Historical changes in New York State streamflow: Attribution of temporal shifts and spatial patterns from 1961 to 2016
Robin Glas, Douglas A. Burns, Laura K. Lautz
2019, Journal of Hydrology (574) 308-323
To better understand the effects of climate change on streamflow, the hydrologic response to both temperature and precipitation needs to be examined at the mesoscale. New York State provides a hydrologically diverse mesoscale region, where sub-regional clusters of watersheds may respond...
Kinetic study on clogging of a geothermal pumping well triggered by mixing-induced biogeochemical reactions
Luc Burte, Charles A. Cravotta III, Lorine Bethencourt, Julien Farasin, Mathieu Pedrot, Alexis Dufresne, Marie-Francoise Gerard, Catherine Baranger, Tanguy Le Borgne, Luc Aquilina
2019, Environmental Science & Technology (53) 5848-5857
The sustainability of ground-source geothermal systems can be severely impacted by microbially mediated clogging processes. Biofouling of water wells by hydrous ferric oxide is a widespread problem. Although the mechanisms and critical environmental factors associated with clogging development are widely recognized, effects of mixing processes within the wells and time...
Hydrologic Influences on Water Levels at Three Oaks Recreation Area, Crystal Lake, Illinois, April 14 through September 27, 2016
Amy M. Gahala
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2018-5105
Hydrologic influences on water levels were investigated at Three Oaks Recreation Area (TORA), a former sand-and-gravel quarry converted into recreational lakes in Crystal Lake, Illinois. From 2009 to 2015, average water levels in the lakes declined nearly 4 feet. It was not clear if these declines were related to variations...
Global virtual water trade and the hydrological cycle: Patterns, drivers, and socio-environmental impacts
Paolo D’Odorico, Joel A. Carr, Carole Dalin, Jampel Dell’Angelo, Megan Konar, Francesco Laio, Luca Ridolfi, Lorenzo Rosa, Samir Suweis, Stefania Tamea, Marta Tuninetti
2019, Environmental Research Letters (14)
The increasing global demand for farmland products is placing unprecedented pressure on the global agricultural system and its water resources. Many regions of the world, that are affected by a chronic water scarcity relative to their population, strongly depend on the import of agricultural commodities and associated embodied (or virtual)...
Formation of pedestalled, relict lakes on the McMurdo Ice Shelf, Antarctica
Grant J MacDonald, Alison F Banwell, Ian C Willis, David Mayer, Becky Goodsell, Douglas R MacAyeal
2019, Journal of Glaciology 1-7
Surface debris covers much of the western portion of the McMurdo Ice Shelf and has a strong influence on the local surface albedo and energy balance. Differential ablation between debris-covered and debris-free areas creates an unusual heterogeneous surface of topographically low, high-ablation,...
Streamflow Gain and Loss, Hydrograph Separation, and Water Quality of Abandoned Mine Lands in the Daniel Boone National Forest, Eastern Kentucky, 2015–17
Mac A. Cherry
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5006
During 2015–17, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service (Forest Service), carried out a study to characterize the hydrology and water chemistry in two study areas within the Daniel Boone National Forest. One study area was within the Rock Creek drainage and the...
The dependence of hydroclimate projections in snow‐dominated regions of the western United States on the choice of statistically downscaled climate data
Jay R. Alder, Steven W. Hostetler
2019, Water Resources Research (55) 2279-2300
We assess monthly temperature and precipitation data produced by four statistically based techniques that were used to downscale general circulation models (GCMs) in the Climate Model Intercomparison Program Phase 5 (CMIP5) (Taylor et al., 2012). We drive a simple water-balance model with the downscaled data to demonstrate the effect of...
Geomorphic change and biogeomorphic feedbacks in a dryland river: The Little Colorado River, Arizona, USA
David J. Dean, David J. Topping
2019, GSA Bulletin
The Little Colorado River in Arizona, U.S.A. has undergone substantial geomorphic change since the early 1900s. We analyzed hydrologic and geomorphic data at different spatial and temporal scales to determine the type, magnitude, and rate of geomorphic change that has occurred since the early 20th century. Since the 1920s, there...
Calibration of Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS) to simulate prefire and postfire hydrologic response in the upper Rio Hondo Basin, New Mexico
Kyle R. Douglas-Mankin, C. David Moeser
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5022
The Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS) is widely used to simulate the effects of climate, topography, land cover, and soils on landscape-level hydrologic responses and streamflow. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, developed procedures to apply the PRMS model...
