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: 18422
Tracer-based characterization of hyporheic exchange and benthic biolayers in streams
Shallow benthic biolayers at the top of the streambed are believed to be places of enhanced biogeochemical turnover within the hyporheic zone. They can be investigated by reactive stream tracer tests with tracer recordings in the streambed and in the stream channel. Common in-stream measurements of such reactive tracers cannot localize where the processing primarily takes place, whereas isolated v
Authors
Julia L.A. Knapp, Ricardo González-Pinzón, Jennifer D. Drummond, Laurel G. Larsen, Olaf A. Cirpka, Judson W. Harvey
Nationwide reconnaissance of contaminants of emerging concern in source and treated drinking waters of the United States: Pharmaceuticals
Mobile and persistent chemicals that are present in urban wastewater, such as pharmaceuticals, may survive
on-site ormunicipal wastewater treatment and post-discharge environmental processes. These pharmaceuticals
have the potential to reach surface and groundwaters, essential drinking-water sources. A joint, two-phase U.S.
Geological Survey-U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study examined sour
Authors
Edward T. Furlong, Angela L. Batt, Susan T. Glassmeyer, Mary C. Noriega, Dana W. Kolpin, Heath Mash, Kathleen M. Schenck
The use of data-mining techniques for developing effective decisionsupport systems: A case study of simulating the effects ofclimate change on coastal salinity intrusion
Natural-resource managers and stakeholders face difficult challenges when managing interactions between natural and societal systems. Potential changes in climate could alter interactions between environmental and societal systems and adversely affect the availability of water resources in many coastal communities. The availability of freshwater in coastal streams can be threatened by saltwater in
Authors
Paul Conrads, Jr. Edwin Roehl
smwrGraphs—An R package for graphing hydrologic data, version 1.1.2
This report describes an R package called smwrGraphs, which consists of a collection of graphing functions for hydrologic data within R, a programming language and software environment for statistical computing. The functions in the package have been developed by the U.S. Geological Survey to create high-quality graphs for publication or presentation of hydrologic data that meet U.S. Geological Su
Authors
David L. Lorenz, Aliesha L. Diekoff
Storms, channel changes, and a sediment budget for an urban-suburban stream, Difficult Run, Virginia, USA
Determining erosion and deposition rates in urban-suburban settings and how these processes are affected by large storms is important to understanding geomorphic processes in these landscapes. Sediment yields in the suburban and urban Upper Difficult Run are among the highest ever recorded in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, ranging from 161 to 376 Mg/km2/y. Erosion and deposition of streambanks, cha
Authors
Allen C. Gellis, Michael Myers, Gregory Noe, Cliff R. Hupp, Edward Shenk, Luke Myers
Development and evaluation of a reservoir model for the Chain of Lakes in Illinois
Forecasts of flows entering and leaving the Chain of Lakes reservoir on the Fox River in northeastern Illinois are critical information to water-resource managers who determine the optimal operation of the dam at McHenry, Illinois, to help minimize damages to property and loss of life because of flooding on the Fox River. In 2014, the U.S. Geological Survey; the Illinois Department of Natural Reso
Authors
Marian M. Domanski
Microbially mediated barite dissolution in anoxic brines
Fluids injected into shale formations during hydraulic fracturing of black shale return with extraordinarily high total-dissolved-solids (TDS) and high concentrations of barium (Ba) and radium (Ra). Barite, BaSO4, has been implicated as a possible source of Ba as well as a problematic mineral scale that forms on internal well surfaces, often in close association with radiobarite, (Ba,Ra)SO4. The d
Authors
Bingjie Ouyang, Denise M. Akob, Darren S. Dunlap, Devon Renock
Hydrologic and hydraulic analyses of Great Meadow wetland, Acadia National Park, Maine
The U.S. Geological Survey completed hydrologic and hydraulic analyses of Cromwell Brook and the Sieur de Monts tributary in Acadia National Park, Maine, to better understand causes of flooding in complex hydrologic and hydraulic environments, like those in the Great Meadow wetland and Sieur de Monts Spring area. Regional regression equations were used to compute peak flows with from 2 to 100-year
Authors
Pamela J. Lombard
Evaluating mountain meadow groundwater response to Pinyon-Juniper and temperature in a great basin watershed
This research highlights development and application of an integrated hydrologic model (GSFLOW) to a semiarid, snow-dominated watershed in the Great Basin to evaluate Pinyon-Juniper (PJ) and temperature controls on mountain meadow shallow groundwater. The work used Google Earth Engine Landsat satellite and gridded climate archives for model evaluation. Model simulations across three decades indica
Authors
Rosemary W.H. Carroll, Justin L. Huntington, Keirith A. Snyder, Richard G. Niswonger, Charles Morton, Tamzen K. Stringham
Nutrient processes at the stream-lake interface for a channelized versus unmodified stream mouth
Inorganic forms of nitrogen and phosphorous impact freshwater lakes by stimulating primary production and affecting water quality and ecosystem health. Communities around the world are motivated to sustain and restore freshwater resources and are interested in processes controlling nutrient inputs. We studied the environment where streams flow into lakes, referred to as the stream-lake interface (
Authors
Richard G. Niswonger, Ramon C. Naranjo, David Smith, James E. Constantz, Kip K. Allander, Donald O. Rosenberry, Bethany Neilson, Michael R. Rosen, David A. Stonestrom
Enhanced Al and Zn removal from coal-mine drainage during rapid oxidation and precipitation of Fe oxides at near-neutral pH
Net-alkaline, anoxic coal-mine drainage containing ∼20 mg/L FeII and ∼0.05 mg/L Al and Zn was subjected to parallel batch experiments: control, aeration (Aer 1 12.6 mL/s; Aer 2 16.8 mL/s; Aer 3 25.0 mL/s), and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) to test the hypothesis that aeration increases pH, FeII oxidation, hydrous FeIII oxide (HFO) formation, and trace-metal removal through adsorption and coprecipitatio
Authors
Jill E. Burrows, Charles A. Cravotta, Stephen C. Peters
Water quality and bed sediment quality in the Albemarle Sound, North Carolina, 2012–14
The Albemarle Sound region was selected in 2012 as one of two demonstration sites in the Nation to test and improve the design of the National Water Quality Monitoring Council’s National Monitoring Network (NMN) for U.S. Coastal Waters and Tributaries. The goal of the NMN for U.S. Coastal Waters and Tributaries is to provide information about the health of our oceans, coastal ecosystems, and inlan
Authors
Michelle C. Moorman, Sharon A. Fitzgerald, Laura N. Gurley, Ahmed Rhoni-Aref, Keith A. Loftin