Sea-level rise modeling handbook: Resource guide for coastal land managers, engineers, and scientists
Thomas W. Doyle, Bogdan Chivoiu, Nicholas M. Enwright
2015, Professional Paper 1815
Global sea level is rising and may accelerate with continued fossil fuel consumption from industrial and population growth. In 2012, the U.S. Geological Survey conducted more than 30 training and feedback sessions with Federal, State, and nongovernmental organization (NGO) coastal managers and planners across the northern Gulf of Mexico coast...
Application of MC1 to Wind Cave National Park: Lessons from a small-scale study: Chapter 8
David A. King, Dominique M. Bachelet, Amy J. Symstad
2015, Book chapter, Global Vegetation Dynamics: Concepts and Applications in the MC1 Model
MC1 was designed for application to large regions that include a wide range in elevation and topography, thereby encompassing a broad range in climates and vegetation types. The authors applied the dynamic global vegetation model MC1 to Wind Cave National Park (WCNP) in the southern Black Hills of South Dakota,...
Estimating the effects of habitat and biological interactions in an avian community
Robert M. Dorazio, Edward F. Connor, Robert A. Askins
2015, PLoS ONE (10)
We used repeated sightings of individual birds encountered in community-level surveys to investigate the relative roles of habitat and biological interactions in determining the distribution and abundance of each species. To analyze these data, we developed a multispecies N-mixture model that allowed estimation of both positive and negative correlations between...
Flood-inundation maps for White River at Petersburg, Indiana
Kathleen K. Fowler
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5107
Digital flood-inundation maps for a 7.7-mile reach of the White River at Petersburg, Indiana, were created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs. The inundation maps, which can be accessed through the USGS Flood Inundation Mapping Science Web site at...
Flood-inundation maps for Big Creek from the McGinnis Ferry Road bridge to the confluence of Hog Wallow Creek, Alpharetta and Roswell, Georgia
Jonathan W. Musser
2015, Scientific Investigations Map 3338
Digital flood-inundation maps for a 12.4-mile reach of Big Creek that extends from 260 feet above the McGinnis Ferry Road bridge to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) streamgage at Big Creek below Hog Wallow Creek at Roswell, Georgia (02335757), were developed by the USGS in cooperation with the cities of...
A rapid estimation of near field tsunami run-up
Sebastian Riqueime, Mauricio Fuentes, Gavin P. Hayes, Jamie Campos
2015, Journal of Geophysical Research (120) 6487-6500
Many efforts have been made to quickly estimate the maximum run-up height of tsunamis associated with large earthquakes. This is a difficult task, because of the time it takes to construct a tsunami model using real time data from the source. It is possible to construct a database of potential...
Key seabird areas in southern New England identified using a community occupancy model
Allan F. O’Connell, Nicholas P. Flanders, Beth Gardner, Kristopher J. Winiarski, Peter W. C. Paton, Taber Allison
2015, Marine Ecology Progress Series (533) 277-290
Seabirds are of conservation concern, and as new potential risks to seabirds are arising, the need to provide unbiased estimates of species’ distributions is growing. We applied community occupancy models to detection/non-detection data collected from repeated aerial strip-transect surveys conducted in 2 large study plots off southern New England, USA;...
Dynamic models of an earthquake and tsunami offshore Ventura, California
Kenny J. Ryan, Eric L. Geist, Michael Barall, David D. Oglesby
2015, Geophysical Research Letters (42) 6599-6606
The Ventura basin in Southern California includes coastal dip-slip faults that can likely produce earthquakes of magnitude 7 or greater and significant local tsunamis. We construct a 3-D dynamic rupture model of an earthquake on the Pitas Point and Lower Red Mountain faults to model low-frequency ground motion and the...
Evaluating the importance of abiotic and biotic drivers on Bythotrephes biomass in Lakes Superior and Michigan
Kevin M. Keeler, David B. Bunnell, James S. Diana, Jean V. Adams, Justin G. Mychek-Londer, David M. Warner, Daniel Yule, Mark R. Vinson
2015, Journal of Great Lakes Research (41) 150-160
The ability of planktivorous fishes to exert top-down control on Bythotrephes potentially has far-reaching impacts on aquatic food-webs, given previously described effects of Bythotrephes on zooplankton communities. We estimated consumption of Bythotrephes by planktivorous and benthivorous fishes, using bioenergetics and daily ration models at nearshore (18 m), intermediate (46 m),...
