Groundwater-level elevations in the bedrock aquifers of the Denver Basin aquifer system, Elbert County, Colorado, 2015–23
Kelli M. Palko, Cory A. Russell, Nicholas J. Pieseski
2026, Scientific Investigations Report 2026-5115
Water users in Elbert County, Colorado, rely on groundwater from bedrock aquifers in the Denver Basin aquifer system (upper Dawson, lower Dawson, Denver, Arapahoe, and Laramie-Fox Hills aquifers) for approximately half of their water uses. Withdrawals from the bedrocks aquifers have increased to meet the water use needs of expanding...
Effects of carbamazepine to visual function in early life stage fish
Jason Tyler Magnuson, Holly J. Puglis, Jessica K. Leet, Adam H. Moody, Célio Freire Mariz Jr., Thea M. Edwards, Daniela M. Pampanin
2026, Environmental Research (294)
The frequent detection of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in the environment raises concern for aquatic systems. Carbamazepine (CBZ), an antiepileptic drug, is among the most detected PPCP globally, with concentrations in surface water exceeding those that induce toxicity to aquatic organisms. Non-targeted transcriptomic profiling was conducted in zebrafish...
Harvest of long-tailed ducks from an important hunting location on Lake Michigan
Luke J. Fara, William S. Beatty, Brian R. Gray, Kevin P. Kenow, Michael W. Eichholz
2026, Journal of Wildlife Management (90)
Annual waterfowl harvest in North America is estimated through a collaborative and strategic process, with federal harvest surveys the primary method of estimation. Sea duck hunters participating in federal harvest surveys represent a small proportion of the overall waterfowl hunting population, limiting the utility of harvest estimates for sea ducks....
Vegetation cover and composition in environments surrounding uranium mines in the Grand Canyon ecosystem, Northern Arizona
Rebecca K. Mann, Michael C. Duniway, Jo Ellen Hinck
2026, Open-File Report 2025-1024
Mining uranium from breccia-pipe deposits in the greater Grand Canyon region has occurred since the mid-1900s. However, possible ecosystem contamination with harmful levels of radionuclides may have occurred due to mining activities in the 21st century. In response, a 20-year Federal moratorium on new mining claims in the Grand Canyon...
Seasonal and decadal changes in winter body condition of four sympatric diving ducks
Mason A. Hill, Susan E.W. De La Cruz, Laurie Anne Hall, Stacy M. Moskal, John Y. Takekawa, John M. Eadie
2026, Journal of Wildlife Management (90)
Winter body condition is an important driver of survival, reproductive output, and overall population health in waterfowl. Diving duck species use distinct habitats, exploit unique resources, and can collectively provide an integrated index of winter habitat quality. The San Francisco Bay (SFB) is the largest estuary on...
Decadal trends and occurrence of geogenic constituents and mixtures in groundwater across the continental United States
Melinda L. Erickson, Sarah M. Elliott, MaryLynn Musgrove, Elise Danica Hinman, Margaux Jeanne Sleckman, Sarah M. Stackpoole, Bruce D. Lindsey
2026, Environmental Science and Technology - Water (6) 664-678
Worldwide, about 50% of the population is served by groundwater-sourced drinking water. Numerous groundwater quality assessments have found that geogenic constituents are among the most common contaminants in drinking-water aquifers. Documenting changing groundwater quality is a crucial aspect of water availability assessments. We assess trends and occurrence of geogenic constituent...
Recent scientific contributions by the U.S. Geological Survey in the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta Estuary
Judith Z. Drexler, Jake Weltzin
2026, Fact Sheet 2025-3058
Introduction The San Francisco Bay and Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta Estuary (hereafter, Bay-Delta) is the largest estuary on the West Coast of the United States. The Bay- Delta covers more than 1,600 square miles and drains a watershed of more than 75,000 square miles, which is greater than 40 percent of California....
