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...
FEQinput—An editor for the full equations (FEQ) hydraulic modeling system
David S. Ancalle, Pablo J. Ancalle, Marian M. Domanski
2017, Fact Sheet 2017-3072
IntroductionThe Full Equations Model (FEQ) is a computer program that solves the full, dynamic equations of motion for one-dimensional unsteady hydraulic flow in open channels and through control structures. As a result, hydrologists have used FEQ to design and operate flood-control structures, delineate inundation maps, and analyze peak-flow impacts. To...
StreamStats, version 4
Kernell G. Ries III, Jeremy K. Newson, Martyn J. Smith, John D. Guthrie, Peter A. Steeves, Tana Haluska, Katharine Kolb, Ryan F. Thompson, Richard D. Santoro, Hans W. Vraga
2017, Fact Sheet 2017-3046
IntroductionStreamStats version 4, available at https://streamstats.usgs.gov, is a map-based web application that provides an assortment of analytical tools that are useful for water-resources planning and management, and engineering purposes. Developed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the primary purpose of StreamStats is to provide estimates of streamflow...
Public supply and domestic water use in the United States, 2015
Cheryl A. Dieter, Molly A. Maupin
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1131
IntroductionThe U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Use Science Project (NWUSP), part of the USGS Water Availability and Use Science Program (WAUSP), has estimated water use in the United States every 5 years since 1950. This report provides an overview of total population, public-supply use, including the population that is...
What determines water temperature dynamics in the San Francisco Bay-Delta system?
Julia Vroom, Mick Van der Wegen, Rosanne C. Martyr-Koller, Lisa Lucas
2017, Water Resources Research (53) 9901-9921
Water temperature is an important factor determining estuarine species habitat conditions. Water temperature is mainly governed by advection (e.g., from rivers) and atmospheric exchange processes varying strongly over time (day-night, seasonally) and the spatial domain. On a long time scale, climate change will impact water temperature in estuarine systems due...
Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center—Celebrating 50 years of science
Jane E. Austin, Terry L. Shaffer, Lawrence D. Igl, Douglas H. Johnson, Gary L. Krapu, Diane L. Larson, L. David Mech, David M. Mushet, Marsha A. Sovada
2017, Circular 1434
The Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center (NPWRC) celebrated its 50-year anniversary in 2015. This report is written in support of that observance. We document why and how the NPWRC came to be and describe some of its many accomplishments and the influence the Center’s research program has had on natural...
Temporal constraints on the potential role of fry odors as cues of past reproductive success for spawning lake trout
Tyler J. Buchinger, J. Ellen Marsden, Thomas R. Binder, Mar Huertas, Ugo Bussy, Ke Li, James E. Hanson, Charles C. Krueger, Weiming Li, Nicholas S. Johnson
2017, Ecology and Evolution (7) 10196-10206
Deciding where to reproduce is a major challenge for most animals. Many select habitats based upon cues of successful reproduction by conspecifics, such as the presence of offspring from past reproductive events. For example, some fishes select spawning habitat following odors released by juveniles whose rearing habitat overlaps with spawning...
Probing magma reservoirs to improve volcano forecasts
Jacob B. Lowenstern, Thomas W. Sisson, Shaul Hurwitz
2017, Eos, Earth and Space Science News (98)
When it comes to forecasting eruptions, volcano observatories rely mostly on real-time signals from earthquakes, ground deformation, and gas discharge, combined with probabilistic assessments based on past behavior [Sparks and Cashman, 2017]. There is comparatively less reliance on geophysical and petrological understanding of subsurface magma reservoirs....
Relative performance of three stream bed stability indices as indicators of stream health
Paul C Kusnierz, Christopher M. Holbrook
2017, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (189) 1-10
Bed stability is an important stream habitat attribute because it affects geomorphology and biotic communities. Natural resource managers desire indices of bed stability that can be used under a wide range of geomorphic conditions, are biologically meaningful, and are easily incorporated into sampling protocols. To eliminate potential bias due to...
Examining the value of global seasonal reference evapotranspiration forecasts to support FEWS NET’s food insecurity outlooks
Shraddhanand Shukla, Daniel McEvoy, Michael Hobbins, Gregory Husak, Justin Huntington, Chris Funk, Denis Macharia, James P. Verdin
2017, Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology (56) 2941-2949
The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) team provides food insecurity outlooks for several developing countries in Africa, Central Asia, and Central America. This study describes development of a new global reference evapotranspiration (ETo) seasonal reforecast and skill evaluation with a particular emphasis on the potential use of this...
