Sub-annual streamflow responses to rainfall and snowmelt inputs in snow-dominated watersheds of the western U.S.
John C. Hammond, Stephanie K. Kampf
2020, Water Resources Research (56)
Streamflow generation in mountain watersheds is strongly influenced by snow accumulation and melt, and multiple studies have found that snow loss leads to earlier snowmelt timing and declines in annual streamflow. However, hydrologic responses to snow loss are heterogeneous, and not all areas experience streamflow declines....
Building a landslide hazard indicator with machine learning and land surface models
T. A. Stanley, D. B. Kirschbaum, Steven Sobieszczyk, M. F. Jasinski, J. S. Borak, Stephen L. Slaughter
2020, Environmental Modelling & Software (129)
The U.S. Pacific Northwest has a history of frequent and occasionally deadly landslides caused by various factors. Using a multivariate, machine-learning approach, we combined a Pacific Northwest Landslide Inventory with a 36-year gridded hydrologic dataset from the National Climate Assessment – Land Data Assimilation System to produce a landslide hazard indicator (LHI) on a...
Temporal evolution of measured and simulated infiltration following wildfire in the Colorado Front Range, USA: Shifting thresholds of runoff generation and hydrologic hazards
Brian A. Ebel
2020, Journal of Hydrology (585) 124765
Destructive flash floods and debris flows are a common menace following wildfire. The restoration of protection provided by forests from post-fire floods and debris flows depends on the recovery of infiltration and attendant reduction of infiltration-excess surface runoff generation. This work examines seven years of post-fire infiltration measurements and temporal...
An enhanced hydrologic stream network based on the NHDPlus medium resolution dataset
John W. Brakebill, Gregory E. Schwarz, Michael E. Wieczorek
2020, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5127
The National Hydrography Dataset Plus, Version 2.1 (NHDPlusV2.1) is an attribute-rich digital stream network for the conterminous United States, serving as a foundational infrastructure for reporting hydrologic information at both regional and national scales. SPAtially Referenced Regressions On Watershed attributes (SPARROW) is a process-based statistical model that relies on a...
Quantification of trace element loading in the upper Tenmile Creek drainage basin near Rimini, Montana, September 2011
Tom Cleasby, Sara L. Caldwell Eldridge
2020, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5126
The principle sources of trace elements entering upper Tenmile Creek, Montana, during September 2011, four trace metals and the metalloid arsenic, were identified and quantified by combining and analyzing streamflow data determined from tracer injection with trace-element concentrations and related water-quality data determined from synoptic sampling. The study reach was...
A socio-environmental geodatabase for integrative research in the transboundary Rio Grande/Río Bravo basin
Jennifer Villa
2020, Report
Management of water resources in the transboundary Rio Grande/Río Bravo Basin (the Basin) presents challenges for state and Federal entities in the United States and Mexico making management decisions on shared water resources. Damming, channelization, water availability, and allocation are governed by water rights and water-sharing agreements. Data and...
Causal effect of impervious cover on annual flood magnitude for the United States
Annalise G. Blum, Paul J. Ferraro, Stacey A. Archfield, Karen R. Ryberg
2020, Geophysical Research Letters (47)
Despite consensus that impervious surfaces increase flooding, the magnitude of the increase remains uncertain. This uncertainty largely stems from the challenge of isolating the effect of changes in impervious cover separate from other factors that also affect flooding. To control for these factors, prior study designs...
Changing suspended sediment in United States rivers and streams: Linking sediment trends to changes in land use/cover, hydrology and climate
Jennifer C. Murphy
2020, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (24) 991-1010
Sediment is one of the leading pollutants in rivers and streams across the United States (US) and the world. Between 1992 and 2012, concentrations of annual mean suspended sediment decreased at over half of the 137 stream sites assessed across the contiguous US. Increases occurred at less than 25 % of...
Mercury export from Arctic great rivers
Scott Zolkos, David P. Krabbenhoft, Anya Suslova, Suzanne E. Tank, James W. McClelland, Robert G. M. Spencer, Alexander Shiklomanov, Alexander V. Zhulidov, Tatiana Gurtovaya, Nikita Zimov, Sergey Zimov, Edda A. Mutter, Les Kutny, Edwin Amos, Robert M. Holmes
2020, Environmental Science & Technology (54) 4140-4148
Land–ocean linkages are strong across the circumpolar north, where the Arctic Ocean accounts for 1% of the global ocean volume and receives more than 10% of the global river discharge. Yet estimates of Arctic riverine mercury (Hg) export constrained from direct Hg measurements remain sparse. Here, we report results from...
