A quantitative assessment of the conservation benefits of the Wetlands Reserve Program to amphibians
J. Hardin Waddle, Brad M. Glorioso, Stephen P. Faulkner
2013, Restoration Ecology (21) 200-206
The Mississippi Alluvial Valley (MAV) originally consisted of nearly contiguous bottomland hardwood (BLH) forest encompassing approximately 10 million hectares. Currently, only 20–25% of the historical BLH forests remain in small patches fragmented by agricultural lands. The Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) was established to restore and protect the functions and values...
Characterizing the thermal suitability of instream habitat for salmonids: A cautionary example from the Rocky Mountains
Robert K. Al-Chokhachy, Seth J. Wegner, Daniel J. Isaak, Jeffrey L. Kershner
2013, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (142) 793-801
Understanding a species’ thermal niche is becoming increasingly important for management and conservation within the context of global climate change, yet there have been surprisingly few efforts to compare assessments of a species’ thermal niche across methods. To address this uncertainty, we evaluated the differences in model performance and interpretations...
Assessment of spectral band impact on intercalibration over desert sites using simulation based on EO-1 Hyperion data
P. Henry, G. Chander, B. Fougnie, C. Thomas, Xiaoxiong Xiong
2013, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing (51) 1297-1308
Since the beginning of the 1990s, stable desert sites have been used for the calibration monitoring of many different sensors. Many attempts at sensor intercalibration have been also conducted using these stable desert sites. As a result, site characterization techniques and the quality of intercalibration techniques have gradually improved over...
Automated cloud and shadow detection and filling using two-date Landsat imagery in the United States
Suming Jin, Collin G. Homer, Limin Yang, George Xian, Joyce Fry, Patrick Danielson, Philip A. Townsend
2013, International Journal of Remote Sensing (34) 1540-1560
A simple, efficient, and practical approach for detecting cloud and shadow areas in satellite imagery and restoring them with clean pixel values has been developed. Cloud and shadow areas are detected using spectral information from the blue, shortwave infrared, and thermal infrared bands of Landsat Thematic Mapper or Enhanced Thematic...
Map of assessed shale gas in the United States, 2012
U.S. Geological Survey National Assessment of Oil and Gas Resources Team, Laura R. H. Biewick (compiler)
2013, Data Series 69-Z
The U.S. Geological Survey has compiled a map of shale-gas assessments in the United States that were completed by 2012 as part of the National Assessment of Oil and Gas Project. Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey quantitatively estimated potential volumes of undiscovered gas within shale-gas assessment...
Simplified stratigraphic cross sections of the Eocene Green River Formation in the Piceance Basin, northwestern Colorado
John D. Dietrich, Ronald C. Johnson
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1012
Thirteen stratigraphic cross sections of the Eocene Green River Formation in the Piceance Basin of northwestern Colorado are presented in this report. Originally published in a much larger and more detailed form by Self and others (2010), they are shown here in simplified, page-size versions that are easily accessed and...
An isotope-dilution standard GC/MS/MS method for steroid hormones in water
William T. Foreman, James L. Gray, Rhiannon C. ReVello, Chris E. Lindley, Scott A. Losche
2013, Book chapter, Evaluating Veterinary Pharmaceutical Behavior in the Environment: ACS Symposium Series
An isotope-dilution quantification method was developed for 20 natural and synthetic steroid hormones and additional compounds in filtered and unfiltered water. Deuterium- or carbon-13-labeled isotope-dilution standards (IDSs) are added to the water sample, which is passed through an octadecylsilyl solid-phase extraction (SPE) disk. Following extract cleanup using Florisil SPE, method...
A compilation of U.S. Geological Survey pesticide concentration data for water and sediment in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta region: 1990–2010
James L. Orlando
2013, Data Series 756
Beginning around 2000, abundance indices of four pelagic fishes (delta smelt, striped bass, longfin smelt, and threadfin shad) within the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta began to decline sharply (Sommer and others, 2007). These declines collectively became known as the pelagic organism decline (POD). No single cause has...
The development and application of a decision support system for land management in the Lake Tahoe Basin—The Land Use Simulation Model
William M. Forney, I. Benson Oldham, Neil Crescenti
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5229
This report describes and applies the Land Use Simulation Model (LUSM), the final modeling product for the long-term decision support project funded by the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act and developed by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Western Geographic Science Center for the Lake Tahoe Basin. Within the context of...
