Earth Science Matters - Volume 19, Winter 2024
2024 Year in Review
2024 was another productive year for the Land Change Science Program in the USGS Ecosystems Mission Area! Below are some summaries and highlights of Program work from the past year.
The Powerhouse of USGS Paleo-research
The USGS is home to one of the largest, most multidisciplinary groups of scientists who unravel mysteries of the past, and help project future patterns, by studying paleoclimate.
Trees in cities are beyond shady
DENVER — Hotter areas can actually be the biggest winners when it comes to the difference a tree can make when temperatures are sizzling.
The Earth in Flux Chart Gallery
A shared initiative between the USGS Water Resources Mission Area and Ecosystems Mission Area to communicate key findings of USGS land change science in innovative ways, and to encourage creativity, exploration, and community in data visualization.
Long-term Atmospheric River History in California
Reconstructing patterns of extreme precipitation beyond the instrumental record to help managers be better prepared for what is possible.
Farms to Faucet: The Hidden Connection
How are french fries and drinking water connected? As potato farms expand to meet growing demand, they alter landscapes and impact water sources. In Minnesota, this has led city managers to take a closer look at how land use change influences the quality of drinking water. Understanding these links is important for planning a future where land use changes affect our water sources.
If you can’t measure it, you can't manage it!
High-quality field data on wetlands are essential for managing these important environments, but wetlands are inherently difficult to study. USGS scientists published a practical guide to measuring where wetland carbon is stored (carbon pools) and how it moves through time (carbon fluxes).
Dryland Carbon
While it’s easy to assume there’s not much going on in deserts and other types of drylands, the opposite is true! Come with us to learn more about these underappreciated ecosystems; once you get to know them, we are sure you will love drylands as much as we do!Drylands are landscapes that have a scarcity of water, including deserts such as the Sonoran Desert with its iconic Saguaro cacti and the…
Don’t eat that cookie! We need it for science.
How scientists use “tree cookies” and “root cookies” to study ecosystems
Explore forty-two years of field notes from the Loch Vale watershed, Rocky Mountain National Park
USGS recently released 42 years (1981-2023) of scanned field notebooks from long-term research and monitoring in the Loch Vale Watershed, Rocky Mountain National Park.