Wildfire as a catalyst for hydrologic and geomorphic change
Francis K. Rengers
2019, Environmental Science
Wildfire has been a constant presence on the Earth since at least the Silurian period, and is a landscape-scale catalyst that results in a step-change perturbation for hydrologic systems, which ripples across burned terrain, shaping the geomorphic legacy of watersheds. Specifically, wildfire alters two key landscape properties: (1) overland flow,...
Arctic vegetation, temperature, and hydrology during Early Eocene transient global warming events
Debra A. Willard, Timme H Donders, Tammo Reichgelt, David R Greenwood, Francien Peterse, Francesca Sangiorgi, Appy Sluijs, Stefan Schouten
2019, Global and Planetary Change (178) 139-152
Early Eocene global climate was warmer than much of the Cenozoic and was punctuated by a series of transient warming events or ‘hyperthermals’ associated with carbon isotope excursions when temperature increased by 4–8° C. The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM, ~55 Ma) and Eocene Thermal Maximum 2 (ETM2, 53.5 Ma) hyperthermals...
Drivers and impacts of water level fluctuations in the Mississippi River delta: Implications for delta restoration
Matthew R. Hiatt, Gregg Snedden, John W. Day, Robert V. Rohli, John A. Nyman, Robert R. Lane, Leigh A. Sharp
2019, Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science (224) 117-137
This review synthesizes the knowledge regarding the environmental forces affecting water level variability in the coastal waters of the Mississippi River delta and relates these fluctuations to planned river diversions. Water level fluctuations vary significantly across temporal and spatial scales, and are subject to influences from river flow, tides, vegetation,...
Adaptive management of flows from R.L. Harris Dam (Tallapoosa River, Alabama)—Stakeholder process and use of biological monitoring data for decision making
Elise R. Irwin, Mary Freeman, James Peterson, Kathryn D.M. Kennedy, M. Clint Lloyd, Kristie M. Ouellette Coffman, Ely Kosnicki, Tom Hess
Elise R. Irwin, editor(s)
2019, Open-File Report 2019-1026
Adaptive management has been applied to problems with multiple conflicting objectives in various natural resources settings to learn how management actions affect divergent values regarding system response. Hydropower applications have only recently begun to emerge in the field, yet in the specific example reported herein, stakeholders invested in determining the...
It’s about time: A synthesis of changing phenology in the Gulf of Maine ecosystem
Michelle Staudinger, Katherine E. Mills, Karen Stamieszkin, Nicholas R. Record, Christine A. Hudak, Andrew Allyn, Antony Diamond, Kevin Friedland, Walt Golet, Elisabeth Henderson, Christina M. Hernandez, Thomas G. Huntington, Rubao Ji, Catherine L. Johnson, David Samuel Johnson, Adrian Jordaan, John Kocik, Yun Li, Matthew Liebman, Owen C. Nichols, Daniel Pendleton, R. Anne Richards, Thomas Robben, Andrew C. Thomas, Harvey J. Walsh, Keenan Yakola
2019, Fisheries Oceanography (28) 532-566
The timing of recurring biological and seasonal environmental events is changing on a global scale relative to temperature and other climate drivers. This study considers the Gulf of Maine ecosystem, a region of high social and ecological importance in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean and synthesizes current knowledge of 1) key...
Techniques for estimating the magnitude and frequency of peak flows on small streams in the binational U.S. and Canadian Lake of the Woods–Rainy River Basin upstream from Kenora, Ontario, Canada, based on data through water year 2013
Chris Sanocki, Tara Williams-Sether, Peter A. Steeves, Victoria G. Christensen
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5012
A binational study was initiated to update statistical equations that are used to estimate the magnitude and frequency of peak flows on streams in Manitoba and Ontario, Canada, and Minnesota that are contained within the binational Lake of the Woods–Rainy River Basin upstream from Kenora, Ontario, Canada. Hydraulic engineers use...
Selected water-quality data from the Cedar River and Cedar Rapids well fields, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 2008–17
Shannon M. Meppelink, Erin A. Stelzer, Emilia L. Bristow, Gregory R. Littin
2019, Data Series 1110
The Cedar River alluvial aquifer is the primary source of municipal water in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Municipal wells are completed in the alluvial aquifer about 40 to 80 feet below land surface. The City of Cedar Rapids and the U.S. Geological Survey have led a cooperative study of the groundwater-flow...
