Water Quality

Sanitation District #1, located in Northern Kentucky, in cooperation with the USGS, established a stream gaging network to adhere to requirements of a Consent Decree. This legally-binding document between Sanitation District #1 and state and federal environmental regulators helps to increase responsible watershed management.

What is a Super Gage? A gage at which continuous flow and water level are determined, along with continuous traditional water-quality (water temperature, specific conductance, pH, dissolved oxygen, and/or turbidity) and either of the following criteria: at least one other less-traditional continuous water-quality parameter (orthophosphate, nitrate concentration) and/or where surrogates (developed...

Cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (cyanoHABs) and associated toxins, such as microcystin, are a major global water-quality issue. In Lake Erie and inland lakes in Ohio, elevated microcystin concentrations have caused water-resource managers to issue recreational water-quality advisories, and detections of microcystin in source waters have caused drinking-water plant managers to increase...

In September 2015, Kentucky Water Science Center scientists, in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), began investigations on two Kentucky lakes and tailwaters. Continuous water quality is collected at both lake and tailwater sites and gage height is monitored at the tailwater sites.

The USGS has the principal responsibility within the federal government to provide the hydrologic information and understanding needed by others to achieve the best use and management of the nation’s water resources. Basic data are the key to solving many water-quantity or -quality problems. Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana operate a large hydrologic network across the three states, collecting surface...

Cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (HABs) are increasingly a global concern because HABs pose a threat to human and aquatic ecosystem health and cause economic damages. Toxins produced by some species of cyanobacteria (called cyanotoxins) can cause acute and chronic illnesses in humans and pets. Aquatic ecosystem health also is affected by cyanotox­ins, as well as low dissolved oxygen...

One of the strongest ways to ensure that science is done effectively and efficiently in the midst of ever decreasing budgets is to collaborate.

Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana Water Science Center is monitoring the effects of best management practices (BMP's) on baseflow and storm runoff in the Black Creek watershed near Harlan, IN. We will be sampling water-quality intensively for 5 years from overland field, subsurface tile, and in-stream runoff events. Results will be used to model the effectiveness of BMP’s in reducing nutrient and...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservations Service and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have focused part of the National Water Quality Initiative (NWQI) on the School Branch watershed. The USGS is collaborating, through a Clean Water Act Section 319 grant, with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to accomplish NWQI nonpoint-source water-pollution...

Adult bighead, silver, and hybrid carp are invavsive species of fish that spread quickly once they are established in a water body. These carp damage habitat and reduce water-quality for native fish. Invasive carp have been confirmed within the Wabash River basin for at least 15 years. Scientists and natural resource managers are extremely concerned about the carp migrating to the Great Lakes...

Scientists research biology, botany, microbiology, habitat, climate, water quality, and other fields to achieve a comprehensive view of ecosystems and their health. Ecosystems can be easily stressed by human activities, climate change, sediment, nutrients, contaminants, and many other variables. Ecosystem monitoring is critical to ecosystem health and answers important questions about the...

About 1 billion pounds of conventional pesticides are used each year in the United States to control weeds, insects, and other pests. The use of pesticides has resulted in a range of benefits, including increased food production and reduction of insect-borne disease, but also raises questions about possible adverse effects on the environment, including water quality. The National Water Quality...