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Availability and sustainability of groundwater in the Denver Basin aquifer system depend on water quantity and water quality. The Denver Basin aquifer system underlies about 7,000 square miles of the Great Plains in eastern Colorado and is the primary or sole source of water for domestic and public supply in...

Strong fluid underpressures have been detected in Paleozoic strata in the eastern Michigan Basin, with hydraulic heads reaching ~400 m below land surface (~4 MPa underpressure) and ~200 m below sea level in strata where unusually low permeabilities (~10−20–10−23 m2) were measured in situ. Multiple glaciations, including three with as much as 3 km of...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of State, Mekong River Commission, Phnom Penh Autonomous Port, and the Cambodian Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology, completed a hydrographic survey of Chaktomuk, which is the confluence of the Mekong, Tonlé Sap (also spelled Tônlé Sab), and Bassac Rivers...

Digital flood-inundation maps for a 3.3-mile reach of the White River near Edwardsport, (Ind.), were created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the Indiana Department of Transportation. The inundation maps, which can be accessed through the USGS Flood Inundation Mapping Science Web site at http://water.usgs.gov/osw/flood_inundation/, depict estimates...

Background The physiological effects of white-nose syndrome (WNS) in hibernating bats and ultimate causes of mortality from infection with Pseudogymnoascus (formerly Geomyces) destructans are not fully understood. Increased frequency of arousal from torpor described among hibernating bats with late-stage WNS is thought to accelerate depletion of fat reserves, but the physiological mechanisms that lead to these...

In cooperation with FHWA, the U.S. Geological Survey developed the stochastic empirical loading and dilution model (SELDM) to supersede the 1990 FHWA runoff quality model. The SELDM tool is designed to transform disparate and complex scientific data into meaningful information about the adverse risks of runoff on receiving waters, the...

The lateral blast, debris avalanche, and lahars of the May 18th, 1980, eruption of Mount St. Helens, Washington, dramatically altered the surrounding landscape. Lava domes were extruded during the subsequent eruptive periods of 1980–1986 and 2004–2008. More than three decades after the emplacement of the 1980 debris avalanche, high sediment...

Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park (KAHO) is a coastal sanctuary on the western side of the Island of Hawai‘i that was established in 1978 to preserve, interpret, and perpetuate traditional Native Hawaiian culture and activities. KAHO contains a variety of culturally and ecologically significant water resources and water-related habitat for species...

The Colorado River is one of the most important sources of water in the western United States, supplying water to over 35 million people in the U.S. and 3 million people in Mexico. High dissolved-solids loading to the River and tributaries are derived primarily from geologic material deposited in inland...

A detailed inventory of irrigated crop acreage is not available at the level of resolution needed to increase the accuracy of current water-use estimates or to project future water demands in many Florida counties. This report provides a detailed digital map and summary of irrigated areas within Osceola County for...

Hydrologists, geographers, geophysicists, and geologists with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Texas Water Science Center (TXWSC) work in the USGS Water Mission Area on a diverse range of projects built on a foundation of spatial data. The TXWSC has developed sophisticated data and spatial-studies-related capabilities that are an integral part...

Nitrogen (N) is a ubiquitous contaminant throughout agricultural landscapes due to both the application of inorganic and organic fertilizers to agricultural fields and the general persistence of nitrate (NO3 ) in oxygenated aqueous environments (Denver et al. 2010; Domagalski et al. 2008; Green et al. 2008; Coupe 2001; Nolan and...

Prymnesium parvum (golden alga, GA) is a toxigenic harmful alga native to marine ecosystems that has also affected brackish inland waters. The first toxic bloom of GA in the western hemisphere occurred in the Pecos River, one of the saltiest rivers in North America. Environmental factors (water quality) associated with...

No abstract available....

Light attenuation is a critical parameter governing the ecological function of shallow estuaries. In these systems primary production is often dominated by benthic macroalgae and seagrass; thus light penetration to the bed is of primary importance. We quantified light attenuation in three seagrass meadows in Barnegat Bay, New Jersey, a...

The western United States has been experiencing severe drought since 2013. The solid earth response to the accompanying loss of surface and near-surface water mass should be a broad region of uplift. We use seasonally adjusted time series from continuously operating global positioning system stations to measure this uplift, which...

Few studies have examined response to regulatory change over time, or addressed hunter attitudes about changes in hunting bag limits. This article explores Minnesota waterfowl hunters’ attitudes about duck bag limits, examining attitudes about two state duck bag limits that were initially more restrictive than the maximum set by the...

Previous studies that evaluated effects of landscape-scale habitat heterogeneity on migratory waterbird distributions were spatially limited and temporally restricted to one major life-history phase. However, effects of landscape-scale habitat heterogeneity on long-distance migratory waterbirds can be studied across the annual cycle using new technologies, including global positioning system satellite transmitters....

Satellite telemetry has become a leading method for studying large-scale movements and survival in birds, yet few have addressed potential effects of the larger and heavier tracking equipment on study subjects. We simultaneously evaluated effects of satellite telemetry equipment on captive and wild mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) to assess impacts on...

Body condition, or an individual's ability to address metabolic needs, is an important measure of organism health. For waterfowl, body condition, usually some measure of fat, provides a useful proxy for assessing energy budgets during different life history periods and potentially is a measure of response to ecosystem changes. The...

Information on the contribution of nitrogen (N)-cycling processes in bed sediments to river nutrient fluxes in large northern latitude river systems is limited. This study examined the relationship between N-cycling processes in bed sediments and N speciation and loading in the Yukon River near its mouth at the Bering Sea....

The principal goal of protected area networks is biodiversity preservation, but efficacy of such networks is directly linked to animal movement within and outside area boundaries. We examined wetland selection patterns of mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) during non-breeding periods from 2010 to 2012 to evaluate the utility of protected areas to...

The dependency of surface- or groundwater flows and aquifer hydraulic properties on dewatering-induced layer deformation is not available in the USGS's groundwater model MODFLOW. A new integrated hydrologic model, MODFLOW-OWHM, formulates this dependency by coupling mesh deformation with aquifer transmissivity and storage and by linking land subsidence/uplift with deformation-dependent flows...

We investigated occurrence, transport pathways, and effects of polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants and other endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in aquatic media and the foodweb in the lower Columbia River. In 2009 and 2010, foodweb sampling at three sites along a gradient of contaminant exposure near Skamania (Washington), Columbia...

The first volcanic gas studies in Hawai‘i, beginning in 1912, established that volatile emissions from Kīlauea Volcano contained mostly water vapor, in addition to carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide. This straightforward discovery overturned a popular volatile theory of the day and, in the same action, helped affirm Thomas A. Jaggar,...