Evidence for a climate-induced ecohydrological state shift in wetland ecosystems of the southern Prairie Pothole Region
Owen P. McKenna, David M. Mushet, Donald O. Rosenberry, James W. LaBaugh
2017, Climatic Change (145) 273-287
Changing magnitude, frequency, and timing of precipitation can influence aquatic-system hydrological, geochemical, and biological processes, in some cases resulting in system-wide shifts to an alternate state. Since the early 1990s, the southern Prairie Pothole Region has been subjected to an extended period of increased wetness resulting in marked changes to...
Near-field receiving water monitoring of trace metals and a benthic community near the Palo Alto Regional Water Quality Control Plant in south San Francisco Bay, California; 2016
Daniel J. Cain, Janet K. Thompson, Francis Parchaso, Sarah A. Pearson, A. Robin Stewart, Mathew Turner, David Barasch, Samuel N. Luoma
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1135
Trace-metal concentrations in sediment and in the clam Macoma petalum (formerly reported as Macoma balthica), clam reproductive activity, and benthic macroinvertebrate community structure were investigated in a mudflat 1 kilometer south of the discharge of the Palo Alto Regional Water Quality Control Plant (PARWQCP) in south San Francisco Bay,...
Was the Mw 7.5 1952 Kern County, California, earthquake induced (or triggered)?
Susan E. Hough, Victor C. Tsai, Robert Walker, Fred Aminzadeh
2017, Journal of Seismology (21) 1613-1621
Several recent studies have presented evidence that significant induced earthquakes occurred in a number of oil-producing regions during the early and mid-twentieth century related to either production or wastewater injection. We consider whether the 21 July 1952 Mw 7.5 Kern County earthquake might have been induced by production in the Wheeler...
Movements and habitat use of White-fronted Geese (Anser albifrons frontalis) during the remigial molt in arctic Alaska, USA
Paul L. Flint, Brandt W. Meixell
2017, Waterbirds (40) 272-281
Proposed oil and gas leasing in the National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska has raised questions about possible impacts of development on molting Greater White-fronted Geese (Anser albifrons frontalis) and their habitats. We used GPS transmitters to record fine-scale location data of molting and post-molt White-fronted Geese to assess patterns of...
Best practices for assessing forage fish fisheries-seabird resource competition
William J. Sydeman, Sarah Ann Thompson, Tycho Anker-Nilssen, Mayumi L. Arimitsu, Ashley Bennison, Sophie Bertrand, Philipp Boersch-Supan, Charlotte Boyd, Nicole C. Bransome, Robert J.M. Crawford, Francis Daunt, Robert W. Furness, Dimas Gianuca, Amanda Gladics, Laura Koehn, Jennifer W. Lang, Elizabeth Loggerwell, Taryn L. Morris, Elizabeth M. Phillips, Jennifer Provencher, Andre E. Punt, Claire Saraux, Lynne Shannon, Richard B. Sherley, Alejandro Simeone, Ross M. Wanless, Sarah Wanless, Stephani Zador
2017, Fisheries Research (194) 209-221
Worldwide, in recent years capture fisheries targeting lower-trophic level forage fish and euphausiid crustaceans have been substantial (∼20 million metric tons [MT] annually). Landings of forage species are projected to increase in the future, and this harvest may affect marine ecosystems and predator-prey interactions by removal or redistribution of biomass...
Methods for converting continuous shrubland ecosystem component values to thematic National Land Cover Database classes
Matthew B. Rigge, Leila Gass, Collin G. Homer, George Z. Xian
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1119
The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) provides thematic land cover and land cover change data at 30-meter spatial resolution for the United States. Although the NLCD is considered to be the leading thematic land cover/land use product and overall classification accuracy across the NLCD is high, performance and consistency in...
Organizing the pantry: cache management improves quality of overwinter food stores in a montane mammal
Rhiannon P. Jakopak, L. Embere Hall, Anna D. Chalfoun
2017, Journal of Mammalogy (98) 1674-1681
Many mammals create food stores to enhance overwinter survival in seasonal environments. Strategic arrangement of food within caches may facilitate the physical integrity of the cache or improve access to high-quality food to ensure that cached resources meet future nutritional demands. We used the American pika (Ochotona princeps), a food-caching...