Seasonal patterns in hydrochemical mixing in three Great Lakes rivermouth ecosystems
Martha Carlson-Mazur, Jeff Schaeffer, Jennifer E. Granneman, Natalie Goldstrohm, Faith A. Fitzpatrick, James H. Larson, Paul Reneau, Kurt P. Kowalski, Paul W. Seelbach
2019, Journal of Great Lakes Research (45) 651-663
Rivermouth ecosystems in the Laurentian Great Lakes represent complex hydrologic mixing zones where lake and river water combine to form biologically productive areas that are functionally similar to marine estuaries. As urban, industrial, shipping, and recreational centers, rivermouths are the focus of human interactions with the Great Lakes and, likewise,...
GRACE storage change characteristics (2003–2016) over major surface basins and principal aquifers in the Conterminous United States
Naga Manohar Velpuri, Gabriel Senay, Jessica M. Driscoll, Samuel Saxe, Lauren E. Hay, William H. Farmer, Julie E. Kiang
2019, Remote Sensing (936) 1-22
In this research, we characterized the changes in Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment’s (GRACE) monthly total water storage anomaly (TWSA) in 18 surface basins and 12 principal aquifers in the Conterminous United States (CONUS) over 2003–2016. Regions with high variability in storage were identified. Ten basins and 4 aquifers showed...
Use of a Numerical Model to Simulate the Hydrologic System and Transport of Contaminants Near Joint Base Cape Cod, Western Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Donald A. Walter, Timothy D. McCobb, Michael N. Fienen
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2018-5139
Historical training and operational activities at Joint Base Cape Cod (JBCC) on western Cape Cod, Massachusetts, have resulted in the release of contaminants into an underlying glacial aquifer that is the sole source of water to the surrounding communities. Remedial systems have been installed to contain and remove contamination from...
Drought forecasting for streams and groundwaters in northeastern United States
Samuel H. Austin, Robert W. Dudley
2019, Fact Sheet 2019-3015
BackgroundWhen rainfall is lower than normal over an extended period, streamflows decline, groundwater levels fall, and hydrological drought can occur. Droughts can reduce the water available for societal needs, such as public and private drinking-water supplies, farming, and industry, and for ecological health, such as maintenance of water quality and...
Water-level data for the Albuquerque Basin and adjacent areas, central New Mexico, period of record through September 30, 2017
Joseph E. Beman, Andre B. Ritchie, Amy E. Galanter
2019, Data Series 1113
The Albuquerque Basin, located in central New Mexico, is about 100 miles long and 25–40 miles wide. The basin is hydrologically defined as the extent of consolidated and unconsolidated deposits of Tertiary and Quaternary age that encompasses the structural Rio Grande Rift between San Acacia to the south and Cochiti...
Monitoring the Riverine Pulse: Applying high-frequency nitrate data to advance integrative understanding of biogeochemical and hydrological processes
Douglas A. Burns, Brian A. Pellerin, Matthew P. Miller, Paul Capel, Anthony J. Tesoriero, Jonathan M. Duncan
2019, WIREs Water
Widespread deployment of sensors that measure river nitrate (NO3-) concentrations has led to many recent publications in water resources journals including review papers focused on data quality assurance, improved load calculations, and better nutrient management. The principal objective of this paper is to review and synthesize studies of high-frequency NO3-...
Monitoring storm tide and flooding from Hurricane Irma along the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Southeastern United States, September 2017
Michael J. Byrne Sr., Mark R. Dickman
2019, Open-File Report 2019-1013
Hurricane Irma skirted the northern coasts of the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, with maximum sustained winds of 185 miles per hour (mi/h) on September 6, 2017. The hurricane first made landfall in Florida near Cudjoe Key, in the lower Florida Keys, with maximum sustained winds of 130 mi/h...
Modelling development of riparian ranchlands using ecosystem services at the Aravaipa Watershed, SE Arizona
Laura Norman, Miguel L. Villarreal, Rewati Niraula, Mark Haberstich, Natalie Wilson
2019, Land (8)
This paper describes how subdivision and development of rangelands within a remote and celebrated semiarid watershed near the US-Mexico border might affect multiple ecohydrological services provided, such as recharge of the aquifer, water and sediment yield, water quality, flow rates and downstream cultural and natural resources. Specifically, we apply an...
Can multi-element fingerprinting of soils inform assessments of chemical connectivity between depressional wetlands?
Xiaoyan Zhu, Yuxiang Yuan, David M. Mushet, Marinus L. Otte
2019, Wetlands (39) 1015-1027
The question of wetland connectivity is particularly relevant regarding depressional wetlands because these wetlands often seem to be “isolated” from other wetlands on a landscape. In this study, multi-element fingerprinting of soils was used to assess similarity in element composition of depressional-wetland soils as a measure of wetland connectivity. We...
