Climate-induced lake drying causes heterogeneous reductions in waterfowl species richness
Jennifer K. Roach, Dennis B. Griffith
2015, Landscape Ecology (30) 1005-1022
ContextLake size has declined on breeding grounds for international populations of waterfowl.ObjectivesOur objectives were to (1) model the relationship between waterfowl species richness and lake size; (2) use the model and trends in lake size to project historical, contemporary, and...
Evapotranspiration in the Nile Basin: Identifying dynamics and drivers, 2002–2011
Henok Alemu, Armel T. Kaptue, Gabriel B. Senay, Michael C. Wimberly, Geoffrey M. Henebry
2015, Water (7) 4914-1931
Analysis of the relationship between evapotranspiration (ET) and its natural and anthropogenic drivers is critical in water-limited basins such as the Nile. The spatiotemporal relationships of ET with rainfall and vegetation dynamics in the Nile Basin during 2002–2011 were analyzed using satellite-derived data. Non-parametric statistics were used to quantify ET-rainfall...
Sea level and turbidity controls on mangrove soil surface elevation change
Catherine E. Lovelock, Maria Fernanda Adame, Vicki Bennion, Matthew Hayes, Ruth Reef, Nadia Santini, Donald R. Cahoon
2015, Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science (153) 1-9
Increases in sea level are a threat to seaward fringing mangrove forests if levels of inundation exceed the physiological tolerance of the trees; however, tidal wetlands can keep pace with sea level rise if soil surface elevations can increase at the same pace as sea level rise. Sediment accretion on...
Patterns and predictability in the intra-annual organic carbon variability across the boreal and hemiboreal landscape
Julia K. Hytteborn, Johan Temnerud, Richard B. Alexander, Elizabeth W. Boyer, Martyn N. Futter, Mats Froberg, Joel Dahne, Kevin H. Bishop
2015, Science of the Total Environment (520) 260-269
Factors affecting total organic carbon (TOC) concentrations in 215 watercourses across Sweden were investigated using parameter parsimonious regression approaches to explain spatial and temporal variabilities of the TOC water quality responses. We systematically quantified the effects of discharge, seasonality, and long-term trend as factors controlling intra-annual (among year) and...
Exposure and food web transfer of pharmaceuticals in ospreys (Pandion haliaetus): Predictive model and empirical data
Rebecca S. Lazarus, Barnett A. Rattner, Bowen Du, Peter C. McGowan, Vicki S. Blazer, Mary Ann Ottinger
2015, Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management (11) 118-129
The osprey (Pandion haliaetus) is a well-known sentinel of environmental contamination, yet no studies have traced pharmaceuticals through the water–fish–osprey food web. A screening-level exposure assessment was used to evaluate the bioaccumulation potential of 113 pharmaceuticals and metabolites, and an artificial sweetener in this food web. Hypothetical concentrations in water...
Paleodischarge of the Mojave River, southwestern U.S.A, investigated with single-pebble measurements of 10Be
Andrew J. Cyr, David M. Miller, Shannon A. Mahan
2015, Geosphere (11) 1158-1171
The paleohydrology of ephemeral stream systems is an important constraint on paleoclimatic conditions in arid environments, but remains difficult to constrain quantitatively. For example, sedimentary records of the size and extent of pluvial lakes in the Mojave Desert have been used as a proxy for Quaternary climate variability. Although the...
Global volcanic hazards and risk
S. K. Brown, S. C. Loughlin, R. S. J. Sparks, C. Vye-Brown, J. Barclay, E. Calder, E. Cottrell, G. Jolly, J.C. Komorowski, Charlie Mandeville, C. Newhall, J. Palma, S. Potter, G. Valentine
S. C. Loughlin, R. S. J. Sparks, S. K. Brown, S. F. Jenkins, C. Vye-Brown, editor(s)
2015, Book chapter, Global Volcanic Hazards and Risk
An estimated 800 million people live within 100 km of an active volcano in 86 countries and additional overseas territories worldwide [see Chapter 4 and Appendix B]1. Volcanoes are compelling evidence that the Earth is a dynamic planet characterised by endless change and renewal. Humans have always found volcanic activity...
Early Holocene Great Salt Lake
Charles G. Oviatt, David B. Madsen, David M. Miller, Robert S. Thompson, John P. McGeehin
2015, Quaternary Research (84) 57-68
Shorelines and surficial deposits (including buried forest-floor mats and organic-rich wetland sediments) show that Great Salt Lake did not rise higher than modern lake levels during the earliest Holocene (11.5–10.2 cal ka BP; 10–9 14C ka BP). During that period, finely laminated, organic-rich muds (sapropel) containing brine-shrimp cysts and...
