LAGOS-NE: a multi-scaled geospatial and temporal database of lake ecological context and water quality for thousands of US lakes
Patricia A. Soranno, Linda C. Bacon, Michael Beauchene, Karen E. Bednar, Edward G. Bissell, Claire K. Boudreau, Marvin G. Boyer, Mary T. Bremigan, Stephen R. Carpenter, Jamie W. Carr, Kendra S. Cheruvelil, Samuel T. Christel, Matt Claucherty, Sarah M. Collins, Joseph D. Conroy, John A. Downing, Jed Dukett, C. Emi Fergus, Christopher T. Filstrup, Clara Funk, Maria J. Gonzalez, Linda T. Green, Corinna Gries, John D. Halfman, Stephen K. Hamilton, Paul C. Hanson, Emily N. Henry, Elizabeth M. Herron, Celeste Hockings, James R. Jackson, Kari Jacobson-Hedin, Lorraine L. Janus, William W. Jones, John R. Jones, Caroline M. Keson, Katelyn B.S. King, Scott A. Kishbaugh, Jean-Francois Lapierre, Barbara Lathrop, Jo A. Latimore, Yuehlin Lee, Noah R. Lottig, Jason A. Lynch, Leslie J. Matthews, William H. McDowell, Karen E.B. Moore, Brian Neff, Sarah J. Nelson, Samantha K. Oliver, Michael L. Pace, Donald C. Pierson, Autumn C. Poisson, Amina I. Pollard, David M. Post, Paul O. Reyes, Donald Rosenberry, Karen M. Roy, Lars G. Rudstam, Orlando Sarnelle, Nancy J. Schuldt, Caren E. Scott, Nicholas K. Skaff, Nicole J. Smith, Nick R. Spinelli, Joseph J. Stachelek, Emily H. Stanley, John L. Stoddard, Scott B. Stopyak, Craig A. Stow, Jason M. Tallant, Pang-Ning Tan, Anthony P. Thorpe, Michael J. Vanni, Tyler Wagner, Gretchen Watkins, Kathleen C. Weathers, Katherine E. Webster, Jeffrey D. White, Marcy K. Wilmes, Shuai Yuan
2017, GigaScience (6) 1-22
Understanding the factors that affect water quality and the ecological services provided by freshwater ecosystems is an urgent global environmental issue. Predicting how water quality will respond to global changes not only requires water quality data, but also information about the ecological context of individual water bodies across broad spatial...
Water-resources and land-surface deformation evaluation studies at Fort Irwin National Training Center, Mojave Desert, California
Jill N. Densmore, Justine E. Dishart, David M. Miller, David C. Buesch, Lyndsay B. Ball, Paul A. Bedrosian, Linda R. Woolfenden, Geoffrey Cromwell, Matthew K. Burgess, Joseph Nawikas, David O’Leary, Adam Kjos, Michelle Sneed, Justin T. Brandt
2017, Conference Paper, 2017 Desert Symposium Field Guide and Proceedings - ECSZ does it: Revisiting the eastern California Shear Zone
The U.S. Army Fort Irwin National Training Center (NTC), in the Mojave Desert, obtains all of its potable water supply from three groundwater basins (Irwin, Langford, and Bicycle) within the NTC boundaries (fig. 1; California Department of Water Resources, 2003). Because of increasing water demands at the NTC, the U.S....
Combining remote sensing and water-balance evapotranspiration estimates for the conterminous United States
Meredith Reitz, Gabriel B. Senay, Ward E. Sanford
2017, Remote Sensing (9)
Evapotranspiration (ET) is a key component of the hydrologic cycle, accounting for ~70% of precipitation in the conterminous U.S. (CONUS), but it has been a challenge to predict accurately across different spatio-temporal scales. The increasing availability of remotely sensed data has led to significant advances in the frequency and spatial...
Progress and lessons learned from water-quality monitoring networks
Donna N. Myers, Amy S. Ludtke
2017, Book chapter, The science behind sustaining the world's most crucial resource
Stream-quality monitoring networks in the United States were initiated and expanded after passage of successive federal water-pollution control laws from 1948 to 1972. The first networks addressed information gaps on the extent and severity of stream pollution and served as early warning systems for spills. From 1965 to 1972, monitoring...
Estimating discharge and nonpoint source nitrate loading to streams from three end‐member pathways using high‐frequency water quality data
Matthew P. Miller, Anthony J. Tesoriero, Krista Hood, Silvia Terziotti, David M. Wolock
2017, Water Resources Research (53) 10201-10216
The myriad hydrologic and biogeochemical processes taking place in watersheds occurring across space and time are integrated and reflected in the quantity and quality of water in streams and rivers. Collection of high‐frequency water quality data with sensors in surface waters provides new opportunities to disentangle these processes and quantify...