Wind River subbasin restoration: Annual report of US..Geological Survey activities, January 2018 through December 2018
Ian G. Jezorek
2020, Report
We sampled juvenile wild Steelhead Oncorhynchus mykiss in headwater streams of the Wind River, WA, to characterize populations and investigate life-history metrics, particularly migratory patterns. We used Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT)-tagging and a series of instream PIT-tag interrogation systems (PTISs) to track juveniles. The Wind River subbasin is considered a...
Assessing water-quality changes in agricultural drainages: Examples from oxbow lake tributaries in Mississippi, USA and simulation-based power analyses
Jennifer C. Murphy, Matthew B. Hicks, Shane J. Stocks
2020, Journal of Soil and Water Conservation (75) 218-230
Hydrology and water quality (suspended sediment, total nitrogen, ammonia, total Kjeldahl nitrogen, nitrate plus nitrite, and total phosphorus (TP)) were monitored in two small agricultural drainages in northwestern Mississippi to document changes in water quality that coincided with the implementation of BMPs in upstream drainages. Using an event-based dataset and...
Preserving meander bend geometry through scale
Ethan J. Shavers, Larry Stanislawski, Barbara P. Buttenfield, Barry J. Kronenfeld
2020, Conference Paper
Stream meander geometry is a function of hydrologic, geologic, and anthropogenic forces. Meander morphometrics are used in geomorphic classification, ecological characterization, and tectonic and hydrologic change detection. Thus, detailed measurement and classification of meander geometry is imperative to multiscale representation of hydrographic features, which raises important questions. What meander geometries...
Play fairway analysis in geothermal exploration: The Snake River plain volcanic province
John W. Shervais, Jonathan M.G. Glen, Drew L. Siler, Lee Liberty, Dennis Nielson, Sabodh Garg, Patrick Dobson, Erika Gasperikova, Eric Sonnenthal, Dennis Newell, James E. Evans, Jacob DeAngelo, Jared R. Peacock, Tait E. Earney, William D. Schermerhorn, Ghanashyam Neupane
2020, Conference Paper, Proceedings: 45th workshop on geothermal reservoir engineering
The Snake River volcanic province (SRP) has long been considered a target for geothermal development. It overlies a thermal anomaly that extends deep into the mantle and represents one of the highest heat flow provinces in North America, but systematic exploration been hindered by lack of a conceptual model. Play...
Application of airborne LiDAR and GIS in modeling trail erosion along the Appalachian Trail, New Hampshire, USA
Holly Eagleston, Jeffrey L. Marion
2020, Landscape and Urban Planning (198)
Recreational activities can negatively affect protected area landscapes and resources and soil erosion is frequently cited as the most significant long-term impact to recreational trails. Comprehensive modeling of soil loss on trails can identify influential factors that managers can manipulate to design and manage more sustainable trails. Field measurements...
Towards reproducible environmental modeling for decision support: A worked example
Jeremy T. White, Linzy K. Foster, Michael N. Fienen, Matthew J. Knowling, Brioch Hemmings, James R. Winterle
2020, Frontiers in Earth Science, Hydrosphere (28)
A fully worked example of decision-support-scale uncertainty quantification (UQ) and parameter estimation (PE) is presented. The analyses are implemented for an existing groundwater flow model of the Edwards aquifer, Texas, USA, and are completed in a script-based workflow that strives to be transparent and reproducible. High-dimensional PE is used to...
Causal factors for pesticide trends in streams of the United States: Atrazine and deethylatrazine
Karen R. Ryberg, Wesley W. Stone, Nancy T. Baker
2020, Journal of Environmental Quality (49) 152-162
Pesticides are important for agriculture in the United States, and atrazine is one of the most widely used and widely detected pesticides in surface water. A better understanding of the mechanisms by which atrazine and its degradation product, deethylatrazine, increase and decrease in surface waters can help inform future decisions...
Co-producing knowledge: The Integrated Ecosystem Model for resource management in Arctic Alaska
Eugenie S. Euskirchen, Kristin Timm, Amy L. Breen, Stephen Gray, T. Scott Rupp, Philip Martin, Joel H. Reynolds, Amanda Sesser, Karen Murphy, Jeremy Littell, Alec Bennett, W. Robert Bolton, Tobey Carman, Helene Genet, Brad Griffith, Tom Kurkowski, Mark J. Lara, Sergei Marchenko, Dmitry Nicolsky, Panda Santosh, Vladimir Romanovsky, Ruth Rutter, Colin Tucker, A. David McGuire
2020, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (18) 447-455
Assessments of climate-change effects on ecosystem processes and services in high-latitude regions are hindered by a lack of decision-support tools capable of forecasting possible future landscapes. We describe a collaborative effort to develop and apply the Integrated Ecosystem Model (IEM) for Alaska and northwestern Canada to explore how climate change...
