Modeling nearshore total phosphorus in Lake Michigan using linked hydrodynamic and water quality models
James P. Pauer, Mark D. Rowe, WIlson Melendez, Thomas P Hollenhorst, Lisa L Lowe, Peter J. Alsip, Dale M. Robertson, Steven A. Pothoven
2024, Ecological Modelling (493)
Although the offshore water of Lake Michigan has been below the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA) total phosphorus (TP) spring target concentration of 7 µg L−1 for several decades, higher TP concentrations occur in the nearshore, contributing to the resurgence...
Landscape fragmentation overturns classical metapopulation thinking
Yun Tao, Alan Hastings, Kevin D. Lafferty, Ilkka Hanski, Otso Ovaskainen
2024, PNAS (121)
Habitat loss and isolation caused by landscape fragmentation represent a growing threat to global biodiversity. Existing theory suggests that the process will lead to a decline in metapopulation viability. However, since most metapopulation models are restricted to simple networks of discrete habitat patches, the effects of real landscape fragmentation, particularly...
Assessing locations susceptible to shallow landslide initiation during prolonged intense rainfall in the Lares, Utuado, and Naranjito municipalities of Puerto Rico
Rex L. Baum, Dianne L. Brien, Mark E. Reid, William H. Schulz, Matthew J. Tello
2024, Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (24) 1579-1605
Hurricane Maria induced about 70 000 landslides throughout Puerto Rico, USA, including thousands each in three municipalities situated in Puerto Rico's rugged Cordillera Central range. By combining a nonlinear soil-depth model, presumed wettest-case pore pressures, and quasi-three-dimensional (3D) slope-stability analysis, we developed a landslide susceptibility...
Streamflow depletion caused by groundwater pumping: Fundamental research priorities for management-relevant science
Samuel Zipper, Andrea E. Brookfield, Hoori Ajami, Jessica R. Ayers, Chris Beightel, Michael N. Fienen, Tom Gleeson, John C. Hammond, Mary C Hill, Anthony D Kendall, Benjamin Kerr, Dana A. Lapides, Misty Porter, S. Parimalarenganayaki, Melissa Rohde, Chloe Wardropper
2024, Water Resource Research (60)
Reductions in streamflow caused by groundwater pumping, known as “streamflow depletion,” link the hydrologic process of stream-aquifer interactions to human modifications of the water cycle. Isolating the impacts of groundwater pumping on streamflow is challenging because other climate and human activities concurrently impact streamflow, making it difficult...
A great tsunami earthquake component of the 1957 Aleutian Islands earthquake
Yoshiki Yamazaki, Thorne Lay, Kwok Fai Cheung, Robert C. Witter, SeanPaul La Selle, Bruce E. Jaffe
2024, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (637)
The great 1957 Aleutian Islands earthquake ruptured ∼1200 km of the plate boundary along the Aleutian subduction zone and produced a destructive tsunami across Hawaiʻi. Early seismic and tsunami analyses indicated that large megathrust fault slip was concentrated in the western Aleutian Islands, but tsunami...
Combining terrestrial lidar with single line transects to investigate geomorphic change: A case study on the Upper Verde River, Arizona
Lauren Lynn Tango, Temuulen Ts. Sankey, Jackson Leonard, Joel B. Sankey, Alan Kasprak
2024, Geomorphology (457)
The Upper Verde River in northern Arizona, USA is a vital resource for the wildlife and humans that rely on its waters. We characterize the riparian corridor topography using terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) data from 2021 to 2022. We also...
Linking dissolved organic matter composition to landscape properties in wetlands across the United States of America
Martin R. Kurek, Kimberly Wickland, Natalie A. Nichols, Amy M. McKenna, Steven M. Anderson, Mark M. Dornblaser, Nikaan Koupaie-Abyazani, Brett A. Poulin, Sheel Bansal, Jason B. Fellman, Gregory K. Druschel, Emily S. Bernhardt, Robert G.M. Spencer
2024, Global Biogeochemical Cycles (38)
Wetlands are integral to the global carbon cycle, serving as both a source and a sink for organic carbon. Their potential for carbon storage will likely change in the coming decades in response to higher temperatures and variable precipitation patterns. We characterized the dissolved organic carbon (DOC)...
Stony coral tissue loss disease indirectly alters reef communities
Sara D. Swaminathan, Kevin D. Lafferty, Nicole S. Knight, Andrew H. Altieri
2024, Science Advances (10)
Many Caribbean coral reefs are near collapse due to various threats. An emerging threat, stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD), is spreading across the Western Atlantic and Caribbean. Data from the U.S. Virgin Islands reveal how SCTLD spread has reduced the abundance of susceptible coral and crustose coralline algae and...