Bedrock geology and hydrostratigraphy of the Edwards and Trinity aquifers within the Driftwood and Wimberley 7.5-minute quadrangles, Hays and Comal Counties, Texas
Allan K. Clark, Robert R. Morris
2017, Scientific Investigations Map 3386
The Edwards and Trinity aquifers are major sources of water in south-central Texas and are both classified as major aquifers by the State of Texas. The population in Hays and Comal Counties is rapidly growing, increasing demands on the area’s water resources. To help effectively manage the water resources in...
Comparing catchment hydrologic response to a regional storm using specific conductivity sensors
Ashley Inserillo, Mark B. Green, James B. Shanley, Joseph Boyer
2017, Hydrological Processes (31) 1074-1085
A better understanding of stormwater generation and solute sources is needed to improve the protection of aquatic ecosystems, infrastructure, and human health from large runoff events. Much of our understanding of water and solutes produced during stormflow comes from studies of individual, small headwater catchments. This study compared many different...
Stormwater management network effectiveness and implications for urban watershed function: A critical review
Anne J. Jefferson, Aditi S. Bhaskar, Kristina G. Hopkins, Rosemary M. Fanelli, Pedro M. Avellaneda, Sara K. McMillan
2017, Hydrological Processes (31) 4056-4080
Deleterious effects of urban stormwater are widely recognized. In several countries, regulations have been put into place to improve the conditions of receiving water bodies, but planning and engineering of stormwater control is typically carried out at smaller scales. Quantifying cumulative effectiveness of many stormwater control measures on a watershed...
Virginia flow-ecology modeling results—An initial assessment of flow reduction effects on aquatic biota
Jennifer L. Rapp, Pamela A. Reilly
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1088
BackgroundThe U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), reviewed a previously compiled set of linear regression models to assess their utility in defining the response of the aquatic biological community to streamflow depletion.As part of the 2012 Virginia Healthy Watersheds Initiative (HWI) study...
Flood-inundation maps for North Fork Salt Creek at Nashville, Indiana
Zachary W. Martin
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5127
Digital flood-inundation maps for a 3.2-mile reach of North Fork Salt Creek at Nashville, Indiana, were created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the Indiana Department of Transportation. The flood-inundation maps, which can be accessed through the USGS Flood Inundation Mapping Science website at http://water.usgs.gov/osw/flood_inundation/,...
Biological relevance of streamflow metrics: Regional and national perspectives
Daren M. Carlisle, Theodore E. Grantham, Ken Eng, David M. Wolock
2017, Freshwater Science (36) 927-940
Protecting the health of streams and rivers requires identifying ecologically significant attributes of the natural flow regime. Streamflow regimes are routinely quantified using a plethora of hydrologic metrics (HMs), most of which have unknown relevance to biological communities. At regional and national scales, we evaluated which of 509 commonly used...
Disturbance hydrology: Preparing for an increasingly disturbed future
Benjamin B. Mirus, Brian A. Ebel, Christian H. Mohr, Nicolas Zegre
2017, Water Resources Research (53) 10007-10016
This special issue is the result of several fruitful conference sessions on disturbance hydrology, which started at the 2013 AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco and have continued every year since. The stimulating presentations and discussions surrounding those sessions have focused on understanding both the disruption of hydrologic functioning following...
Hydrologic metrics for status-and-trends monitoring in urban and urbanizing watersheds
Derek B. Booth, Christopher P. Konrad
2017, Hydrological Processes (31) 4507-4519
Local governmental agencies are increasingly undertaking potentially costly “status-and-trends” monitoring to evaluate the effectiveness of stormwater control measures and land-use planning strategies, or to satisfy regulatory requirements. Little guidance is presently available for such efforts, and so we have explored the application, interpretation, and temporal limitations of well-established hydrologic metrics...
Streamflow characteristics from modelled runoff time series: Importance of calibration criteria selection
Sandra Poole, Marc Vis, Rodney Knight, Jan Seibert
2017, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (21) 5443-5457
Ecologically relevant streamflow characteristics (SFCs) of ungauged catchments are often estimated from simulated runoff of hydrologic models that were originally calibrated on gauged catchments. However, SFC estimates of the gauged donor catchments and subsequently the ungauged catchments can be substantially uncertain when models are calibrated using traditional approaches based on...
Evaluation of the Eureka Manta2 Water-Quality Multiprobe Sonde
Evan F. Tillman
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1118
Two Eureka Manta2 3.5 water-quality multiprobe sondes by Eureka Water Probes were tested at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Hydrologic Instrumentation Facility (HIF) against known standards over the sonde operating temperatures to verify the manufacturer’s stated accuracy specifications for pH, specific conductance (SC) at 25 degrees Celsius (°C), dissolved oxygen...
Projecting species’ vulnerability to climate change: Which uncertainty sources matter most and extrapolate best?
