Publications

In 2009, Congress designated certain reaches of the Amargosa River in Inyo County, California between the town of Shoshone and Dumont Dunes as a Wild and Scenic River. As part of the management of the Amargosa Wild and Scenic River, the Bureau of Land Management cooperated with the U.S. Geological Survey to assess the surface and groundwater resources of the Tecopa basin. Groundwater is the primar

Multiple aquifer tests were conducted in Lovelock, Nevada, to determine hydraulic conductivity and storage properties to be used with the numerical groundwater flow model of the lower Humboldt River Basin while accounting for the influence of surface features with a modeling component. The numerical model will ultimately provide the Nevada Division of Water Resources (NDWR) with information regard

Periphyton is important to lake ecosystems, contributing to primary production, nutrient cycling, and benthic metabolism. Increases in periphyton growth in lakes can be indicative of changes in water quality, shifts in ecosystem structure, and increases in nutrient fluxes. In oligotrophic lakes, conservationists are interested in characterizing the influence of hydrological drivers on excessive pe

Excessive algal growth and low dissolved oxygen concentrations were observed during low streamflow conditions during summer months along a 5,800-foot reach of the East Fork Carson River in Carson Valley, west-central Nevada. Algal growth from nutrient enrichment of a stream reduces aquatic diversity, threatens fish ecology and stream health, and can be a recreational nuisance. In response to conce

Single-well aquifer testing has been carried out at Pahute Mesa in southern Nevada since 1962. These tests include single-well pumping and slug tests to estimate geologic formation hydraulic properties. Initially, aquifer tests focused on identifying low-permeability rocks suitable for testing large-yield nuclear devices, whereas later hydrologic investigations focused on potential subsurface tran

Integrated hydrologic modeling (IHM) encompasses a vast number of processes and specifications, variable in time and space, and development of models can be arduous. Model input construction techniques have not been formalized or made easily reproducible. Creating the input files for integrated hydrologic models requires complex GIS processing of raster and vector datasets from various sources. De

This report identifies water-level trends in wells and provides a conceptual framework that explains the hydrologic stresses and factors causing the trends in the Pahute Mesa–Oasis Valley (PMOV) groundwater basin, southern Nevada. Water levels in 79 wells were analyzed for trends between 1966 and 2016. The magnitude and duration of water-level responses to hydrologic stresses were analyzed graphic

Clear Creek is a small stream that drains the eastern Carson Range near Lake Tahoe, flows roughly parallel to the Highway 50 corridor, and discharges to the Carson River near Carson City, Nevada. Historical and ongoing development in the drainage basin is thought to be affecting Clear Creek and its sediment-transport characteristics. Previous studies from water years (WYs) 2004 to 2007 and from 20

Elevated levels of selenium (Se) in aqueous environments can harm aquatic life and endanger livestock and human health. Although Se occurs naturally in the rocks and soils of many alluvial aquifers, mining and agricultural activities can increase its rate of mobilization and transport to surface waters. Attention is given here to regions where nonpoint source return flows from irrigated lands carr

Groundwater availability studies in the arid southwestern United States traditionally have assumed that groundwater discharge by evapotranspiration (ETg) from desert playas is a significant component of the groundwater budget. However, desert playa ETg rates are poorly constrained by Bowen Ratio energy budget (BREB) and eddy-covariance (EC) micrometeorological measurement approaches. Best attempts

Rock samples have been collected, analyzed, and interpreted from drilling and mining operations at the Nevada National Security Site for over one-half of a century. Records containing geologic and hydrologic analyses and interpretations have been compiled into a series of databases. Rock samples have been photographed and thin sections scanned. Records and images are preserved and available for pu

Global-scale studies suggest that dryland ecosystems dominate an increasing trend in the magnitude and interannual variability of the land CO2 sink. However, such model-based analyses are poorly constrained by measured CO2 exchange in open shrublands, which is the most common global land cover type, covering ∼14% of Earth’s surface. Here we evaluate how the amount and seasonal timing of water avai