Publications
The following list of California Water Science Center publications includes both official USGS publications and journal articles authored by our scientists.
Filter Total Items: 1738
Origin of methane and sources of high concentrations in Los Angeles groundwater
In 2014, samples from 37 monitoring wells at 17 locations, within or near oil fields, and one site >5 km from oil fields, in the Los Angeles Basin, California, were analyzed for dissolved hydrocarbon gas isotopes and abundances. The wells sample a variety of depths of an aquifer system composed of unconsolidated and semiconsolidated sediments under various conditions of confinement. Concentrations
Authors
Justin T. Kulongoski, Peter B. McMahon, Michael Land, Michael Wright, Theodore Johnson, Matthew K. Landon
Quantifying anthropogenic contributions to century-scale groundwater salinity changes, San Joaquin Valley, California, USA
Total dissolved solids (TDS) concentrations in groundwater tapped for beneficial uses (drinking water, irrigation, freshwater industrial) have increased on average by about 100 mg/L over the last 100 years in the San Joaquin Valley, California (SJV). During this period land use in the SJV changed from natural vegetation and dryland agriculture to dominantly irrigated agriculture with growing urban
Authors
Jeffrey A. Hansen, Bryant Jurgens, Miranda S. Fram
Mapping protected groundwater adjacent to oil and gas fields, San Joaquin Valley, California
Airborne electromagnetic (AEM) surveys are a major component of a regional study of groundwater quality adjacent to oil and gas fields in the San Joaquin Valley of California, USA. AEM resistivity models are being used to delineate groundwater salinity in an effort to locate groundwater adjacent to oil and gas fields that could have future beneficial use. AEM models are also being used to improve
Authors
Lyndsay B. Ball, Janice M. Gillespie, Burke Minsley, Tracy Davis, Matthew K. Landon
Fish-habitat relationships along the estuarine gradient of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, California: Implications for habitat restoration
Estuaries are highly variable environments where fish are subjected to a diverse suite of habitat features (e.g., water quality gradients, physical structure) that filter local assemblages from a broader, regional species pool. Tidal, climatological, and oceanographic phenomena drive water quality gradients and, ultimately, expose individuals to other habitat features (e.g., stationary physical or
Authors
Matthew J. Young, Frederick V. Feyrer, Denise D. Colombano, J. Louise Conrad, Andrew Sih
Sediment accretion and carbon storage in constructed wetlands receiving water treated with metal-based coagulants
In many regions of the world, subsidence of organic rich soils threatens levee stability and freshwater supply, and continued oxidative loss of organic matter contributes to greenhouse gas production. To counter subsidence in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta of northern California, we examined the feasibility of using constructed wetlands receiving drainage water treated with metal-based coagulant
Authors
Elizabeth B. Stumpner, Tamara E. C. Kraus, Yan Liang, Sandra M. Bachand, William R. Horwath, Philip A.M. Bachand
Rio Grande transboundary integrated hydrologic model and water-availability analysis, New Mexico and Texas, United States, and Northern Chihuahua, Mexico
Errata**September 28, 2018: The purpose of a USGS Open-file report (OFR) is dissemination of information that must be released immediately to fill a public need or information that is not sufficiently refined to warrant publication in one of the other USGS series. As part of that refinement process, an error was discovered in one of the input data sets of the Rio Grande Transboundary Integrated Hy
Authors
Randall T. Hanson, Andre B. Ritchie, Scott E. Boyce, Ian Ferguson, Amy E. Galanter, Lorraine E. Flint, Wesley R. Henson
Groundwater quality in the shallow aquifers of the Monterey Bay, Salinas Valley, and adjacent highland areas, California
Groundwater provides more than 40 percent of California’s drinking water. To protect this vital resource, the State of California created the Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment (GAMA) Program. The Priority Basin Project of the GAMA Program provides a comprehensive assessment of the State’s groundwater quality and increases public access to groundwater-quality information. The shallow aq
Authors
Carmen A. Burton
Status and understanding of groundwater quality in the Monterey-Salinas Shallow Aquifer Study Unit, 2012–13: California GAMA Priority Basin Project
Groundwater quality in the approximately 7,820-square-kilometer (km2) Monterey-Salinas Shallow Aquifer (MS-SA) study unit was investigated from October 2012 to May 2013 as part of the second phase of the Priority Basin Project of the Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment (GAMA) Program. The study unit is in the central coast region of California in the counties of Santa Cruz, Monterey, and
Authors
Carmen A. Burton, Michael Wright
Soil moisture datasets at five sites in the central Sierra Nevada and northern Coast Ranges, California
In situ soil moisture datasets are important inputs used to calibrate and validate watershed, regional, or statewide modeled and satellite-based soil moisture estimates. The soil moisture dataset presented in this report includes hourly time series of the following: soil temperature, volumetric water content, water potential, and total soil water content. Data were collected by the U.S. Geological
Authors
Michelle A. Stern, Frank A. Anderson, Lorraine E. Flint, Alan L. Flint
Wetlands receiving water treated with coagulants improve water quality by removing dissolved organic carbon and disinfection byproduct precursors
Constructed wetlands are used worldwide to improve water quality while also providing critical wetland habitat. However, wetlands have the potential to negatively impact drinking water quality by exporting dissolved organic carbon (DOC) that upon disinfection can form disinfection byproducts (DBPs) like trihalomethanes (THMs) and haloacetic acids (HAAs). We used a replicated field-scale study loca
Authors
Angela M. Hansen, Tamara E. C. Kraus, Sandra M. Bachand, William R. Horwath, Philip A.M. Bachand
Measurements of erosion potential using Gust chamber in Yolo Bypass near Sacramento, California
This report describes work performed to quantify the erodibility of surface soils in the Yolo Bypass (Bypass) near Sacramento, California, for use in the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) Yolo Bypass D-MCM mercury model. The Bypass, when not serving as a floodway, is heavily utilized for agriculture. During flood events, surface water flows over the soil, resulting in the application
Authors
Paul A. Work, David H. Schoellhamer
Groundwater quality in the Mokelumne, Cosumnes, and American River Watersheds, Sierra Nevada, California
Groundwater provides more than 40 percent of California’s drinking water. To protect this vital resource, the State of California created the Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment (GAMA) Program. The GAMA Program’s Priority Basin Project assesses the quality of groundwater resources used for drinking water supply and increases public access to groundwater-quality information. In the Mokelu
Authors
Miranda S. Fram, Jennifer L. Shelton