An evaluation of liquid ammonia (ammonium hydroxide) as a candidate piscicide
David L. Ward, R. Morton-Starner, Shaula J. Hedwall
2013, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (33) 400-405
Eradication of populations of nonnative aquatic species for the purpose of reintroducing native fish is often difficult because very few effective tools are available for removing aquatic organisms. This creates the need to evaluate new chemicals that could be used as management tools for native fish conservation. Ammonia is a...
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...
User’s manual for the National Water Information System of the U.S. Geological Survey: Water-Quality System
David H. Dupré, Jonathon C. Scott, Melanie L. Clark, Michael G. Canova, Yvonne E. Stoker
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1054
This user documentation is designed to be a reference for the quality of water (QW) programs within the National Water Information System (NWIS). If you are a new user, the “Introduction” and “Getting Started” sections may be the right place for you to start. If you are an experienced user,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Review: groundwater in Alaska (USA)
J.B. Callegary, C.P. Kikuchi, Joshua C. Koch, M. R. Lilly, S. A. Leake
2013, Hydrogeology Journal (21) 25-39
Groundwater in the US state of Alaska is critical to both humans and ecosystems. Interactions among physiography, ecology, geology, and current and past climate have largely determined the location and properties of aquifers as well as the timing and magnitude of fluxes to, from, and within the groundwater system. The...
Using the KINEROS2 modeling framework to evaluate the increase in storm runoff from residential development in a semi-arid environment
Jeffrey R. Kennedy, David C. Goodrich, Carl L. Unkrich
2013, Journal of Hydrologic Engineering (18) 698-706
The increase in runoff from urbanization is well known; one extreme example comes from a 13 hectare residential neighborhood in southeast Arizona where runoff was 27 times greater than an adjacent grassland watershed over a forty‐month period from 2005 to 2008. Rainfall‐runoff modeling using the newly‐described KINEROS2 urban element and...
Characteristics of sediment transport at selected sites along the Missouri River during the high-flow conditions of 2011
Joel M. Galloway, Dave L. Rus, Jason S. Alexander
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5006
During 2011, many tributaries in the Missouri River Basin experienced near record peak streamflow and caused flood damage to many communities along much of the Missouri River from Montana to the confluence with the Mississippi River. The large runoff event in 2011 provided an opportunity to examine characteristics of sediment...
The impact of medium architecture of alluvial settings on non-Fickian transport
Yong Zhang, Christopher T. Green, Graham E. Fogg
2013, Advances in Water Resources (54) 78-99
The influence of heterogeneous architecture of alluvial aquifers on non-Fickian transport is explored using the Monte Carlo approach. More than two thousand high-resolution hydrofacies models representing seven groups of alluvial settings are built to test the effects of varying facies proportions, mean length and its anisotropy ratio, juxtapositional tendencies, and...
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...
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...
Statistical classification of vegetation and water depths in montane wetlands
Julia L. Sharp, Richard S. Sodja, Mark Greenwood, Donald O. Rosenberry, Jeffrey M. Warren
2013, Ecohydrology (6) 173-181
Relationships between water depths and density of submergent vegetation were studied in montane wetlands using statistical techniques based on clustering and an extension of regression trees. Sago pondweed (Stuckenia pectinata) was associated with lower average water depths than water milfoil (Myriophyllum sibiricum). We detected a nonlinear relationship when average water...
Acute sedimentation response to rainfall following the explosive phase of the 2008-2009 eruption of Chaitén volcano, Chile
Thomas C. Pierson, Jon J. Major, Álvaro Amigo, Hugo Moreno
2013, Bulletin of Volcanology (75)
The 10-day explosive phase at the start of the 2008–2009 eruption of Chaitén volcano in southern Chile (42.83°S, 72.65°W) blanketed the steep, rain-forest-cloaked, 77-km2 Chaitén River drainage basin with 3 to >100 cm of tephra; predominantly fine to extremely fine rhyolitic ash fell during the latter half of the explosive...
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...
Terrestrial movement patterns of western pond turtles (Actinemys marmorata) in central California
David S. Pilliod, Justin L. Welty, Robert Stafford
2013, Herpetological Conservation and Biology (8) 207-221
We used radio telemetry to track the terrestrial movements and seasonal habitat use patterns of Western Pond Turtles (Actinemys marmorata) near two ponds in the Carrizo Plain Ecological Reserve, California, USA. We captured 93 turtles in September 2005 and, of these, we tagged three males and six females(weighing > 300...
Change in the length of the northern section of the Chandeleur Islands oil berm, September 5, 2010, through September 3, 2012
N.G. Plant, K. K. Guy
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1074
On April 20, 2010, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig drilling at the Macondo Prospect site in the Gulf of Mexico resulted in a marine oil spill that continued to flow through July 15, 2010. One of the affected areas was the Breton National Wildlife Refuge, which consists...
Change in the length of the middle section of the Chandeleur Islands oil berm, November 17, 2010, through September 6, 2011
N.G. Plant, K. K. Guy
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1075
On April 20, 2010, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig drilling at the Macondo Prospect site in the Gulf of Mexico resulted in a marine oil spill that continued to flow through July 15, 2010. One of the affected areas was the Breton National Wildlife Refuge, which consists...
Mineral resource of the month: tellurium
Water Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey
2013, Earth (58) 57-57
The article offers information on tellerium, a rare and expensive metal. Tellerium is considered the 71st most abundant element in Earth's crust, along with platinum and palladium. The element belongs to the chalcogen chemical family, and is recovered as a byproduct of nonferrous metal mining. The global demand for tellerium...
extrap: Software to assist the selection of extrapolation methods for moving-boat ADCP streamflow measurements
David S. Mueller
2013, Computers & Geosciences (54) 211-218
Selection of the appropriate extrapolation methods for computing the discharge in the unmeasured top and bottom parts of a moving-boat acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) streamflow measurement is critical to the total discharge computation. The software tool, extrap, combines normalized velocity profiles from the entire cross section and multiple transects to...
A refined index of model performance: a rejoinder
David R. Legates, Gregory J. McCabe
2013, International Journal of Climatology (33) 1053-1056
Willmott et al. [Willmott CJ, Robeson SM, Matsuura K. 2012. A refined index of model performance. International Journal of Climatology, forthcoming. DOI:10.1002/joc.2419.] recently suggest a refined index of model performance (dr) that they purport to be superior to other methods. Their refined index ranges from − 1.0 to 1.0 to resemble a correlation...