Soil data from fire and permafrost-thaw chronosequences in upland Picea mariana stands near Hess Creek and Tok, interior Alaska
Jonathan A. O’Donnell, Jennifer W. Harden, Kristen L. Manies, M. Torre Jorgenson, Mikhail Kanevskiy, Xiaomei Xu
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1045
Soils of the Northern Circumpolar Permafrost region harbor 1,672 petagrams (Pg) (1 Pg = 1,000,000,000 kilograms) of organic carbon (OC), nearly 50 percent of the global belowground OC pool (Tarnocai and others, 2009). Of that soil OC, nearly 88 percent is presently stored in perennially frozen ground. Recent climate warming...
Groundwater withdrawals 1976, 1990, and 2000--10 and land-surface-elevation changes 2000--10 in Harris, Galveston, Fort Bend, Montgomery, and Brazoria Counties, Texas
Mark C. Kasmarek, Michaela R. Johnson
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5034
The study area comprising Harris County and parts of Galveston, Fort Bend, Montgomery, and Brazoria Counties in southeastern Texas forms part of one of the largest areas of land-surface-elevation change in the United States. Land-surface-elevation change in the study area primarily is caused by the withdrawal of groundwater. Groundwater withdrawn...
Detection of environmental DNA of Bigheaded Carps in samples collected from selected locations in the St. Croix River and in the Mississippi River
Jon J. Amberg, S. Grace McCalla, Loren Miller, Peter Sorensen, Mark P. Gaikowski
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1080
The use of molecular methods, such as the detection of environmental deoxyribonucleic acid (eDNA), have become an increasingly popular tool in surveillance programs that monitor for the presence of invasive species in aquatic systems. One early application of these methods in aquatic systems was surveillance for DNA of Asian carps...
Assessment of historical surface-water quality data in southwestern Colorado, 1990-2005
Lisa D. Miller, Keelin R. Schaffrath, Joshua I. Linard
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5255
The spatial and temporal distribution of selected physical and chemical surface-water-quality characteristics were analyzed at stream sites throughout the Dolores and San Juan River Basins in southwestern Colorado using historical data collected from 1990 through 2005 by various local, State, Tribal, and Federal agencies. Overall, streams throughout the study area...
Whole-coal versus ash basis in coal geochemistry: a mathematical approach to consistent interpretations
Nicholas J. Geboy, Mark A. Engle, James C. Hower
2013, International Journal of Coal Geology (113) 41-49
Several standard methods require coal to be ashed prior to geochemical analysis. Researchers, however, are commonly interested in the compositional nature of the whole-coal, not its ash. Coal geochemical data for any given sample can, therefore, be reported in the ash basis on which it is analyzed or the whole-coal...
The effects of juvenile American shad planktivory on zooplankton production in Columbia River food webs
Craig A. Haskell, Kenneth F. Tiffan, Dennis W. Rondorf
2013, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (142) 606-620
Columbia River reservoirs support a large population of nonnative American Shad Alosa sapidissima that consume the zooplankton that native fishes also rely on. We hypothesized that the unprecedented biomass of juvenile American Shad in John Day Reservoir is capable of altering the zooplankton community if these fish consume a large...
Energy map of southwestern Wyoming - Energy data archived, organized, integrated, and accessible
Laura Biewick, Nicholas R. Jones, Anna B. Wilson
2013, General Information Product 145
The Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative (WLCI) focuses on conserving world-class wildlife resources while facilitating responsible energy development in southwestern Wyoming. To further advance the objectives of the WLCI long-term, science-based effort, a comprehensive inventory of energy resource and production data is being published in two parts. Energy maps, data, documentation...
Water-quality conditions, and constituent loads and yields in the Cambridge drinking-water source area, Massachusetts, water years 2005–07
Kirk P. Smith
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5039
The source water area for the drinking-water supply of the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, encompasses major transportation corridors, as well as large areas of light industrial, commercial, and residential land use. Because of ongoing development in the drinking-water source area, the Cambridge water supply has the potential to be affected...