Valerie Steen, Helen Sofaer, Susan K. Skagen, Andrea J. Ray, Barry R. Noon
2017, Ecology and Evolution (7) 8841-8851
Species distribution models (SDMs) are commonly used to assess potential climate change impacts on biodiversity, but several critical methodological decisions are often made arbitrarily. We compare variability arising from these decisions to the uncertainty in future climate change itself. We also test whether certain choices offer improved skill for extrapolating...
Predicting landscape effects of Mississippi River diversions on soil organic carbon sequestration
Hongqing Wang, Gregory D. Steyer, Brady Couvillion, Holly J. Beck, John M Rybczyk, Victor H. Rivera-Monroy, Ken W. Krauss, Jenneke M. Visser
2017, Ecosphere (8)
Large Mississippi River (MR) diversions (peak water flow >1416 m3/s and sediment loads >165 kg/s) have been proposed as part of a suite of coastal restoration projects and are expected to rehabilitate and rebuild wetlands to alleviate the significant historic wetland loss in coastal Louisiana. These coastal wetlands are undergoing increasing eustatic...
Inequity in ecosystem service delivery: Socioeconomic gaps in the public-private conservation network
Amy M. Villamagna, Beatriz Mogollon, Paul L. Angermeier
2017, Ecology and Society (22)
Conservation areas, both public and private, are critical tools to protect biodiversity and deliver important ecosystem services (ES) to society. Although societal benefits from such ES are increasingly used to promote public support of conservation, the number of beneficiaries, their identity, and the magnitude of benefits are largely unknown for...
Sediment deposition and sources into a Mississippi River floodplain lake; Catahoula Lake, Louisiana
Karen D. Latuso, Richard F. Keim, Sammy L. King, David C. Weindorf, Ronald D. DeLaune
2017, Catena (156) 290-297
Floodplain lakes are important wetlands on many lowland floodplains of the world but depressional floodplain lakes are rare in the Mississippi River Alluvial Valley. One of the largest is Catahoula Lake, which has existed with seasonally fluctuating water levels for several thousand years but is now in an increasingly hydrologically...
Flood-inundation maps for the White River at Noblesville, Indiana
Zachary W. Martin
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5123
Digital flood-inundation maps for a 7.5-mile reach of the White River at Noblesville, Indiana, were created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the Indiana Department of Transportation. The flood-inundation maps, which can be accessed through the USGS Flood Inundation Mapping Science website at https://water.usgs.gov/osw/flood_inundation/, depict...
Estimating the high-arsenic domestic-well population in the conterminous United States
Joseph D. Ayotte, Laura Medalie, Sharon L. Qi, Lorraine C. Backer, Bernard T. Nolan
2017, Environmental Science & Technology (51) 12443-12454
Arsenic concentrations from 20 450 domestic wells in the U.S. were used to develop a logistic regression model of the probability of having arsenic >10 μg/L (“high arsenic”), which is presented at the county, state, and national scales. Variables representing geologic sources, geochemical, hydrologic, and physical features were among the significant...
Predicting outcomes of restored Everglades high flow: A model system for scientifically managed floodplains
Jay Choi, Judson Harvey
2017, Restoration Ecology (25) S39-S47
Restoration of higher flows through the Everglades is intended to reestablish sheetflow to rebuild a well-functioning ridge and slough landscape that supports a productive and diverse ecosystem. Our objective of the study was to use hydrologic simulations and biophysical analysis to predict restoration outcomes for five major subbasins of the...
Hydrological responses to channelization and the formation of valley plugs and shoals
Aaron R. Pierce, Sammy L. King
2017, Wetlands (37) 513-523
Rehabilitation of floodplain systems focuses on restoring interactions between the fluvial system and floodplain, however, there is a paucity of information on the effects of valley plugs and shoals on floodplain hydrological processes. We investigated hydrologic regimes in floodplains at three valley plug sites, two shoal sites, and three unchannelized...
The magnitude and origin of groundwater discharge to eastern U.S. and Gulf of Mexico coastal waters
Kevin Befus, Kevin D. Kroeger, Christopher G. Smith, Peter W. Swarzenski
2017, Geophysical Research Letters (44) 10396-10406
Fresh groundwater discharge to coastal environments contributes to the physical and chemical conditions of coastal waters, but the role of coastal groundwater at regional to continental scales remains poorly defined due to diverse hydrologic conditions and the difficulty of tracking coastal groundwater flow paths through heterogeneous subsurface materials. We use...
Flow and residence times of dynamic river bank storage and sinuosity-driven hyporheic exchange
J.D. Gomez-Velez, J.L. Wilson, M.B. Cardenas, Judson Harvey
2017, Water Resources Research (53) 8572-8595
Hydrologic exchange fluxes (HEFs) vary significantly along river corridors due to spatiotemporal changes in discharge and geomorphology. This variability results in the emergence of biogeochemical hot-spots and hot-moments that ultimately control solute and energy transport and ecosystem services from the local to the watershed scales. In this work, we use...