Enhanced microbial coalbed methane generation: A review of research, commercial activity, and remaining challenges
Daniel J. Ritter, David S. Vinson, Elliott P. Barnhart, Denise M. Akob, Matthew W. Fields, Al B. Cunningham, William H. Orem, Jennifer C. McIntosh
2015, International Journal of Coal Geology (146) 28-41
Coalbed methane (CBM) makes up a significant portion of the world’s natural gas resources. The discovery that approximately 20% of natural gas is microbial in origin has led to interest in microbially enhanced CBM (MECoM), which involves stimulating microorganisms to produce additional CBM from existing production wells. This paper reviews...
Hydraulic fracturing water use variability in the United States and potential environmental implications
Tanya J. Gallegos, Brian A. Varela, Seth S. Haines, Mark A. Engle
2015, Water Resources Research (51) 5839-5845
Until now, up-to-date, comprehensive, spatial, national-scale data on hydraulic fracturing water volumes have been lacking. Water volumes used (injected) to hydraulically fracture over 263,859 oil and gas wells drilled between 2000 and 2014 were compiled and used to create the first U.S. map of hydraulic fracturing water use. Although median...
Water's Way at Sleepers River watershed – revisiting flow generation in a post-glacial landscape, Vermont USA
James B. Shanley, Stephen D. Sebestyen, Jeffrey J. McDonnell, Brian L. McGlynn, Thomas Dunne
2015, Hydrological Processes (29) 3447-3459
The Sleepers River Research Watershed (SRRW) in Vermont, USA, has been the site of active hydrologic research since 1959 and was the setting where Dunne and Black demonstrated the importance and controls of saturation-excess overland flow (SOF) on streamflow generation. Here, we review the early studies from the SRRW and...
Predicting redox conditions in groundwater at a regional scale
Anthony J. Tesoriero, Silvia Terziotti, Daniel B. Abrams
2015, Environmental Science & Technology (49) 9657-9664
Defining the oxic-suboxic interface is often critical for determining pathways for nitrate transport in groundwater and to streams at the local scale. Defining this interface on a regional scale is complicated by the spatial variability of reaction rates. The probability of oxic groundwater in the Chesapeake Bay watershed was predicted...
Is income breeding an appropriate construct for waterfowl?
Adam K. Janke, Michael J. Anteau, Nicholas Markl, Joshua D. Stafford
2015, Journal of Ornithology (165) 755-762
Breeding birds use a range of nutrient accumulation and allocation strategies to meet the nutritional demands of clutch formation and incubation. On one end of the spectrum, capital breeders use stored nutrients acquired prior to clutch formation and incubation to sustain metabolism during reproduction, while on the opposite end, income...
Building a multi-scaled geospatial temporal ecology database from disparate data sources: Fostering open science through data reuse
Patricia A. Soranno, E.G. Bissell, Kendra S. Cheruvelil, Samuel T. Christel, Sarah M. Collins, C. Emi Fergus, Christopher T. Filstrup, Jean-Francois Lapierre, Noah R. Lotting, Samantha K. Oliver, Caren E. Scott, Nicole J. Smith, Scott Stopyak, Shuai Yuan, Mary Tate Bremigan, John A. Downing, Corinna Gries, Emily N. Henry, Nick K. Skaff, Emily H. Stanley, Craig A. Stow, Pang-Ning Tan, Tyler Wagner, Katherine E. Webster
2015, GigaScience (4)
Although there are considerable site-based data for individual or groups of ecosystems, these datasets are widely scattered, have different data formats and conventions, and often have limited accessibility. At the broader scale, national datasets exist for a large number of geospatial features of land, water, and air that are needed...
Comment on “The role of interbasin groundwater transfers in geologically complex terranes, demonstrated by the Great Basin in the western United States”: report published in Hydrogeology Journal (2014) 22:807–828, by Stephen T. Nelson and Alan L. Mayo
Melissa D. Masbruch, Lynette E. Brooks, Victor M. Heilweil, Donald S. Sweetkind
2015, Hydrogeology Journal (23) 209-210
The subject article (Nelson and Mayo 2014) presents an overview of previous reports of interbasin flow in the Great Basin of the western United States. This Comment is presented by authors of a cited study (comprising chapters in one large report) on the Great Basin carbonate and alluvial aquifer system...
Tree mortality predicted from drought-induced vascular damage
William R.L. Anderegg, Alan L. Flint, Cho-ying Huang, Lorraine E. Flint, Joseph A. Berry, Frank W. Davis, John S. Sperry, Christopher B. Field
2015, Nature Geoscience (8) 367-371
The projected responses of forest ecosystems to warming and drying associated with twenty-first-century climate change vary widely from resiliency to widespread tree mortality1, <a id="ref-link-3"...