Water-budgets and recharge-area simulations for the Spring Creek and Nittany Creek Basins and parts of the Spruce Creek Basin, Centre and Huntingdon Counties, Pennsylvania, Water Years 2000–06
John W. Fulton, Dennis W. Risser, R. Steve Regan, John F. Walker, Randall J. Hunt, Richard G. Niswonger, Scott A. Hoffman, Steven L. Markstrom
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5073
This report describes the results of a study by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with ClearWater Conservancy and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to develop a hydrologic model to simulate a water budget and identify areas of greater than average recharge for the Spring Creek Basin in central...
Collections management plan for the U.S. Geological Survey Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center Data Library
Kelleen M. List, Brian J. Buczkowski, Linda P. McCarthy, Alice M. Orton
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1141
The U.S. Geological Survey Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center has created a Data Library to organize, preserve, and make available the field, laboratory, and modeling data collected and processed by Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center staff. This Data Library supports current research efforts by providing unique,...
Riparian vegetation, Colorado River, and climate: five decades of spatiotemporal dynamics in the Grand Canyon with river regulation
Joel B. Sankey, Barbara E. Ralston, Paul E. Grams, John C. Schmidt, Laura E. Cagney
2015, Journal of Geophysical Research (120) 1532-1547
Documentation of the interacting effects of river regulation and climate on riparian vegetation has typically been limited to small segments of rivers or focused on individual plant species. We examine spatiotemporal variability in riparian vegetation for the Colorado River in Grand Canyon relative to river regulation and climate, over the...
Trends in Rocky Mountain amphibians and the role of beaver as a keystone species
Blake R. Hossack, William R. Gould, Debra A. Patla, Erin L. Muths, Rob Daley, Kristin Legg, P. Stephen Corn
2015, Biological Conservation (187) 260-269
Despite prevalent awareness of global amphibian declines, there is still little information on trends for many widespread species. To inform land managers of trends on protected landscapes and identify potential conservation strategies, we collected occurrence data for five wetland-breeding amphibian species in four national parks in the U.S. Rocky Mountains...
The effects of body size and climate on post-weaning survival of elephant seals at Heard Island
Clive R McMahon, Leslie New, E.J. Fairley, M.A. Hindell, H.R. Burton
2015, Journal of Zoology (297) 301-308
The population size of southern elephant seals in the southern Indian and Pacific Oceans decreased precipitously between the 1950s and 1990s. To investigate the reasons behind this, we studied the population of southern elephant seals at Heard Island between 1949 and 1954, using data collected by the early Australian National...
A conceptual model for site-level ecology of the giant gartersnake (Thamnophis gigas) in the Sacramento Valley, California
Brian J. Halstead, Glenn D. Wylie, Michael L. Casazza, Eric C. Hansen, Rick D. Scherer, Laura C. Patterson
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1152
Giant gartersnakes (Thamnophis gigas) comprise a species of semi-aquatic snakes precinctive to marshes in the Central Valley of California (Hansen and Brode, 1980; Rossman and others, 1996). Because more than 90 percent of their historical wetland habitat has been converted to other uses (Frayer and others, 1989; Garone, 2007), giant...
Hydroacoustic signatures of Colorado Riverbed sediments in Marble and Grand Canyons using multibeam sonar
Daniel D. Buscombe, Paul E. Grams, Matthew Kaplinski, Robert B. Tusso, David M. Rubin
2015, Conference Paper
Characterizing the large-scale sedimentary make-up of heterogeneous riverbeds (Nelson et al., 2014), which consist of a patchwork of sediment types over small scales (less than one to several tens of meters) (Dietrich and Smith, 1984) requires high resolution measurements of sediment grain size. Capturing such variability with conventional physical (e.g....
A rapid approach for automated comparison of independently derived stream networks
Larry V. Stanislawski, Barbara P. Buttenfield, Ariel T. Doumbouya
2015, Cartography and Geographic Information Science 435-448
This paper presents an improved coefficient of line correspondence (CLC) metric for automatically assessing the similarity of two different sets of linear features. Elevation-derived channels at 1:24,000 scale (24K) are generated from a weighted flow-accumulation model and compared to 24K National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) flowlines. The CLC process conflates two...
