The water-quality monitoring program for the Baltimore reservoir system, 1981-2007—Description, review and evaluation, and framework integration for enhanced monitoring
Michael T. Koterba, Marcus C. Waldron, Tamara E.C. Kraus
2011, Scientific Investigations Report 2011-5101
The City of Baltimore, Maryland, and parts of five surrounding counties obtain their water from Loch Raven and Liberty Reservoirs. A third reservoir, Prettyboy, is used to resupply Loch Raven Reservoir. Management of the watershed conditions for each reservoir is a shared responsibility by agreement among City, County, and State...
Bathymetry and acoustic backscatter: Elwha River Delta, Washington
David P. Finlayson, Ian M. Miller, Jonathan A. Warrick
2011, Open-File Report 2011-1226
Between February 22 and March 3, 2010, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center (PCMSC), acquired bathymetry and acoustic-backscatter data from the Elwha River Delta, Strait of Juan de Fuca, Washington, under PCMSC Field Activity ID S-6-10-PS. Three ancillary surveys were conducted when sea...
Refinement and evaluation of the Massachusetts firm-yield estimator model version 2.0
Sara B. Levin, Stacey A. Archfield, Andrew J. Massey
2011, Scientific Investigations Report 2011-5125
The firm yield is the maximum average daily withdrawal that can be extracted from a reservoir without risk of failure during an extended drought period. Previously developed procedures for determining the firm yield of a reservoir were refined and applied to 38 reservoir systems in Massachusetts, including 25 single- and...
Hydrogeology and simulation of groundwater flow in the Arbuckle-Simpson aquifer, south-central Oklahoma
Scott Christenson, Noel I. Osborn, Christopher R. Neel, Jason R. Faith, Charles D. Blome, James Puckette, Michael P. Pantea
2011, Scientific Investigations Report 2011-5029
The Arbuckle-Simpson aquifer in south-central Oklahoma provides water for public supply, farms, mining, wildlife conservation, recreation, and the scenic beauty of springs, streams, and waterfalls. Proposed development of water supplies from the aquifer led to concerns that large-scale withdrawals of water would cause decreased flow in rivers and springs, which...
Recent (2008-10) water quality in the Barton Springs segment of the Edwards aquifer and its contributing zone, central Texas, with emphasis on factors affecting nutrients and bacteria
Barbara Mahler, MaryLynn Musgrove, Thomas L. Sample, Corinne I. Wong
2011, Scientific Investigations Report 2011-5139
The Barton Springs zone, which comprises the Barton Springs segment of the Edwards aquifer and the watersheds to the west that contribute to its recharge, is in south-central Texas, an area with rapid growth in population and increasing amounts of land area affected by development. During November 2008-March 2010, an...
Water-quality monitoring for a pilot piling removal field evaluation, Coal Creek Slough, Washington, 2008-09
Elena B. Nilsen, David A. Alvarez
2011, Open-File Report 2011-1233
Significant Findings Water and sediment quality monitoring was conducted before and after the removal of a piling field located in Coal Creek Slough near Longview, Washington. Passive chemical samplers and continuous water-quality monitoring instruments were deployed at the piling removal site, Coal Creek Slough Site 1 (CCS1), and at a comparison...
Capacitively coupled resistivity survey of the levee surrounding the Omaha Public Power District Nebraska City Power Plant, June 2011
Bethany L. Burton, James C. Cannia
2011, Open-File Report 2011-1211
This report is a release of digital data from a capacitively coupled resistivity survey conducted on June 13, 2011, on the flood-protection levees surrounding the Omaha Public Power District Nebraska City power plant. The U.S. Geological Survey Crustal Geophysics and Geochemistry Science Center and the Nebraska Water Science Center performed...
Nitrogen uptake by the shoots of smooth cordgrass Spartina alterniflora
T. J. Mozdzer, M. Kirwan, K. J. McGlathery, J. C. Zieman
2011, Marine Ecology Progress Series (433) 43-52
The smooth cordgrass Spartina alterniflora is the foundation species in intertidal salt marshes of the North American Atlantic coast. Depending on its elevation within the marsh, S. alterniflora may be submerged for several hours per day. Previous ecosystem-level studies have demonstrated that S. alterniflora marshes are a net sink for...