Structure and tectonic evolution of the eastern Española Basin, Rio Grande rift, north-central New Mexico
Daniel Koning, V. J. Grauch, Sean D. Connell, J. Ferguson, William McIntosh, Janet L. Slate, Elmira Wan, W.S. Baldridge
2013, Book chapter, New perspectives on Rio Grande Rift Basins: From tectonics to groundwater
We describe the structure of the eastern Española Basin and use stratigraphic and stratal attitude data to interpret its tectonic development. This area consists of a west-dipping half graben in the northern Rio Grande rift that includes several intrabasinal grabens, faults, and folds. The Embudo–Santa Clara–Pajarito fault system, a collection...
Selection of hyperspectral narrowbands (HNBs) and composition of hyperspectral twoband vegetation indices (HVIs) for biophysical characterization and discrimination of crop types using field reflectance and Hyperion/EO-1 data
P.S. Thenkabail, I. Mariotto, M.K. Gumma, E.M. Middleton, D.R. Landis, K.F. Huemmrich
2013, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing (6) 427-439
The overarching goal of this study was to establish optimal hyperspectral vegetation indices (HVIs) and hyperspectral narrowbands (HNBs) that best characterize, classify, model, and map the world's main agricultural crops. The primary objectives were: (1) crop biophysical modeling through HNBs and HVIs, (2) accuracy assessment of crop type discrimination using...
Vegetation greenness trend (2000 to 2009) and the climate controls in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau
Li Zhang, Huadong Guo, Lei Ji, Liping Lei, Cuizhen Wang, Dongmei Yan, Bin Li, Jing Li
2013, Journal of Applied Remote Sensing (7)
The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau has been experiencing a distinct warming trend, and climate warming has a direct and quick impact on the alpine grassland ecosystem. We detected the greenness trend of the grasslands in the plateau using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer data from 2000 to 2009. Weather station data were used...
Use of NMR logging to obtain estimates of hydraulic conductivity in the High Plains aquifer, Nebraska, USA
Katherine Dlubac, Rosemary Knight, Yi-Qiao Song, Nate Bachman, Ben Grau, Jim Cannia, John Williams
2013, Water Resources Research (49) 1871-1886
Hydraulic conductivity (K) is one of the most important parameters of interest in groundwater applications because it quantifies the ease with which water can flow through an aquifer material. Hydraulic conductivity is typically measured by conducting aquifer tests or wellbore flow (WBF) logging. Of interest in our research is the...
EO-1 Hyperion reflectance time series at calibration and validation sites: stability and sensitivity to seasonal dynamics
P.K.E. Campbell, E.M. Middleton, K. J. Thome, Raymond F. Kokaly, K.F. Huemmrich, K.A. Novick, N.A. Brunsell
2013, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing (6) 276-290
This study evaluated Earth Observing 1 (EO-1) Hyperion reflectance time series at established calibration sites to assess the instrument stability and suitability for monitoring vegetation functional parameters. Our analysis using three pseudo-invariant calibration sites in North America indicated that the reflectance time series are devoid of apparent spectral trends and...
Effects of hydrologic connectivity and environmental nariables on nekton assemblage in a coastal marsh system
Sung-Ryong Kang, Sammy L. King
2013, Wetlands (33) 321-334
Hydrologic connectivity and environmental variation can influence nekton assemblages in coastal ecosystems. We evaluated the effects of hydrologic connectivity (permanently connected pond: PCP; temporary connected pond: TCP), salinity, vegetation coverage, water depth and other environmental variables on seasonal nekton assemblages in freshwater, brackish, and saline marshes of the Chenier Plain,...
Spatial variability of the response to climate change in regional groundwater systems -- examples from simulations in the Deschutes Basin, Oregon
Michael S. Waibel, Marshall W. Gannett, Heejun Chang, Christina L. Hulbe
2013, Journal of Hydrology (486) 187-201
We examine the spatial variability of the response of aquifer systems to climate change in and adjacent to the Cascade Range volcanic arc in the Deschutes Basin, Oregon using downscaled global climate model projections to drive surface hydrologic process and groundwater flow models. Projected warming over the 21st century is...
Significance of exchanging SSURGO and STATSGO data when modeling hydrology in diverse physiographic terranes
Tanja N. Williamson, Charles J. Taylor, Jeremy K. Newson
2013, Soil Science Society of America Journal (77) 877-889
The Water Availability Tool for Environmental Resources (WATER) is a TOPMODEL-based hydrologic model that depends on spatially accurate soils data to function in diverse terranes. In Kentucky, this includes mountainous regions, karstic plateau, and alluvial plains. Soils data are critical because they quantify the space to store water, as well...
