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The U.S. Geological Survey, working with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and the British Columbia Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change Strategy, has developed a conceptual modeling framework that can be used to provide structured and scientifically based input to the Lake Koocanusa Monitoring and Research Working Group...

Thermal regimes are fundamental determinants of aquatic ecosystems, which makes description and prediction of temperatures critical during a period of rapid global change. The advent of inexpensive temperature sensors dramatically increased monitoring in recent decades, and although most monitoring is done by individuals for agency‐specific purposes, collectively these efforts constitute...

Although floodplains are thought to serve as important buffers against nitrogen (N) transport to aquatic systems, frequent flooding and high levels of nutrient availability also make these systems prone to invasion by exotic plant species. Invasive plants could modify the cycling and availability of nutrients within floodplains, with effects that...

Dams are a conservation threat because they function as barriers to native fish movement; however, they may prevent the spread of invasive species. Invasive bigheaded carps (Hypophthalmichthys spp.) threaten the Great Lakes ecosystem and are advancing towards Lake Michigan via the Illinois River. Navigation dams on the Illinois River may deter...

Hydrologic recovery after wildfire is critical for restoring the ecosystem services of protecting of human lives and infrastructure from hazards and delivering water supply of sufficient quality and quantity. Recovery of soil-hydraulic properties, such as field-saturated hydraulic conductivity (Kfs), is a key factor for assessing the duration of watershed-scale flash...

Unraveling the complexities associated with the relative differences in contaminant concentrations between the sexes of mature fish may provide insights into important behavioral and physiological differences between the sexes of not just fish but higher vertebrates as well. Whole-fish polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) concentrations were determined in 25 mature female white...

Many species of conservation interest exist solely or largely in isolated populations. Ideally, prioritization of management actions among such populations would be guided by quantitative estimates of extinction risk, but conventional methods of demographic population viability analysis (PVA) model each population separately and require temporally extensive datasets that are rarely...

Steady-state simulations using a revised regional groundwater-flow model based on MODFLOW were run to assess the potential long-term effects on the Upper Floridan aquifer (UFA) of pumping the Lower Floridan aquifer (LFA) at well 36Q398, located at Barbour Pointe in coastal Georgia near Savannah. Simulated pumping of well 36Q398 at...

Recent efforts to advance river connectivity for the Millstone River watershed in New Jersey have led to the evaluation of a low-flow gauging weir that spans the full width of the river. The methods and results of a desktop modelling exercise were used to evaluate the potential ability of three...

The shortgrass steppe (SGS) occupies the southwestern part of the Great Plains. Half of the land is cultivated, but significant areas remain under natural vegetation. Despite previous studies of the SGS carbon cycle, not all aspects have been completely addressed, including gross productivity, ecosystem respiration, and ecophysiological parameters. Our analysis...

Global sea level rise (SLR) will significantly alter coastal landscapes through inundation and erosion of lowlying areas. Animals that display area fidelity and rely on fringing coastal habitats during multiple life stages, such as diamondback terrapins (Malaclemys terrapin Schoepff 1793), are likely to be particularly vulnerable to SLR-induced changes. We used a combination of empirical nest...

Groundwater resources information was needed to understand regional aquifer systems and water available to wells and springs for rearing important Lake Michigan fish species at the Kettle Moraine Springs State Fish Hatchery in Sheboygan County, Wisconsin. As a basis for estimating the groundwater resources available, an existing groundwater-flow model was...

This paper details how the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Community for Data Integration (CDI) Data Management Working Group developed a Science Data Lifecycle Model, and the role the Model plays in shaping agency-wide policies. Starting with an extensive literature review of existing data Lifecycle models, representatives from various backgrounds...

The source spectral properties of injection-induced earthquakes give insight into their nucleation, rupture processes, and influence on ground motion. Here we apply a spectral decomposition approach to analyze P-wave spectra and estimate Brune-type stress drop for more than 2000 ML1.5–5.2 earthquakes occurring in southern Kansas from 2014 to 2016. We find that...

Climate change raises concern that risks of hydrological drought may be increasing. We estimate hydrological drought probabilities for rivers and streams in the United States (U.S.) using maximum likelihood logistic regression (MLLR). Streamflow data from winter months are used to estimate the chance of hydrological drought during summer months. Daily...

Understanding patterns of habitat selection across a species’ geographic distribution can be critical for adequately managing populations and planning for habitat loss and related threats. However, studies of habitat selection can be time consuming and expensive over broad spatial scales, and a lack of standardized monitoring targets or methods can...

Crustal pathways connecting deep sources of melt and the active volcanoes they supply are poorly understood. Beneath Mounts St. Helens, Adams, and Rainier these pathways connect subduction-induced ascending melts to shallow magma reservoirs. Petrogenetic modeling predicts that when these melts are emplaced as a succession of sills into the lower...

Estimates of daily lake evaporation based on energy‐budget data are poor because of large errors associated with quantifying change in lake heat storage over periods of less than about 10 days. Energy‐budget evaporation was determined during approximately biweekly periods at a northern Minnesota, USA, lake for 5 years. Various combinations of shortwave radiation,...

This report documents seven enhancements to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS) hydrologic simulation code: two time-series input options, two new output options, and three updates of existing capabilities. The enhancements are (1) new dynamic parameter module, (2) new water-use module, (3) new Hydrologic Response Unit (HRU)...

Historically, thermoelectric water withdrawal has been estimated by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) water-use compilations. Recently, the USGS developed models for estimating withdrawal at thermoelectric plants to provide estimates independent from plant operator-reported withdrawal data. This article compares three federal datasets of thermoelectric withdrawals...

Many large rivers around the world no longer flow to their deltas, due to ever greater water withdrawals and diversions for human needs. However, the importance of riparian ecosystems is drawing increasing recognition, leading to the allocation of environmental flows to restore river processes. Accurate estimates of riparian plant evapotranspiration...

We present a logistic regression approach for forecasting the probability of future groundwater levels declining or maintaining below specific groundwater-level thresholds. We tested our approach on 102 groundwater wells in different climatic regions and aquifers of the United States that are part of the U.S. Geological Survey Groundwater Climate Response...

Atoll islands are dynamic features that respond to seasonal alterations in wave conditions and sea level. It is unclear how shoreline wave run-up and erosion patterns along these low elevation islands will respond to projected sea-level rise (SLR) and changes in wave climate over the next century, hindering communities' preparation...

Renewable energy development is an arena where ecological, political, and socioeconomic values collide. Advances in renewable energy will incur steep environmental costs to landscapes in which facilities are constructed and operated. Scientists – including those from academia, industry, and government agencies – have only recently begun to quantify trade-offs in...

The following chapters describe the structure and code of MAMO, and walk the reader through running the different components of the program with sample data. This manual should be used alongside a computer running R, so that the reader can copy and paste code into R, observe the output,...