? To evaluate...
Streamflow and selenium loads during synoptic sampling of the Gunnison River and its tributaries near Delta, Colorado, November 2015
Michael R. Stevens, Kenneth J. Leib, Judith C. Thomas, Nancy J. Bauch, Rodney J. Richards
2018, Scientific Investigations Report 2018-5029
In response to the need for more information about selenium (Se) sources and transport, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Colorado Water Conservation Board, completed a study that characterized Se loads in a reach of the Gunnison River between Delta and Grand Junction, Colo. This report identifies where...
Cyanobacteria reduce quagga mussel (Dreissena rostriformis bugensis) spawning and fertilization success
Anna G. Boegehold, Nicholas S. Johnson, Jeffrey L. Ran, Donna R. Kashian
2018, Freshwater Science (37) 510-518
Quagga mussels (Dreissena rostriformis bugensis) are highly fecund broadcast spawners invasive to freshwaters of North America and western Europe. We hypothesized that environmental cues from phytoplankton can trigger gamete release in quagga mussels. Nutritious algae may stimulate dreissenid spawning, but less palatable food, such as bloom-forming cyanobacteria, could be a...
Nonbreeding duck use at Central Flyway National Wildlife Refuges
Kent Andersson, Craig A. Davis, Grant Harris, David A. Haukos
2018, Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management (9) 45-64
Within the U.S. portion of the Central Flyway, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manages waterfowl on numerous individual units (i.e., Refuges) within the National Wildlife Refuge System. Presently, the extent of waterfowl use that Refuges receive and the contribution of Refuges to waterfowl populations (i.e., the proportion of the...
Spatial patterns of development drive water use
G.M. Sanchez, J.W. Smith, Adam J. Terando, G. Sun, R.K. Meentemeyer
2018, Water Resources Research (54) 1633-1649
Water availability is becoming more uncertain as human populations grow, cities expand into rural regions and the climate changes. In this study, we examine the functional relationship between water use and the spatial patterns of developed land across the rapidly growing region of the southeastern United States. We quantified the...
Hydrographic surveys of rivers and lakes using a multibeam echosounder mapping system
Richard J. Huizinga, David C. Heimann
2018, Fact Sheet 2018-3021
A multibeam echosounder is a type of sound navigation and ranging device that uses sound waves to “see” through even murky waters. Unlike a single beam echosounder (also known as a depth sounder or fathometer) that releases a single sound pulse in a single, narrow beam and “listens” for the...
Celebrating 50 years of SWIMs (Salt Water Intrusion Meetings)
Vincent E. A. Post, Gualbert Oude Essink, Adam Szymkiewicz, Mark Bakker, Georg Houben, Emilio Custodio, Clifford I. Voss
2018, Hydrogeology Journal (26) 1767-1770
The Salt Water Intrusion Meetings, or SWIMs, are a series of meetings that focus on seawater intrusion in coastal aquifers and other salinisation processes. 2018 marks the 50th year of the SWIM and the 25th biennial meeting. The SWIM proceedings record half a century of research progress on site characterisation,...
Evolving environmental and geometric controls on Columbia Glacier’s continued retreat
Ellyn Enderlin, Shad O’Neel, Timothy C. Bartholomaus, Ian Joughin
2018, Journal of Geophysical Research- Earth Surface (123) 1528-1545
Geometry strongly controls the dynamic behavior of marine‐terminating (tidewater) glaciers, significantly influencing advance and retreat cycles independent of climate. Yet the recent, nearly ubiquitous retreat of tidewater glaciers suggests that changes in atmospheric and oceanic forcing may also drive dynamic change. To isolate the influence of geometry...
Voyageurs National Park: Water-level regulation and effects on water quality and aquatic biology
Victoria G. Christensen, Ryan P. Maki, Jaime F. LeDuc
2018, Conference Paper, World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2018
Following dam installations in the remote Rainy Lake Basin during the early 1900s, water-level fluctuations were considered extreme (1914–1949) compared to more natural conditions. In 1949, the International Joint Commission (IJC), which sets rules governing dam operation on waters shared by the United States and Canada, established the...
A history of trade routes and water-level regulation on waterways in Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota, USA
Victoria G. Christensen, Andrew E. LaBounty
2018, Conference Paper, World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2018
Unlike most national parks, main access to Voyageurs National Park is by boat. This remote system of interconnected waterways along the USA-Canada border was an important transportation route for thousands of years of American Indian occupation, leading up to and including the trade route of the voyageurs, or French-Canadian fur...
Real-time water quality monitoring at a Great Lakes National Park
Muruleedhara Byappanahalli, Meredith B. Nevers, Dawn Shively, Ashley Spoljaric, Christopher Otto
2018, Journal of Environmental Quality
Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) was used by the USEPA to establish new recreational water quality criteria in 2012 using the indicator bacteria enterococci. The application of this method has been limited, but resource managers are interested in more timely monitoring results. In this study, we evaluated the efficacy of...
GIS-based method for estimating surficial groundwater levels in coastal Virginia using limited information
R.D. Johnson, David J. Sample, Kurt J. McCoy
2018, Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering (144) 1-14
In many coastal areas, high water tables are present, complicating installation of some stormwater best management practices (BMPs) that rely on infiltration. Regional estimates of the seasonal high water table (SHWT) often rely on sources such as soil surveys taken over a decade ago; these data are static and do...
Ground-nesting great horned owl in Suisun Marsh, California
Shannon Skalos, Matthew J. Falcon, Olivia Wang, Andrea Lynn Mott, Melissa Hunt, Orlando Rocha, Joshua T. Ackerman, Michael L. Casazza, Joshua M. Hull
2018, California Fish and Game (104) 164-172
Great horned owls (Bubo virginianus) are widespread throughout North, Central, and parts of South America (Artuso et al. 2013). Across this range, great horned owls are generalists, occupying a diverse range of habitats including deciduous and coniferous forests, wetlands, and agricultural landscapes. Within these habitats, great horned owls are generally...
Preliminary geologic framework developed for a proposed environmental monitoring study of a deep, unconventional Marcellus Shale drill site, Washington County, Pennsylvania
Robert G. Stamm
2018, Open-File Report 2018-1057
BackgroundIn the fall of 2011, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) was afforded an opportunity to participate in an environmental monitoring study of the potential impacts of a deep, unconventional Marcellus Shale hydraulic fracturing site. The drill site of the prospective case study is the “Range Resources MCC Partners L.P. Units...
