Estimating magnitude and frequency of floods using the PeakFQ 7.0 program
Andrea G. Veilleux, Timothy A. Cohn, Kathleen M. Flynn, Mason Jr., Paul R. Hummel
2014, Fact Sheet 2013-3108
Flood-frequency analysis provides information about the magnitude and frequency of flood discharges based on records of annual maximum instantaneous peak discharges collected at streamgages. The information is essential for defining flood-hazard areas, for managing floodplains, and for designing bridges, culverts, dams, levees, and other flood-control structures. Bulletin 17B (B17B) of the...
Multi-trophic resilience of boreal lake ecosystems to forest fires
Tyler L. Lewis, Mark S. Lindberg, Joel A. Schmutz, M.R. Bertram
2014, Ecology (95) 1253-1263
Fires are the major natural disturbance in the boreal forest, and their frequency and intensity will likely increase as the climate warms. Terrestrial nutrients released by fires may be transported to boreal lakes, stimulating increased primary productivity, which may radiate through multiple trophic levels. Using a before‐after‐control‐impact (BACI) design, with...
USGS US topo maps for Alaska
Becci Anderson, Tracy Fuller
2014, The Alaska Miner (42) 14-18
In July 2013, the USGS National Geospatial Program began producing new topographic maps for Alaska, providing a new map series for the state known as US Topo. Prior to the start of US Topo map production in Alaska, the most detailed statewide USGS topographic maps were 15-minute 1:63,360-scale maps, with...
The digital global geologic map of Mars: Chronostratigraphic ages, topographic and crater morphologic characteristics, and updated resurfacing history
Kenneth L. Tanaka, S.J. Robbins, Corey M. Fortezzo, J.A. Skinner Jr., Trent M. Hare
2014, Planetary and Space Science (95) 11-24
A new global geologic map of Mars has been completed in a digital, geographic information system (GIS) format using geospatially controlled altimetry and image data sets. The map reconstructs the geologic history of Mars, which includes many new findings collated in the quarter century since the previous, Viking-based global maps...
Identifying stakeholder-relevant climate change impacts: a case study in the Yakima River Basin, Washington, USA
K. Jenni, D. Graves, Jill M. Hardiman, James R. Hatten, Mark C. Mastin, Matthew G. Mesa, J. Montag, Timothy Nieman, Frank D. Voss, Alec G. Maule
2014, Climatic Change (124) 371-384
Designing climate-related research so that study results will be useful to natural resource managers is a unique challenge. While decision makers increasingly recognize the need to consider climate change in their resource management plans, and climate scientists recognize the importance of providing locally-relevant climate data and projections, there often remains...
Wind River subbasin restoration: U.S. Geological Survey annual report November 2012 through December 2013
Ian G. Jezorek, Patrick J. Connolly
2014, Report
Executive Summary The Wind River subbasin in southwest Washington State provides habitat for a population of wild Lower Columbia River steelhead Oncorhynchus mykiss. There have been no hatchery steelhead planted in the Wind River subbasin since 1994, and hatchery adults are estimated to be less than one percent of adults in...
Looking for age-related growth decline in natural forests: unexpected biomass patterns from tree rings and simulated mortality
Jane R. Foster, Anthony W. D’Amato, John B. Bradford
2014, Oecologia (175) 363-374
Forest biomass growth is almost universally assumed to peak early in stand development, near canopy closure, after which it will plateau or decline. The chronosequence and plot remeasurement approaches used to establish the decline pattern suffer from limitations and coarse temporal detail. We combined annual tree ring measurements and mortality...
Eel River margin source-to-sink sediment budgets: revisited
Jonathan A. Warrick
2014, Marine Geology (351) 25-37
The Eel River coastal margin has been used as a representative source-to-sink sediment dispersal system owing to its steep, high-sediment yield river and the formation of sedimentary strata on its continental shelf. One finding of previous studies is that the adjacent continental shelf retains only ~25% of the Eel River...
Estimating migratory connectivity of birds when re-encounter probabilities are heterogeneous
Emily B. Cohen, Jeffrey A. Hostelter, J. Andrew Royle, Peter P. Marra
2014, Ecology and Evolution (4) 1659-1670
Understanding the biology and conducting effective conservation of migratory species requires an understanding of migratory connectivity – the geographic linkages of populations between stages of the annual cycle. Unfortunately, for most species, we are lacking such information. The North American Bird Banding Laboratory (BBL) houses an extensive database of marking,...