Hydrogeology and water quality of sand and gravel aquifers in McHenry County, Illinois, 2009–14, and comparison to conditions in 1979
Amy M. Gahala
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5112
Baseline conditions for the sand and gravel aquifers (groundwater) in McHenry County, Illinois, were assessed using data from a countywide network of 44 monitoring wells collecting continuous water-level data from 2009–14. In 2010, water-quality data were collected from 41 of the monitoring wells, along with five additional monitoring wells...
Plastic ingestion by Black-footed Albatross Phoebastria nigripes from Kure Atoll, Hawai'i: Linking chick diet remains and parental at-sea foraging distributions
K. David Hyrenbach, Michelle M. Hester, Josh Adams, Andrew J. Titmus, Pam Michael, Travis Wahl, Chih-Wei Chang, Amarisa Marie, Cynthia Vanderlip
2017, Marine Ornithology: Journal of Seabird Research and Conservation (45) 225-236
We quantified the incidence (percentage of samples with plastic) and loads (mass, volume) of four plastic types (fragments, line, sheet, foam) ingested by Black-footed Albatross Phoebastria nigripes chicks raised on Kure Atoll, the westernmost Hawaiian colony. All 25 samples contained plastic, mostly in the form of foam and line. On...
Where can wolves live and how can we live with them?
L. David Mech
2017, Biological Conservation (210) 310-317
In the contiguous 48 United States, southern Canada, and in Europe, wolves (Canis lupus) have greatly increased and expanded their range during the past few decades.They are prolific, disperse long distances, readily recolonize new areas where humans allow them, and are difficult to control when populations become established.Because wolves originally...
Applying citizen-science data and mark-recapture models to estimate numbers of migrant golden eagles in an important bird area in eastern North America
Andrew J. Dennhardt, Adam E. Duerr, David Brandes, Todd E. Katzner
2017, The Condor (119) 817-831
Estimates of population abundance are important to wildlife management and conservation. However, it can be difficult to characterize the numbers of broadly distributed, low-density, and elusive bird species. Although Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) are rare, difficult to detect, and broadly distributed, they are concentrated during their autumn migration at monitoring...
Assessing models of arsenic occurrence in drinking water from bedrock aquifers in New Hampshire
Caroline Andy, Maria Florencia Fahnestock, Melissa A. Lombard, Laura Hayes, Julie Bryce, Joseph D. Ayotte
2017, Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education (160) 25-41
Three existing multivariate logistic regression models were assessed using new data to evaluate the capacity of the models to correctly predict the probability of groundwater arsenic concentrations exceeding the threshold values of 1, 5, and 10 micrograms per liter (µg/L) in New Hampshire, USA. A recently released testing dataset includes...
Partial polygon pruning of hydrographic features in automated generalization
Alexander K. Stum, Barbara P. Buttenfield, Larry V. Stanislawski
2017, Transactions in GIS (21) 1061-1078
This paper demonstrates a working method to automatically detect and prune portions of waterbody polygons to support creation of a multi-scale hydrographic database. Water features are known to be sensitive to scale change; and thus multiple representations are required to maintain visual and geographic logic at smaller scales. Partial pruning...
Groundwater-level trends in the U.S. glacial aquifer system, 1964-2013
Glenn A. Hodgkins, Robert W. Dudley, Martha G. Nielsen, Benjamin Renard, Sharon L. Qi
2017, Journal of Hydrology (553) 289-303
The glacial aquifer system in the United States is a major source of water supply but previous work on historical groundwater trends across the system is lacking. Trends in annual minimum, mean, and maximum groundwater levels for 205 monitoring wells were analyzed across three regions of the system (East, Central,...
Projected warming portends seasonal shifts of stream temperatures in the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem, USA and Canada
Leslie A. Jones, Clint C. Muhlfeld, Lucy A. Marshall
2017, Climatic Change (144) 641-655
Climate warming is expected to increase stream temperatures in mountainous regions of western North America, yet the degree to which future climate change may influence seasonal patterns of stream temperature is uncertain. In this study, a spatially explicit statistical model framework was integrated with empirical stream temperature data (approximately four...