Evaluation of soil zone processes and a novel radiocarbon correction approach for groundwater with mixed sources
John E. Solder, Bryant Jurgens
2020, Journal of Hydrology (588)
Estimates of groundwater age based on 14C is often limited by the uncertainty in geochemical processes that alter the 14C concentration measured in water and the composition (δ13C and 14C) of carbon sources needed to appropriately parametrize 14C adjustment models. Estimated ages for samples that contain a mixture of young...
Water withdrawals, uses, and trends in Florida, 2015
Richard L. Marella
2020, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5147
In 2015, the total amount of water withdrawn in Florida was estimated to be 15,319 million gallons per day (Mgal/d). Saline water accounted for 9,598 Mgal/d (63 percent) and freshwater accounted for 5,721 Mgal/d (37 percent) of the total. Groundwater accounted for 3,604 Mgal/d (63 percent) of freshwater withdrawals and...
Hydrologic and hydraulic analyses of selected streams in Stark County, Ohio
Chad J. Ostheimer, Matthew T. Whitehead
2020, Scientific Investigations Report 2020-5011
To update and expand a part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency Flood Insurance Study, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District, and the Stark County Commissioners began a cooperative study. The study consisted of hydrologic and hydraulic analyses for selected reaches of 14 streams in Stark County,...
Runoff sensitivity to snow depletion curve representation within a continental scale hydrologic model
Graham A. Sexstone, Jessica M. Driscoll, Lauren Hay, John C. Hammond, Theodore B. Barnhart
2020, Hydrological Processes (34) 2365-2380
The spatial variability of snow water equivalent (SWE) can exert a strong influence on the timing and magnitude of snowmelt delivery to a watershed. Therefore, the representation of subgrid or subwatershed snow variability in hydrologic models is important for accurately simulating snowmelt dynamics and runoff response. The U.S. Geological Survey...
The NASA hydrological forecast system for food and water security applications
Kristi Arsenault, Shraddhanand Shukla, Abheera Hazra, Agusto Getirana, Amy McNally, Sujay Kumar, Randal Koster, Christa Peters-Lidard, Ben Zaitchik, Hamada Badr, Hahn Chul Jung, Bala Narapusetty, Navari, Shugong Wang, David M. Mocko, Chris Funk, Laura Harrison, Gregory J. Husak, Alkhalil Adoum, Gideon Galu, Tamuka Magadzire, Jeanne Roningen, Michael J. Shaw, John Eylander, Karim Bergaoui, Rachael A. McDonnell, James Verdin
2020, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (101) E1007-E1025
Many regions in Africa and the Middle East are vulnerable to drought and to water and food insecurity, motivating agency efforts such as the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) to provide early warning of drought events in the region. Each year these...
Seasonal subsurface thaw dynamics of an aufeis feature inferred from geophysical methods
Neil Terry, Elliot Grunewald, Martin A. Briggs, Michael Gooseff, Alexander D. Huryn, M. Andy Kass, Ken Tape, Patrick Hendrickson, John W. Lane Jr.
2020, Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface (125)
Aufeis are sheets of ice unique to cold regions that originate from repeated flooding and freezing events during the winter. They have hydrological importance associated with summer flows and possibly winter insulation, but little is known about the seasonal dynamics of the unfrozen sediment layer beneath them. This layer...
Assessment of soil and water resources in the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument, New Mexico
Johanna M. Blake, Aurelia C. Mitchell, Zachary M. Shephard, Grady Ball, Shaleene Chavarria, Kyle R. Douglas-Mankin
2020, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5142
The Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument (Monument) in southern New Mexico was established in 2014. Given anticipated future demands in the Monument for recreation, livestock grazing, and maintenance of rights-of-way (for example, pipelines and powerlines), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) needs a better understanding of the current soil and...
Multiple-well monitoring site adjacent to the Lost Hills oil field, Kern County, California
Rhett R. Everett, Adam Kjos, Anthony A. Brown, Janice M. Gillespie, Peter B. McMahon
2020, Open-File Report 2019-1114
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the California State Water Resources Control Board, is evaluating several questions about oil and gas development and groundwater resources in California, including (1) the location of groundwater resources; (2) the proximity of oil and gas operations and groundwater and the geologic materials...