Using cumulative diet data and stable isotope analysis to determine trophic position of walleye Sander vitreus in a large, complex system
Mark J. Fincel, Daniel A. James, Steven R. Chipps, Blake A. Davis
2014, Journal of Freshwater Ecology (29) 441-447
Diet studies have traditionally been used to determine prey use and food web dynamics, while stable isotope analysis provides for a time-integrated approach to evaluate food web dynamics and characterize energy flow in aquatic systems. Direct comparison of the two techniques is rare and difficult to conduct in large, species...
Merging remote sensing data and national agricultural statistics to model change in irrigated agriculture
Jesslyn F. Brown, Md Shahriar Pervez
2014, Agricultural Systems (127) 28-40
Over 22 million hectares (ha) of U.S. croplands are irrigated. Irrigation is an intensified agricultural land use that increases crop yields and the practice affects water and energy cycles at, above, and below the land surface. Until recently, there has been a scarcity of geospatially detailed information about irrigation that...
Reflections on a vision for integrated research and monitoring after 15 years
Peter S. Murdoch, Michael McHale, Jill Baron
2014, Aquatic Geochemistry (20) 363-380
In May of 1998, Owen Bricker and his co-author Michael Ruggiero introduced a conceptual design for integrating the Nation’s environmental research and monitoring programs. The Framework for Integrated Monitoring and Related Research was an organizing strategy for relating data collected by various programs, at multiple spatial and temporal scales, and...
Model behavior and sensitivity in an application of the cohesive bed component of the community sediment transport modeling system for the York River estuary, VA, USA
Kelsey A. Fall, Courtney K. Harris, Carl T. Friedrichs, J. Paul Rinehimer, Christopher R. Sherwood
2014, Journal of Marine Science and Engineering (2) 413-436
The Community Sediment Transport Modeling System (CSTMS) cohesive bed sub-model that accounts for erosion, deposition, consolidation, and swelling was implemented in a three-dimensional domain to represent the York River estuary, Virginia. The objectives of this paper are to (1) describe the application of the three-dimensional hydrodynamic York Cohesive Bed Model,...
Home range and movements of American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) in an estuary habitat
Ikuko Fujisaki, Kristen M. Hart, Frank J. Mazzotti, Michael S. Cherkiss, Autumn R. Sartain-Iverson, Brian M. Jeffery, Jeffrey S. Beauchamp, Mathew J. Denton
2014, Animal Biotelemetry (2)
Background Understanding movement patterns of free-ranging top predators throughout heterogeneous habitat is important for gaining insight into trophic interactions. We tracked the movements of five adult American alligators to delineate their estuarine habitat use and determine drivers of their activity patterns in a seasonally-fluctuating environment. We also compared VHF- and satellite-tracks...
Re-evaluation of Yellowstone grizzly bear population dynamics not supported by empirical data: response to Doak & Cutler
Frank T. van Manen, Michael R. Ebinger, Mark A. Haroldson, Richard B. Harris, Megan D. Higgs, Steve Cherry, Gary C. White, Charles C. Schwartz
2014, Conservation Letters (7) 323-331
Doak and Cutler critiqued methods used by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team (IGBST) to estimate grizzly bear population size and trend in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Here, we focus on the premise, implementation, and interpretation of simulations they used to support their arguments. They argued that population increases documented...
El Niño-Southern Oscillation is linked to decreased energetic condition in long-distance migrants
Kristina L. Paxton, Emily B. Cohen, Eben H. Paxton, Zoltan Nemeth, Frank R. Moore
2014, PLoS ONE (9)
Predicting how migratory animals respond to changing climatic conditions requires knowledge of how climatic events affect each phase of the annual cycle and how those effects carry-over to subsequent phases. We utilized a 17-year migration dataset to examine how El Niño-Southern Oscillation climatic events in geographically different regions of the...
Evaluation of high-frequency mean streamwater transit-time estimates using groundwater age and dissolved silica concentrations in a small forested watershed
Norman E. Peters, Douglas A. Burns, Brent T. Aulenbach
2014, Aquatic Geochemistry (20) 183-202
Many previous investigations of mean streamwater transit times (MTT) have been limited by an inability to quantify the MTT dynamics. Here, we draw on (1) a linear relation (r 2 = 0.97) between groundwater 3H/3He ages and dissolved silica (Si) concentrations, combined with (2) predicted streamwater Si concentrations from a...