Flood Map for the Winooski River in Waterbury, Vermont, 2014
Scott A. Olson
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5077
From August 28 to 29, 2011, Tropical Storm Irene delivered rainfall ranging from approximately 4 to more than 7 inches in the Winooski River Basin in Vermont. The rainfall resulted in severe flooding throughout the basin and significant damage along the Winooski River. In response to the flooding, the U.S....
Geologic map of the Simcoe Mountains Volcanic Field, main central segment, Yakama Nation, Washington
Wes Hildreth, Judy Fierstein
2015, Scientific Investigations Map 3315
Mountainous parts of the Yakama Nation lands in south-central Washington are mostly covered by basaltic lava flows and cinder cones that make up the Simcoe Mountains volcanic field. The accompanying geologic map of the central part of the volcanic field has been produced by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) on...
Holocene diatom-derived climate history of Medicine Lake, northern California, USA
Scott W. Starratt
2015, CIRMOUNT Mountain Views (9) 12-20
The Medicine Lake record is unusual because it responds not only to local and regional climate signals, but changes in conditions on Medicine Lake volcano during the Holocene. Ice retreated within the Medicine Lake volcano occurred around 11,400 years ago, followed by filling of two sub-basins. The absence of Cyclotella...
Sediment conditions in the San Antonio River Basin downstream from San Antonio, Texas, 2000-13
Darwin J. Ockerman, J. Ryan Banta, Cassi L. Crow, Stephen P. Opsahl
2015, Fact Sheet 2015-3043
Sediment plays an important role in the ecological health of rivers and estuaries and consequently is an important issue for water-resource managers. To better understand sediment characteristics in the San Antonio River Basin, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the San Antonio River Authority, completed a two-part study in...
California State Waters Map Series — Offshore of Point Reyes, California
Janet Watt, Peter Dartnell, Nadine E. Golden, H. Gary Greene, Mercedes D. Erdey, Guy R. Cochrane, Samuel Y. Johnson, Stephen R. Hartwell, Rikk G. Kvitek, Michael W. Manson, Charles A. Endris, Bryan E. Dieter, Ray W. Sliter, Lisa M. Krigsman, Erik Lowe, John L. Chinn
Janet Watt, Susan A. Cochran, editor(s)
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1114
This publication about the Offshore of Point Reyes map area includes ten map sheets that contain explanatory text, in addition to this descriptive pamphlet and a data catalog of geographic information system (GIS) files. Sheets 1, 2, and 3 combine data from four different sonar surveys to generate comprehensive high-resolution...
Assessment of interim flow water-quality data of the San Joaquin River restoration program and implications for fishes, California, 2009-11
Marissa L. Wulff, Larry R. Brown
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1093
After more than 50 years of extensive water diversion for urban and agriculture use, a major settlement was reached among the U.S. Departments of the Interior and Commerce, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Friant Water Users Authority in an effort to restore the San Joaquin River. The settlement...
Ocean circulation and biogeochemistry moderate interannual and decadal surface water pH changes in the Sargasso Sea
Nathalie F. Goodkin, Bo-Shian Wang, Chen-Feng You, Konrad Hughen, Nancy G. Prouty, Nicholas Bates, Scott Doney
2015, Geophysical Research Letters (42) 4931-4939
The oceans absorb anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere, lowering surface ocean pH, a concern for calcifying marine organisms. The impact of ocean acidification is challenging to predict as each species appears to respond differently and because our knowledge of natural changes to ocean pH is limited in both time and...
Hydrologic influences on water-level changes in the Eastern Snake River Plain aquifer at and near the Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho, 1949-2014
Roy C. Bartholomay, Brian V. Twining
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5085
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy, has maintained a water-level monitoring program at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) since 1949 to systematically measure water levels to provide long-term information on groundwater recharge, discharge, movement, and storage in the eastern Snake River Plain (ESRP) aquifer....
The influence of a rapid drawdown and prolonged dewatering on angling pressure, catch and harvest in a Nebraska reservoir
Jason A. DeBoer, Christa M. Webber, Taylor A. Dixon, Kevin L. Pope
2015, Journal of Freshwater Ecology (31) 131-146
Reservoirs can be dynamic systems, often prone to unpredictable and extreme water-level fluctuations, and can be environments where survival is difficult for zooplankton and larval fish. Although numerous studies have examined the effects of extreme reservoir drawdown on water quality, few have examined extreme drawdown on both abiotic and biotic...