Native fish conservation areas: A vision for large-scale conservation of native fish communities
Jack E. Williams, Richard N. Williams, Russell F. Thurow, Leah Elwell, David P. Philipp, Fred A. Harris, Jeffrey L. Kershner, Patrick J. Martinez, Dirk Miller, Gordon H. Reeves, Christopher A. Frissell, James R. Sedell
2011, Fisheries (36) 267-277
The status of freshwater fishes continues to decline despite substantial conservation efforts to reverse this trend and recover threatened and endangered aquatic species. Lack of success is partially due to working at smaller spatial scales and focusing on habitats and species that are already degraded. Protecting entire watersheds and aquatic...
Coastal habitats of the Elwha River, Washington- Biological and physical patterns and processes prior to dam removal
Jeffrey J. Duda, Jonathan A. Warrick, Christopher S. Magirl
2011, Scientific Investigations Report 2011-5120
This report includes chapters that summarize the results of multidisciplinary studies to quantify and characterize the current (2011) status and baseline conditions of the lower Elwha River, its estuary, and the adjacent nearshore ecosystems prior to the historic removal of two long-standing dams that have strongly influenced river, estuary, and...
A multi-year analysis of passage and survival at McNary Dam, 2004-09
Noah S. Adams, C. E. Walker, R.W. Perry
2011, Open-File Report 2011-1230
We analyzed 6 years (2004–09) of passage and survival data collected at McNary Dam to determine how dam operations and environmental conditions affect passage and survival of juvenile salmonids. A multinomial logistic regression was used to examine how environmental variables and dam operations relate to passage behavior of juvenile salmonids...
Relations between hydrology, water quality, and taste-and-odor causing organisms and compounds in Lake Houston, Texas, April 2006-September 2008
Amy M. Beussink, Jennifer L. Graham
2011, Scientific Investigations Report 2011-5121
Lake Houston is a surface-water-supply reservoir and an important recreational resource for the city of Houston, Texas. Growing concerns over water quality in Lake Houston prompted a detailed assessment of water quality in the reservoir. The assessment focused on water-quality constituents that affect the aesthetic quality of drinking water. The...
Elwha River dam removal-Rebirth of a river
Jeffrey J. Duda, Jonathan A. Warrick, Christopher S. Magirl
2011, Fact Sheet 2011-3097
After years of planning for the largest project of its kind, the Department of the Interior will begin removal of two dams on the Elwha River, Washington, in September 2011. For nearly 100 years, the Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams have disrupted natural processes, trapping sediment in the reservoirs and...
No population genetic structure in a widespread aquatic songbird from the Neotropics
Carlos Daniel Cadena, Natalia Gutierrez-Pinto, Nicolas Davila, R. Terry Chesser
2011, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution (58) 540-545
Neotropical lowland organisms often show marked population genetic structure, suggesting restricted migration among populations. However, most phylogeographic studies have focused on species inhabiting humid forest interior. Little attention has been devoted to the study of species with ecologies conducive to dispersal, such as those of more open and variable environments...
Nematomorph parasites drive energy flow through a riparian ecosystem
Takuya Sato, Katsutoshi Watanabe, Minoru Kanaiwa, Yasuaki Niizuma, Yasushi Harada, Kevin D. Lafferty
2011, Ecology (92) 201-207
Parasites are ubiquitous in natural systems and ecosystem‐level effects should be proportional to the amount of biomass or energy flow altered by the parasites. Here we quantified the extent to which a manipulative parasite altered the flow of energy through a forest‐stream ecosystem. In a Japanese headwater stream, camel crickets...
Investigation of pier scour in coarse-bed streams in Montana, 2001 through 2007
Stephen R. Holnbeck
2011, Scientific Investigations Report 2011-5107
A primary goal of ongoing field research of bridge scour is improvement of scour-prediction equations so that pier-scour depth is predicted accurately-an important element of hydraulic analysis and design of highway bridges that cross streams, rivers, and other waterways. Scour depth for piers in streambeds with a mixture of sand,...