Applications of spatial statistical network models to stream data
Daniel J. Isaak, Erin E. Peterson, Jay M. Ver Hoef, Seth J. Wenger, Jeffrey A. Falke, Christian E. Torgersen, Colin Sowder, E. Ashley Steel, Marie-Josée Fortin, Chris E. Jordan, Aaron S. Ruesch, Nicholas Som, Pascal Monestiez
2014, WIREs Water (1) 277-294
Streams and rivers host a significant portion of Earth's biodiversity and provide important ecosystem services for human populations. Accurate information regarding the status and trends of stream resources is vital for their effective conservation and management. Most statistical techniques applied to data measured on stream networks were developed for terrestrial...
Long-term citizen-collected data reveal geographical patterns and temporal trends in lake water clarity
Noah R. Lottig, Tyler Wagner, Emily N. Henry, Kendra Spence Cheruvelil, Katherine E. Webster, John A. Downing, Craig A. Stow
2014, PLoS ONE (9)
We compiled a lake-water clarity database using publicly available, citizen volunteer observations made between 1938 and 2012 across eight states in the Upper Midwest, USA. Our objectives were to determine (1) whether temporal trends in lake-water clarity existed across this large geographic area and (2) whether trends were related to...
U.S. Geological Survey Karst Interest Group Proceedings, Carlsbad, New Mexico, April 29-May 2, 2014
Eve L. Kuniansky, Lawrence E. Spangler
Eve L. Kuniansky, Lawrence E. Spangler, editor(s)
2014, Scientific Investigations Report 2014-5035
Karst aquifer systems are present throughout parts of the United States and some of its territories, and have developed in carbonate rocks (primarily limestone and dolomite) that span an interval of time encompassing more than 550 million years. The depositional environments, diagenetic processes, post-depositional tectonic events, and geochemical weathering processes...
Sediment data collected in 2010 from Cat Island, Mississippi
Noreen A. Buster, Kyle W. Kelso, Jennifer L. Miselis, Jack L. Kindinger
2014, Data Series 834
Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center, in collaboration with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, conducted geophysical and sedimentological surveys in 2010 around Cat Island, Mississippi, which is the westernmost island in the Mississippi-Alabama barrier island chain. The objective of the study was...
Evaluating a slope-stability model for shallow rain-induced landslides using gage and satellite data
S. Yatheendradas, D. Kirschbaum, Rex L. Baum, Jonathan W. Godt
2014, Book chapter, Landslide science for a safer geoenvironment
Improving prediction of landslide early warning systems requires accurate estimation of the conditions that trigger slope failures. This study tested a slope-stability model for shallow rainfall-induced landslides by utilizing rainfall information from gauge and satellite records. We used the TRIGRS model (Transient Rainfall Infiltration and Grid-based Regional Slope-stability analysis)...
Concentrations of selected constituents in surface-water and streambed-sediment samples collected from streams in and near an area of oil and natural-gas development, south-central Texas, 2011-13
Stephen P. Opsahl, Cassi L. Crow
2014, Data Series 836
During 2011–13, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the San Antonio River Authority and the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority, analyzed surface-water and streambed-sediment samples collected from 10 sites in the San Antonio River Basin to provide data for a broad range of constituents that might be associated with hydraulic fracturing...
Use of main channel and two backwater habitats by larval fishes in the Detroit River
Erik A. McDonald, A. Scott McNaught, Edward F. Roseman
2014, Journal of Great Lakes Research (40) 69-80
Recent investigations in the Detroit River have revealed renewed spawning activity by several important fishes, but little is known about their early life history requirements. We surveyed two main channel and two backwater areas in the lower Detroit River weekly from May to July 2007 to assess habitat use by...
Depletion of eugenol residues from the skin-on fillet tissue of rainbow trout exposed to 14C-labeled eugenol
Jeffery R. Meinertz, Theresa M. Schreier, Scott T. Porcher, Justin R. Smerud, Mark P. Gaikowski
2014, Aquaculture (430) 74-78
The U.S. is lagging in access to an approved immediate-release sedative, i.e. a compound that can be safely and effectively used to sedate fish and has no withdrawal period. AQUI-S® 20E (10% active ingredient, eugenol) is under investigation as an immediate-release sedative for freshwater finfish. Because of its investigational status,...