Multi-year cut-to-drown management limits Phragmites australis growth, belowground resources, and rhizome viability in Great Lakes wetlands
Wesley A. Bickford, Kaira A. Schaefer, Spenser L. Widin, Kurt P. Kowalski
2026, Journal of Great Lakes Research (52)
The distribution and abundance of Phragmites in the Great Lakes coastal zone has expanded in part due to its unique ventilation physiology and its ability to take advantage of changes in lake levels over the past several decades. During an extended period of low lake levels in the early...
Teach me how to pycap: A high-capacity well decision support tool using analytical solutions in Python
Michael N. Fienen, Aaron Pruitt, Howard W. Reeves
2026, Groundwater (64) 223-234
Regulatory agencies in humid temperate environments rely on timely evaluations of streamflow depletion and drawdown to protect aquatic ecosystems and existing water users. Numerical models offer detailed insights, but their complexity and time demands often preclude their practical use in rapid decision-making. We present pycap-dss, an open-source Python package that...
Prioritizing resource protection and understanding potential susceptibility of springs to surficial changes in a low-temperature geothermal system
Connor P. Newman, Jeff D. Pepin
2026, Geothermics (136)
Geothermal systems are vulnerable to changes in water budget and composition, requiring science-based management. This study uses a dataset of spring water temperatures, time series of groundwater residence time tracers (tritium and carbon-14), and stable isotopes of water to understand geothermal flow in a low-temperature geothermal system in north west...
A catalogue of Do's and Don'ts in the modeling of environmental systems
Xifu Sun, Anthony J. Jakeman, Serena H Hamilton, Volker Grimm, Randall J. Hunt, Sondoss El Sawah, Hsiao-Hsuan Wang, Barry Croke, Min Chen
2026, Environmental Modelling and Software (198)
Modeling plays a vital role in understanding and managing complex environmental systems, but its credibility and quality depend heavily on a comprehensive set of defensible model activities and practices, especially when the system of interest is plagued with uncertainties and conflicting stakeholder perspectives. This paper proposes a...
Extreme Potomac floods at Washington D.C. during the past 500 years
Michael Toomey, Thomas M. Cronin, Jessica R. Rodysill, Julia Lynn Seidenstein, Debra A. Willard
2026, Geophysical Research Letters (53)
Washington D.C. faces one of the highest 100-year flood risks of any major city along the U.S. East Coast. In addition to storm-surge inundation during hurricanes and nor'easters, water-level observations for Washington are strongly skewed by major floods on the Potomac River. Using geologic and historic records we find new...
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and other contaminants of concern in tribal waters of Montana
Kelly L. Smalling, Paul M. Bradley, Kristin M. Romanok, John T. Doyle, Margaret J. Eggers, Christine Martin, Elliott P. Barnhart, Picabo Binette, Eric M. Castro, Madisan Chavez, Stephanie A. Ewing, Stephanie E. Gordon, Mathew W. Fields, James L. Gray, Ashley M. Groshong, Chiachi Hwang, Leslie K. Kanagy, JoRee WClay LaFrance, Keith A. Loftin, Carrie Mae Long, R. Blaine McCleskey, Shannon M. Meppelink, Crystal L. Richards, Molly L. Schreiner, Jonathan I. Shikany, Mahelat Tesfamariam
2026, Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts (28) 579-597
We assessed potential exposures to a broad suite of contaminants (inorganic, organic and microbial) in culturally important surface waters from three watersheds in a northern plains Native American community (Apsáalooke [Crow Tribe of Montana]) in south-central Montana, United States, with water insecurity concerns. Inorganic (37), organic (435)...
Surface variable‐based machine learning for scalable arsenic prediction in undersampled areas
Shams Azad, Mason O. Stahl, Melinda L. Erickson, Beck A. DeYoung, Craig T. Connolly, Lawrence Chillrud, Kathrin Schilling, Ana Navas-Acien, Anirban Basu, Brian Mailloux, Benjamin C. Bostick, Steven N. Chillrud
2026, GeoHealth (10)
In the United States, private wells are not federally regulated, and many households do not test for Arsenic (As). Chronic exposure is linked with multiple health outcomes, and risk can change sharply over short distances and with well depth. Coarse maps or sparse sampling often miss exceedances....