The influence of grain size, grain color, and suspended-sediment concentration on light attenuation: why fine-grained terrestrial sediment is bad for coral reef ecosystems
Curt D. Storlazzi, Benjamin Norris, Kurt J. Rosenberger
2015, Coral Reefs (34) 967-975
Sediment has been shown to be a major stressor to coral reefs globally. Although many researchers have tested the impact of sedimentation on coral reef ecosystems in both the laboratory and the field and some have measured the impact of suspended sediment on the photosynthetic response of corals, there has...
Peclet number as affected by molecular diffusion controls transient anomalous transport in alluvial aquifer-aquitard complexes
Yong Zhang, Christopher T. Green, Geoffrey R. Tick
2015, Journal of Contaminant Hydrology (177-178) 220-238
This study evaluates the role of the Peclet number as affected by molecular diffusion in transient anomalous transport, which is one of the major knowledge gaps in anomalous transport, by combining Monte Carlo simulations and stochastic model analysis. Two alluvial settings containing either short- or long-connected hydrofacies are generated and...
Long-term shifts in the phenology of rare and endemic Rocky Mountain plants
Seth M. Munson, Anna A Sher
2015, American Journal of Botany (102) 1268-1276
PREMISE OF THE STUDY: Mountainous regions support high plant productivity, diversity, and endemism, yet are highly vulnerable to climate change. Historical records and model predictions show increasing temperatures across high elevation regions including the Southern Rocky Mountains, which can have a strong influence on the performance and distribution of...
Months between rejuvenation and volcanic eruption at Yellowstone caldera, Wyoming
Christy B. Till, Jorge A. Vazquez, Jeremy W Boyce
2015, Geology (43) 695-698
Rejuvenation of previously intruded silicic magma is an important process leading to effusive rhyolite, which is the most common product of volcanism at calderas with protracted histories of eruption and unrest such as Yellowstone, Long Valley, and Valles, USA. Although orders of magnitude smaller in volume than rare caldera-forming super-eruptions,...
Lilac and honeysuckle phenology data 1956–2014
Alyssa H. Rosemartin, Ellen G. Denny, Jake F. Weltzin, R. Lee Marsh, Bruce E. Wilson, Hamed Mehdipoor, Raul Zurita-Milla, Mark D. Schwartz
2015, Scientific Data (2)
The dataset is comprised of leafing and flowering data collected across the continental United States from 1956 to 2014 for purple common lilac (Syringa vulgaris), a cloned lilac cultivar (S. x chinensis ‘Red Rothomagensis’) and two cloned honeysuckle cultivars (Lonicera tatarica ‘Arnold Red’ and L. korolkowii ‘Zabeli’). Applications of this observational dataset range from detecting...
Landscapes for energy and wildlife: conservation prioritization for golden eagles across large spatial scales
Jason D. Tack, Bradley C. Fedy
2015, PLoS ONE (10)
Proactive conservation planning for species requires the identification of important spatial attributes across ecologically relevant scales in a model-based framework. However, it is often difficult to develop predictive models, as the explanatory data required for model development across regional management scales is rarely available. Golden eagles are a large-ranging predator...
Natural recharge estimation and uncertainty analysis of an adjudicated groundwater basin using a regional-scale flow and subsidence model (Antelope Valley, California, USA)
Adam J. Siade, Tracy Nishikawa, Peter Martin
2015, Hydrogeology Journal (23) 1267-1291
Groundwater has provided 50–90 % of the total water supply in Antelope Valley, California (USA). The associated groundwater-level declines have led the Los Angeles County Superior Court of California to recently rule that the Antelope Valley groundwater basin is in overdraft, i.e., annual pumpage exceeds annual recharge. Natural recharge consists...
Terrain parameters of glide snow avalanches and a simple spatial glide snow avalanche model
Erich H. Peitzsch, Jordy Hendrikx, Daniel B. Fagre
2015, Cold Regions Science and Technology (120) 237-250
Glide snow avalanches are dangerous and difficult to predict. Despite substantial recent research there is still inadequate understanding regarding the controls of glide snow avalanche release. Glide snow avalanches often occur in similar terrain or the same locations annually, and repeat observations and prior work suggest that specific topography...
