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Introduction The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Bee Lab is a collaborative interagency joint venture and international leader for bee (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) identification, survey design, quantification of bee and plant interrelations, and development and maintenance of occurrence databases. Each of these objectives supports native bee conservation by providing critical data and tools...

IntroductionThe Delaware River Basin provides drinking water to 13.3 million people and supports endangered species, provides recreational opportunities, and is an essential resource to regional industries. The efforts of Federal and State governments have substantially improved overall water quality in the basin, which had been severely degraded prior to...

Title VII of Division N in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (Public Law 117–328), was enacted on December 29, 2022. The U.S. Geological Survey received $41.04 million in disaster emergency supplemental funding for repairing and replacing facilities and equipment, collecting high-resolution elevation data in affected areas, and completing scientific assessments...

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean conventional resources of 7.3 billion barrels of oil and 463.7 trillion cubic feet of gas within the Barents Sea area....

Washington State has a geographically diverse and spectacular landscape that is divided to the east and west by the largely volcanic mountains of the Cascade Range. Approximately 88 percent of the population lives in western Washington, mostly in urban areas. The climate is varied, with high precipitation and seasonal flooding...

Reliable flood-frequency estimates are important for hydraulic structure design and floodplain management in Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Annual peak streamflows (hereafter, referred to as peak flows) measured at 965 U.S. Geological Survey streamgages were used to compute flood-frequency estimates with annual exceedance probabilities (AEPs) of 50, 20, 10,...

Introduction The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) serves a principal role in conducting wildlife disease outbreak investigations, surveillance, and ecological research to support management of diseases in free-ranging native wildlife. Approximately 60 percent of emerging human infectious diseases such as COVID-19, are zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted between animals and humans and...

IntroductionPAD-US provides a comprehensive geospatial database of protected and managed areas in the United States. We assemble known protected areas whose primary purpose is biodiversity conservation, as well as lands and waters that provide public access to nature. As a National Geospatial Data Asset (https://ngda-portfolio-community-geoplatform. hub.arcgis.com/), the PAD-US database (https://www.usgs.gov/programs/gap-analysis-project/science/protected-areas)...

The U.S. Geological Survey and The Nature Conservancy previously collaborated to evaluate changes and trends in the concentrations and flux of nutrients (total phosphorus, as phosphorus; nitrate plus nitrite, as nitrogen; and total Kjeldahl nitrogen, as nitrogen) and total suspended solids (TSS) at three study gages located on the upper...

Landsat Collection 2 (C2) U.S. Analysis Ready Data (U.S. ARD) are bundles of tiled Landsat data that make the Landsat archive easier to analyze and reduce the amount of time users spend on data processing for time-series analysis. Landsat C2 was released in 2020 and includes improvements over Landsat Collection...

The Blackfeet Nation seeks an increased scientific understanding of the water resources within the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of northwestern Montana. Hydrologic information is needed to better inform water-management decisions as the Blackfeet Nation implements the Blackfeet Water Rights Compact, initiates new water-use projects, and improves the Blackfeet Irrigation Project.The U.S....

Nuisance levels of benthic algae are becoming increasingly common in surface waters of the western United States and can compromise aesthetic quality, limit recreational activities, block water infrastructure, and negatively affect aquatic life. In cooperation with the White River and Douglas Creek Conservation Districts, the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control...

Des Moines Water Works (DMWW) is one of the largest water providers in Iowa and as population growth continues, demand for drinking water is increasing. DMWW uses groundwater and surface water as raw water sources to supply the City of Des Moines and surrounding communities. In response to current and...

Introduction As the United States transitions away from fossil fuels, its economy will rely on more renewable energy. Because current renewable energy sources sometimes produce variable power supplies, it is important to store energy for use when power supply drops below power demand. Battery storage is one method to store power....

IntroductionFloods are one of the most frequent and expensive natural disasters that occur across the United States. Rapid, high-water events that occur in local areas—flash floods—are especially difficult for emergency managers to predict and provide advance warning to the public, and insufficient data can hamper postflood recovery efforts. Central Texas...

Introduction The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) launched the Earth Mapping Resources Initiative (Earth MRI) to modernize the surface and subsurface geologic mapping of the United States, with a focus on identifying areas that may have the potential to contain critical mineral resources. EarthMRI can inform strategies to ensure secure and reliable...

“The Bay Connects us, the Bay reflects us” writes Tom Horton in the book “Turning the Tide—Saving the Chesapeake Bay”. The Chesapeake Bay watershed contains the largest estuary in the United States. The watershed stretches north to Cooperstown, New York, south to Lynchburg and Virginia Beach, Virginia, west to Pendleton...

IntroductionThe U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is initiating a study approach focused on building cross-disciplinary connections to weave together the scientific knowledge related to drought conditions and effects in the Colorado River Basin. The basin is experiencing the worst drought in recorded history, posing unprecedented new challenges in the basin and...

The Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection (RCMAP) project quantifies the percentage cover of rangeland components across the western United States using Landsat imagery from 1985 to 2021. The RCMAP product suite consists of nine fractional components: annual herbaceous, bare ground, herbaceous, litter, nonsagebrush shrub, perennial herbaceous, sagebrush, shrub, and...

Introduction The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Civil Applications Center (NCAC) analyzes remote-sensing data from the Intelligence Community (IC) and the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to support public safety missions and to study land-surface and environmental changes. The NCAC provides remotely sensed images to USGS scientists and other civilian Federal...

Introduction Detailed geologic maps are the basis of most earth science investigations and can be used for natural hazard mitigation, resource identification and exploration, infrastructure planning, and more. As a part of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) congressionally mandated National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program (NCGMP), the EDMAP program (referred to as...

Unconventional oil and gas development that uses horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing is rapidly changing the landscape and exponentially increasing oil production within the Williston Basin, especially in North Dakota and eastern Montana. The activities associated with unconventional oil and gas development are complex and wide reaching and include, in...

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean resources of 321 million barrels of shale oil and 435 billion cubic feet of shale gas in the Lower Saxony Basin, Germany....

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has continuously monitored real-time water quality and suspended-sediment transport in San Francisco Bay (the Bay) since 1989 as part of a multi-agency effort (see “Acknowledgments” section) to address estuary management, water supply, and ecological concerns. The San Francisco Bay area is home to millions of...

The Landsat Collection 2 Level-3 Fractional Snow Covered Area science product indicates the percentage of pixels covered by snow for Landsat 4–9 imagery. Landsat’s spatial resolution offers the capability to map snow cover patterns across topographically complex mountainous regions. Snow cover is spatially and temporally variable and is often concentrated...