Waterfowl move less in heterogeneous and human-populated landscapes, with implications for spread of avian influenza viruses
Claire Stewart Teitelbaum, Diann J. Prosser, Joshua T. Ackerman, Sakib Ahmed, A.B.M. Sarowar Alam, Kazi Zenifar Azmiri, Nyambaya Batbayar, Joël Bêty, Abigail Blake-Bradshaw, Dmitrijs Boiko, Nelleke H. Buitendijk, Jeffrey J. Buler, David Cabot, Michael L. Casazza, Bradley S. Cohen, Batmunkh Davaasuren, Sébastien Farau, Jamie Feddersen, John R. Fieberg, Wolfgang Fiedler, Peter Glazov, Larry R. Griffin, Matthieu Guillemain, Heath Hagy, Matthew J. Hardy, Cory Highway, David Hoffman, Tehan Kang, Allison Keever, Jennifer Kilburn, Andrea Kölzsch, Helmut Kruckenberg, Toni Laaksonen, Brian S. Ladman, Hansoo Lee, Siwan Lee, Josée Lefebvre, Pierre Legagneux, Hans Linssen, Jesper Madsen, Nicholas M. Masto, Scott R. McWilliams, Tori Mezebish Quinn, Carl P.J. Mitchell, Axelle Moreau, Gerhard Müskens, Scott Newman, Bart A. Nolet, Rascha J.M. Nuijten, Jay Osenkowski, Cory T. Overton, Antti Piironen, Betty Plaquin, Andrew M. Ramey, Jean Rodrigue, David Rodrigues, Kees H.T. Schreven, Yali Si, Jeffery D. Sullivan, John Takekawa, Philippe J. Thomas, Mariëlle van Toor, Jonas Waldenström, Christopher K. Williams, David W. Wolfson, Fei Xu, Ian G. Brosnan, Susan E.W. De La Cruz
2026, Ecology Letters (29)
Animal movements contribute to the spread of infectious diseases and are driven in part by environmental conditions. We investigated the links among the environment, animal movement, and infectious disease dynamics in waterfowl, which are among the primary wildlife hosts of avian influenza viruses. By combining telemetry data...
Assessing the influence of conservation implementation on water quality during surface runoff events at edge-of-field monitoring sites located in the Laurentian Great Lakes basin
Brittany Rose Hanrahan, Matthew W. Diebel, Rebecca B. Carvin, Edward G. Dobrowolski, Matthew John Hardebeck, Andrew Jason Kowalczk, Chad A. Toussant, Matthew J. Komiskey
2026, Journal of Soil and Water Conservation (80) 654-678
The Laurentian Great Lakes are a vital freshwater resource in the United States, and nonpoint source (NPS) nutrient pollution, specifically phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N), from agricultural land use continues to negatively impact water quality throughout the Great Lakes basin. One focus of the Great Lakes Restoration...
Mountain goat declines in a protected, interior, native population
Tabitha A. Graves, William Michael Janousek, Michael Yarnall, Jami Belt
2026, Ecosphere (17)
A shifting climate poses threats to alpine-adapted species including mountain goats. We used long-term (12 years) citizen science monitoring data and Bayesian N-mixture modeling to estimate population trends and drivers of population metrics among mountain goats in Glacier National Park (GNP). Median goats per site (n = 37 sites) declined by 45% (95%...
Miocene evolution of the Humboldt Current
John A. Barron, Thomas J. DeVries, Jason J. Coenen
2026, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology (686)
Diatom records from the East Pisco Basin (EPB) of southern Peru and offshore Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Hole 682 A reveal stepwise increases in the primary productivity of the Humboldt Current during the middle and late Miocene. Although diatoms are present back through the late middle Eocene, successively enhanced diatom production...
