Publications

Groundwater discharge to streams is a nonpoint source of nitrogen (N) that confounds N mitigation efforts and represents a significant portion of the annual N loading to watersheds. However, we lack an understanding of where and how much groundwater N enters streams and watersheds. Nitrogen concentrations at the end of groundwater flowpaths are the culmination of biogeochemical and...

The Federal Highway Administration and State departments of transportation nationwide need an efficient method to assess potential adverse effects of highway stormwater runoff on receiving waters to optimize stormwater-treatment decisions. To this end, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration and the North Carolina Department of Transportation...

Current methods for determining the 1-percent annual exceedance probability (AEP) for a streamflow assume stationarity (the assumption that the statistical distribution of data from past observations does not contain trends and will continue unchanged in the future). This assumption allows the 1-percent AEP to be determined based on historical streamflow records. However, the assumption...

The Stochastic Empirical Loading and Dilution Model (SELDM) was designed to help quantify the risk of adverse effects of runoff on receiving waters, the potential need for mitigation measures, and the potential effectiveness of such management measures for reducing these risks. SELDM is calibrated using representative hydrological and water-quality input statistics. This report by the U...

A better understanding of modeled streamflow errors related to basin reservoir storage is needed for large regions, which normally have many ungaged basins with reservoirs. We quantified the difference between modeled and observed streamflows for one process-based and three statistical-transfer hydrologic models, none of which explicitly accounted for reservoir storage. Streamflow...

Fish modeling in complex environments is critical for understanding drivers of population dynamics in aquatic systems. This paper proposes a Bayesian network method for modeling fish survival and growth over multiple connected rivers. Traditional fish survival models capture the effect of multiple environmental drivers (e.g., stream temperature, stream flow) by adding different variables...

In low-permeability rocks, ambient groundwater flow in open boreholes may go undetected using conventional borehole-flowmeter tools and alternative approaches may be needed to identify flow. Understanding ambient flow in open boreholes is important for tracking of cross contamination in groundwater. Chlorinated volatile organic compound (CVOC) concentrations from three open boreholes set...

BackgroundChronic exposure to inorganic arsenic (As) and uranium (U) in the United States (US) occurs from unregulated private wells and federally regulated community water systems (CWSs). The contribution of water to total exposure is assumed to be low when water As and U concentrations are low.ObjectiveWe examined the contribution of water As and U to urinary biomarkers in the Strong...

Kingsbury Pond is a glacial kettle pond in the town of Norfolk, Massachusetts, in the Mill River Basin, which is part of the Upper Charles River Basin in eastern Massachusetts. The pond is hydraulically connected to the surrounding groundwater-flow system, and water levels in the pond fluctuate in response to recharge to the aquifer from precipitation and wastewater return flows through...

To determine the most relevant climatic and economic factors driving water demand for Providence, Rhode Island, and to further the understanding of human interactions with water availability, linear regression models were developed to estimate single-family and multifamily residential, commercial, and industrial water demand for the service area of Providence Water for 2014–21. Monthly...

Freshwater is a vital natural resource. New York is a water-rich State; however, even here, the economical use of water resources is needed to ensure there is enough water of adequate quality for human and ecological needs—now and into the future. Nowhere in New York is this more evident than on Long Island where public-water supply is obtained from the sole-source aquifers directly...

Groundwater is important as a drinking-water source and for maintaining base flow in rivers, streams, and lakes. Groundwater quality can be predicted, in part, by its residence time in the subsurface, but the residence-time distribution cannot be measured directly and must be inferred from models. This report compares residence-time distributions from four areas where groundwater flow...