Publications
This list of Water Resources Mission Area publications includes both official USGS publications and journal articles authored by our scientists. A searchable database of all USGS publications can be accessed at the USGS Publications Warehouse.
Filter Total Items: 18419
Seepage investigation of the Rio Grande from below Leasburg Dam, Leasburg, New Mexico, to above El Paso, Texas, 2018
Seepage investigations were conducted periodically by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) from 1988 to 1998 and from 2006 to 2015 along a 64-mile reach of the Rio Grande as part of the Mesilla Basin monitoring program. Past studies were conducted during no-flow or low-flow periods. In 2018, a seepage investigation was conducted during April 3–4 along a 62.4-mile study reach, from below Leasburg Dam,
Authors
Grady P. Ball, Andrew J. Robertson, Karen Medina Morales
An agricultural water use package for MODFLOW and GSFLOW
The Agricultural Water Use (AG) Package was developed for simulating demand-driven and supply-constrained agricultural water use in MODFLOW and GSFLOW models. The AG Package uses pre-existing hydrologic simulation provided by MODFLOW and GSFLOW. Three options are available for simulating water use for agriculture: (1) user-specified demands, (2) demands determined by a user-specified irrigation tr
Authors
Richard G. Niswonger
Storage capacity and sedimentation characteristics of the San Antonio Reservoir, California, 2018
The San Antonio Reservoir is a large water storage facility in Alameda County, California, and is a major component of the Hetch Hetchy Regional Water System (RWS). The RWS is a water-supply system owned and operated by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) and provides water for about 2.7 million people in the San Francisco, Santa Clara, Alameda, and San Mateo Counties. The San An
Authors
Mathieu D. Marineau, Scott A. Wright, Joan V. Lopez
A new sampler for the collection and retrieval of dry dust deposition
Atmospheric dust can influence biogeochemical cycles, accelerate snowmelt, and affect air, water quality, and human health. Yet, the bulk of atmospherically transported material remains poorly quantified in terms of total mass fluxes and composition. This lack of information stems in part from the challenges associated with measuring dust deposition. Here we report on the design and efficacy of a
Authors
J. Brahney, Gregory A. Wetherbee, Graham A. Sexstone, C. Youngbull, P. Strong, Ruth C. Heindel
Effects of montane watershed development on vulnerability of domestic groundwater supply during drought
Climate change is expected to reduce recharge to montane aquifers in the western United States, but it is unclear how this will impact groundwater resources in watersheds where intensive surface-water development has disrupted the natural hydrologic regime. To better understand sources of recharge and associated vulnerabilities of groundwater supply in this setting, we made a detailed geochemical
Authors
Zeno Levy, Miranda S. Fram, Kirsten Faulkner, Charles N. Alpers, Evelyn M Soltero, Kimberly A. Taylor
Conjoint use of hydraulic head and groundwater age data to detect hydrogeologic barriers
Hydraulic head and groundwater age data are effective in building understanding of groundwater systems. Yet their joint role in detecting and characterising low-permeability geological structures, i.e. hydrogeologic barriers such as faults and dykes, has not been widely studied. Here, numerical flow and transport models, using MODFLOW-NWT and MT3D-USGS, were developed with different hydrogeologic
Authors
Sarah K. Marshall, Peter G. Cook, Leonard F. Konikow, Craig T. Simmons, Shawan Dogramaci
Seasonal drivers of chemical and hydrological patterns in roadside infiltration-based green infrastructure
Infiltration-based green infrastructure has become a popular means of reducing stormwater hazards in urban areas. However, the long-term effects of green infrastructure on the geochemistry of roadside environments are poorly defined, particularly given the considerable roadside legacy metal contamination from historic industrial activity and vehicle emissions (e.g., Pb). Most current research on g
Authors
Angela R. Mullins, Daniel J Bain, Erin Pfeil McCullough, Kristina G. Hopkins, S. Lavin, Erin Copeland
Calcite precipitation in Lake Powell reduces alkalinity and total salt loading to the Lower Colorado River Basin
Reservoirs can retain and transform carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and silica, but less is known about their effects on other biogeochemically relevant solutes. The salinization of freshwater ecosystems is a growing concern in many regions, and the role of reservoirs in salinity transport is an important research frontier. Here, we examine how a large desert southwest reservoir, Lake Powell, has al
Authors
Bridget Deemer, Edward G. Stets, Charles B. Yackulic
Bioaccumulation and toxicity of cadmium, copper, nickel, and zinc and their mixtures to aquatic insect communities
We describe 2 artificial stream experiments that exposed aquatic insect communities to zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), and cadmium (year 2014) and to Zn, Cu, and nickel (year 2015). The testing strategy was to concurrently expose insect communities to single metals and mixtures. Single-metal tests were repeated to evaluate the reproducibility of the methods and year-to-year variability. Metals were strong
Authors
Christopher A. Mebane, Travis S. Schmidt, Janet L. Miller, Laurie S. Balistrieri
Spatiotemporal variability of modeled watershed scale surface-depression storage and runoff for the conterminous United States
This study uses the explores the viability of a proxy model calibration strategy through assessment of the spatiotemporal variability of surface-depression storage and runoff generated with the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Hydrologic Model (NHM) infrastructure for hydrologic response units (HRUs; n=109,951) across the conterminous United States (CONUS). Simulated values for each HRU of daily
Authors
Jessica M. Driscoll, Lauren Hay, Melanie K. Vanderhoof, Roland J. Viger
Resolving small-scale forest snow patterns using an energy-balance snow model with a 1-layer canopy
Modelling spatiotemporal dynamics of snow in forests is challenging, as involved processes are strongly dependent on small-scale canopy properties. In this study, we explore how local canopy structure information can be integrated in a medium-complexity energy-balance snow model to replicate observed snow patterns at very high spatial resolutions. Snow depth distributions simulated with the Flexib
Authors
Giulia Mazzotti, Richard Essery, C. David Moeser, Tobias Jonas
Mariana serpentinite mud volcanism exhumes subducted seamount materials: Implications for the origin of life
The subduction of seamounts and ridge features at convergent plate boundaries plays an important role in the deformation of the overriding plate and influences geochemical cycling and associated biological processes. Active serpentinization of forearc mantle and serpentinite mud volcanism on the Mariana forearc (between the trench and active volcanic arc) provides windows on subduction processes.
Authors
Patricia Fryer, C. Geoffrey Wheat, Trevor Williams, Kevin Johnson, Christopher Kelley, Elmar Albers, John W. Shervais, Walter Kurz, Jeffrey Ryan, Barbara A. Bekins, Baptiste Debret, Jianghong Deng, Yanhui Dong, Philip Eickenbusch, Emanuelle Frery, Yuji Ichiyama, Raymond Johnston, Richard Kevorkian, Vitor Magalhaes, Simone Mantovanelli, Walter Menapace, Catriona D. Menzies, Katsuyoshi Michibayashi, Craig Moyer, Kelli Mullane, Jung-Woo Park, Roy Price, Olivier Sissmann, Shino Suzuki, Ken Takai, Bastien Walter, Rui Zhang, Diva Amon, Deborah Glickson, Shirley Pomponi