Geomorphic and ecological effects of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on coastal Louisiana marsh communities
Sarai C. Piazza, Gregory D. Steyer, Kari F. Cretini, Charles E. Sasser, Jenneke M. Visser, Guerry O. Holm, Leigh A. Sharp, D. Elaine Evers, John R. Meriwether
2011, Open-File Report 2011-1094
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita made landfall in 2005, subjecting the coastal marsh communities of Louisiana to various degrees of exposure. We collected data after the storms at 30 sites within fresh (12), brackish/intermediate (12), and saline (6) marshes to document the effects of saltwater storm surge and sedimentation on marsh...
Analyses of potential factors affecting survival of juvenile salmonids volitionally passing through turbines at McNary and John Day Dams, Columbia River
John Beeman, Hal Hansel, Russell Perry, Eric Hockersmith, Ben Sandford
2011, Open-File Report 2011-1227
This report describes analyses of data from radio- or acoustic-tagged juvenile salmonids passing through hydro-dam turbines to determine factors affecting fish survival. The data were collected during a series of studies designed to estimate passage and survival probabilities at McNary (2002-09) and John Day (2002-03) Dams on the Columbia River...
Largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) and striped mullet (Mugil cephalus) as vectors of contaminants to human consumers in northwest Florida
Natalie K. Karouna-Renier, Richard A. Snyder, Ted Lange, Suzanne Gibson, Jeffrey G. Allison, Matthew E. Wagner, K. Ranga Rao
2011, Marine Environmental Research (72) 96-104
The health benefits of regular consumption of fish and seafood have been espoused for many years. However, fish are also a potential source of environmental contaminants that have well known adverse effects on human health. We investigated the consumption risks for largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides; n = 104) and striped mullet (Mugil cephalus; n = 170),...
Evolution of redox processes in groundwater
Peter B. McMahon, Francis H. Chapelle, Paul M. Bradley
Paul Tratnyek, Timothy J. Grundl, Stefan B. Haderlein, editor(s)
2011, Book chapter, Aquatic redox chemistry
No abstract available....
Simulation of branched serial first-order decay of atrazine and metabolites in adapted and nonadapted soils
Richard M. Webb, Mark W. Sandstrom, L. Jason Krutz, Dale L. Shaner
2011, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (30) 1973-1981
In the present study a branched serial first-order decay (BSFOD) model is presented and used to derive transformation rates describing the decay of a common herbicide, atrazine, and its metabolites observed in unsaturated soils adapted to previous atrazine applications and in soils with no history of atrazine applications. Calibration of...
Peat formation processes through the millennia in tidal marshes of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, California, USA
Judith Z. Drexler
2011, Estuaries and Coasts (34) 900-911
The purpose of this study was to determine peat formation processes throughout the millennia in four tidal marshes in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Peat cores collected at each site were analyzed for bulk density, loss on ignition, and percent organic carbon. Core data and spline fit age-depth models were used...
Small-scale sediment transport patterns and bedform morphodynamics: New insights from high resolution multibeam bathymetry
Patrick L. Barnard, Li H. Erikson, Rikk G. Kvitek
2011, Geo-Marine Letters (31) 227-236
New multibeam echosounder and processing technologies yield sub-meter-scale bathymetric resolution, revealing striking details of bedform morphology that are shaped by complex boundary-layer flow dynamics at a range of spatial and temporal scales. An inertially aided post processed kinematic (IAPPK) technique generates a smoothed best estimate trajectory (SBET) solution to tie...
The Holocene history of Nares Strait: Transition from glacial bay to Arctic-Atlantic throughflow
Anne E. Jennings, Christina Sheldon, Thomas M. Cronin, Pierre Francus, Joseph Stoner, John Andrews
2011, Oceanography (24) 26-41
Retreat of glacier ice from Nares Strait and other straits in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago after the end of the last Ice Age initiated an important connection between the Arctic and the North Atlantic Oceans, allowing development of modern ocean circulation in Baffin Bay and the Labrador Sea. As low-salinity,...
Microhabitat associations of a semi-terrestrial fish, Kryptolebias marmoratus (Poey 1880) in a mosquito-ditched mangrove forest, west-central Florida
Travis M. Richards, Justin M. Krebs, Carole C. McIvor
2011, Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology (401) 48-56
Mangrove rivulus (Kryptolebias marmoratus) is one of the few species of fish that is semi-terrestrial and able to use exposed intertidal and potentially supratidal habitats for prolonged periods of time. Based on previous work demonstrating frequent use of subterranean crab burrows as well as damp leaf litter and logs, we...