The 2023 U.S. National Seismic Hazard Model: Subduction ground motion models
Sanaz Rezaeian, Peter M. Powers, Jason M. Altekruse, Sean Kamran Ahdi, Mark D. Petersen, Allison Shumway, Arthur D. Frankel, Erin A. Wirth, James Andrew Smith, Morgan P. Moschetti, Kyle Withers, Julie A. Herrick
2024, Earthquake Spectra (41) 1739-1786
The US Geological Survey National Seismic Hazard Models (NSHMs) are used to calculate earthquake ground-shaking intensities for design and rehabilitation of structures in the United States. The most recent 2014 and 2018 versions of the NSHM for the conterminous United States included major updates to ground-motion models (GMMs) for active...
Prototyping structured decision making for water resource management in the San Francisco Bay-Delta
James Peterson, Erin McCreless, Adam Duarte, Patti Wohner, Scott Hamilton, Josue Medellin-Azuara, Alvar Escriva-Boue
2024, Environmental Science and Policy (103775)
A structured decision making (SDM) approach can help evaluate tradeoffs between conservation and human-benefit objectives by fostering communication and knowledge transfer among stakeholders, decision makers, and the public. However, the process is iterative and completing the full process may take...
Basin effects from 3D simulated ground motions in the Greater Los Angeles region for use in seismic-hazard analyses
Morgan P. Moschetti, Eric M. Thompson, Kyle Withers
2024, Earthquake Spectra (40) 1042-1065
We develop basin-depth-scaling models (i.e. “basin terms”) from the long-period (T≥2s) simulated ground motions of the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) CyberShake project for use in seismic hazard analyses at sites within the sedimentary basins of southern California. Basin terms use the Next Generation Attenuation (NGA)-West-2 ground-motion models (GMMs)...
A video monitoring and computational system for estimating migratory juvenile fish abundance in river systems
Meghna N. Marjadi, Sidney Batchelder, Ryan Govostes, Allison H. Roy, John J. Sheppard, Meghan-Grace Slocombe, Joel K. Llopiz
2024, Limnology and Oceanography Methods (22) 295-310
Diadromous fishes migrate between marine and fresh waters for reproduction. For anadromous species, which spawn in freshwater, improved access to freshwater spawning and nursery habitats and ability of juveniles to emigrate to the ocean may support population recovery. Despite the potentially enormous influence of early life stage survival on adult...
Abundance of Long-billed Curlews on military lands in the Columbia Basin
Sharon A. Poessel, Elise Elliott-Smith, Sean M. Murphy, Susan M Haig, Adam E. Duerr, Todd E. Katzner
2024, Avian Conservation and Ecology (19)
Long-billed Curlews (Numenius americanus) are declining throughout North America, and the loss of grassland breeding habitat is one of the primary threats to the species. Intermountain West, in particular, has been identified as the most important region in North America for breeding curlews. Nevertheless, the density and abundance of Long-billed...
Revisiting geophysical interpretations of the Midcontinent Rift below Lake Superior— Insights from GLIMPCE seismic-reflection line C
V. J. S. Grauch, Samuel J. Heller, Laurel G. Woodruff, Esther K. Stewart
2024, Conference Paper, Institute on Lake Superior Geology: proceedings
The 1.1 Ga Midcontinent Rift System (MRS) has been investigated in the Lake Superior region for more than a century. The most influential geophysical data for modern paradigms has come from seismic-reflection profiles collected by the Great Lakes International Multidisciplinary Program on Crustal Evolution (GLIMPCE) in the late 1980s. We...
Why do seismic hazard models worldwide appear to overpredict historical intensity observations?
Leah Marschall Salditch, Molly M. Gallahue, Seth Stein, James S. Neely, Norman A. Abrahamson, Susan E. Hough
2024, Science Advances (10)
Probabilistic seismic hazard assessments (PSHAs) provide the scientific basis for building codes to reduce damage from earthquakes. Despite their substantial impact, little is known about how well PSHA predicts actual shaking. Recent PSHA for California, Japan, Italy, Nepal, and France appear to consistently overpredict historically observed earthquake shaking intensities. Numerical...
Regional seismic velocity model for the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains based on measured shear wave velocity, sediment thickness, and surface geology
Cassie Gann-Phillips, Ashly Cabas, Chunyang Ji, Chris H. Cramer, James Kaklamanos, Oliver S. Boyd
2024, Earthquake Spectra (40) 1269-1300
The Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains (CPs) are characterized by widespread accumulations of low-velocity sediments and sedimentary rock that overlay high-velocity bedrock. Geology and sediment thickness greatly influence seismic wave propagation, but current regional ground motion...
Using open-science workflow tools to produce SCEC CyberShake physics-based probabilistic seismic hazard models
Scott Callaghan, Phillip J. Maechling, Fabio Silva, Mei-Hui Su, Kevin R. Milner, Robert Graves, Kim Olsen, Yifeng Cui, Karan Vahi, Albert Kottke, Christine A Goulet, Ewa Deelman, Tom Jordan, Yehuda Ben-Zion
2024, Frontiers Earth Science Journal (2)
The Statewide (formerly Southern) California Earthquake Center (SCEC) conducts multidisciplinary earthquake system science research that aims to develop predictive models of earthquake processes, and to produce accurate seismic hazard information that can improve societal preparedness and resiliency to earthquake hazards. As part of this program, SCEC has developed the...