Compilation of a nationwide river image dataset for identifying river channels and river rapids via deep learning
Nicholas Brimhall, Kelvyn K. Bladen, Tom Kerby, Carl J. Legleiter, Cameron Swapp, Hannah Fluckiger, Julie E Bahr, Makenna Roberts, Kaden Hart, Christina L. Stegman, Brennan Bean, Kevin Moon
2026, Remote Sensing (18)
Remote sensing enables large-scale, image-based assessments of river dynamics, offering new opportunities for hydrological monitoring. We present a publicly available dataset consisting of 281,024 satellite and aerial images of U.S. rivers, constructed using an Application Programming Interface (API) and the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Hydrography Dataset. The dataset includes images,...
Distribution, abundance, breeding activities, and habitat use of the Least Bell's Vireo at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California—2020–24 summary report
Suellen Lynn, Alexandra Houston, Barbara E. Kus, Shannon M. Mendia
2026, Open-File Report 2025-1057
Executive Summary The purpose of this report is to provide the Marine Corps with a summary of abundance, breeding activity, demography, and habitat use of endangered Least Bell’s Vireos (Vireo bellii pusillus) at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California (MCBCP or Base). The report presents results of vireo surveys and monitoring...
Comparison of two precipitation gage networks in Cook County, Illinois
Kevin K. Johnson
2026, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5102
The Cook County Precipitation Network is a set of 25 precipitation gages established within Cook County, Illinois, on approximately a 5- to 7-mile square grid and used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to help account for diversions of water from Lake Michigan to the State of Illinois. The...
Harmonization of aggregated freshwater biotic data to support continental and global assessment
Jennifer Lento, Sarah M. Laske, Joseph M. Culp, Willem Goedkoop, Maria Kahlert, Danny C.P. Lau, Isabelle Lavoie, Jordan Musetta-Lambert, Jón S. Ólafsson, Kirsten S. Christoffersen
2026, PLOS Water (5)
Biodiversity loss and conservation are increasingly coming into focus in global policy fora, requiring information and assessments at wider spatial and temporal scales than previously considered. However, the monitoring framework required to support such data collection and assessment is lacking in many countries and is not harmonized...
Recent range expansion and documentation of a reproductive population of northern snakehead Channa argus (Cantor, 1842) in the Saint Francis River Drainage, Missouri
Edward M. Sterling, Taylor A. Bookout, Erin Holmes, Neil Baalman, Cody Henderson, Patrick Kroboth
2026, Records of Biological Invasions (15) 183-194
Northern snakehead Channa argus (Cantor, 1842) is an aquatic invasive fish species in the United States with first documented occurrence in the wild in the 2000s. Management efforts to control their populations in the eastern United States are ongoing. In the Mississippi River basin, limited resources have been allocated to...
Compounding of 100-year coastal floods by rainfall in an urban environment
Shima Kasaei, Phillip M. Orton, Thomas Wahli, David K. Ralston, John C. Warner
2026, Environmental Research Letters (21)
Coastal and pluvial flooding are both becoming more prevalent and severe due to climate change and urbanization in floodplains. The co-occurrence of these flood drivers is generally assumed to exacerbate the resulting flood impacts, a result referred to as compound flooding. However, few observational or modeling studies have investigated the...
Conducting feasibility assessments of potential conservation reintroductions: A case study with the imperiled foothill yellow-legged frog, Rana boylii
Daniel Antonio Macias, Patrick M. Kleeman, Michelle L. Hladik, Kelly Smalling, Paul G. Johnson, Daniel A. Grear, Jonathan P. Rose, Brian J. Halstead
2026, Natural Areas Journal (46) 31-43
Conservation translocations are an increasingly common and often necessary component of recovering species that have become extirpated from portions of their range. Understanding and ameliorating potential threats that reduce the likelihood of successful population establishment at recipient sites is a key component of successful translocation planning. We examined multiple potential...