Integration of rupture directivity models for the US National Seismic Hazard Model
Kyle Withers, Morgan P. Moschetti, Peter M. Powers, Mark D. Petersen, Robert Graves, Brad T. Aagaard, Annemarie S. Baltay Sundstrom, Nico Luco, Erin A. Wirth, Sanaz Rezaeian, Eric M. Thompson
2024, Earthquake Spectra (40) 1066-1098
Several rupture directivity models (DMs) have been developed in recent years to describe the near-source spatial variations in ground motion amplitudes related to propagation of rupture along the fault. We recently organized an effort towards incorporating these directivity effects into the USGS National Seismic Hazard Model (NSHM), by first evaluating...
Accounting for the fraction of carcasses outside the searched area in the estimation of bird and bat fatalities at wind energy facilities
Daniel Dalthorp, Manuela Huso, Mark Dalthorp, Jeffrey Mintz
2024, Techniques and Methods 7-A3
Accurate estimation of bird and bat mortality at wind energy facilities requires accounting for carcasses that lie outside the search plots because they lie beyond the search radius or in areas within the search radius that remain unsearched due to sub-optimal search conditions such as thick vegetation, rough or dangerous...
Quantifying the relative importance of biotic and abiotic factors in landscape-based models of stream fish distributions
Christopher A. Custer, Douglas P. Fischer, Geoffrey Smith, Aaron Henning, Megan Kepler Schall, Matthew K. Shank, Timothy A. Wertz, Daniel A. Isermann
2024, Community Ecology (25) 145-196
Lotic fish species distributions are frequently predicted using remotely sensed habitat variables that characterize the adjacent landscape and serve as proxies for instream habitat. Recent advancements in statistical methodology, however, allow for leveraging fish assemblage data when predicting distributions. This is important because assemblage composition likely provides better information about...
Ancient permafrost and past permafrost in the Northern Hemisphere
Thomas Opel, Pascal Bertran, Guido Grosse, Miriam C. Jones, Marc Luetscher, Lutz Schirrmeister, Kim Stadelmeier, Alexandra Veremeeva
2024, Book chapter, Reference module in Earth systems and environmental sciences
The existence and dynamics of permafrost depend on the prevailing climate conditions. Therefore, the study of ancient permafrost (existing since the Pleistocene or earlier) and past permafrost (Late Pleistocene or older permafrost that no longer exists) and their dynamics may inform about climate and environmental changes in the past. In...
NEWTS1.0: Numerical model of coastal Erosion by Waves and Transgressive Scarps
Rose Elizabeth Palermo, J. Taylor Perron, Jason M. Soderblom, Samuel P. D. Birch, Alexander G. Hayes, Andrew D. Ashton
2024, Geoscientific Model Development (17) 3433-3445
Models of rocky-coast erosion help us understand the physical phenomena that control coastal morphology and evolution, infer the processes shaping coasts in remote environments, and evaluate risk from natural hazards and future climate change. Existing models, however, are highly complex, are computationally expensive, and depend on many input parameters; this...
Simulation of hydrodynamics and water temperature in a 21-mile reach of the upper Illinois River, Illinois, 2020–22
Michael R. Ament, David C. Heimann
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5025
This report describes the development of a CE-QUAL-W2 river hydrodynamics and temperature model of a 21-mile reach of the Illinois River including a 3-mile reach of a major tributary, the Fox River. Model outputs consist of streamflow, water velocity, water-surface elevation, and water-temperature time series that can be used to...
Challenges creating monarch butterfly management strategies for electric power companies in the United States
Jessica Fox, Kasey Allen, James E. Diffendorfer, Laura Lukens, Wayne E. Thogmartin, Christian Newman
2024, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (12)
Returning monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) to sustainable levels of abundance will require an array of contributors to protect and restore habitat over broad areas. Due to the diversity and scale of land managed by electric power companies across the monarch range, plus an additional 32 million hectares needed for new...
Global mercury concentrations in biota: Their use as a basis for a global biomonitoring framework
David C. Evers, Josh T. Ackerman, Staffan Akerblom, Dominique Bally, Niladri Basu, Kevin Bishop, Nathalie Bodin, Hans Fredrik Veitberg Braaten, Mark Burton, Paco Bustamante, Celia Y. Chen, John Chetelat, Linroy Christian, Rune Dietz, Paul Drevnick, Collin A. Eagles-Smith, Luis Fernandez, Neil Hammerschlag, Mireille Harmelin-Vivien, Agustin Harte, Eva Kruemmel, Jose Lailson-Brito, Gabriella Medina, Cesar Rodriguez, Iain Stenhouse, Elsie M. Sunderland, Akinori Takeuchi, Timothy Tear, Claudia Vega, Simon Wilson, Pianpian Wu
2024, Ecotoxicology (33) 325-396
An important provision of the Minamata Convention on Mercury is to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the adopted measures and its implementation. Here, we describe for the first time currently available biotic mercury (Hg) data on a global scale to improve the understanding of global efforts to reduce the...
