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: 18418
Measured efficacy, bioaccumulation, and leaching of a transfluthrin-based insecticidal paint: A case study with a nuisance, nonbiting aquatic insect
BACKGROUNDPest management professionals will require a diverse, adaptive abatement toolbox to combat advanced challenges from disease vector and nuisance insect populations. Designed for post-application longevity, insecticidal paints offer extended residual effects on targeted insect pest populations; a measured understanding of active ingredient bioavailability over time is valuable to fully ass
Authors
Michael C. Cavallaro, Corey Sanders, Michelle Hladik
Water-level and recoverable water in storage changes, High Plains aquifer, predevelopment to 2017 and 2015–17
The High Plains aquifer underlies 111.8 million acres (about 175,000 square miles) in parts of eight States—Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming. Water-level declines began in parts of the High Plains aquifer soon after the beginning of substantial groundwater irrigation (about 1950). This report presents water-level changes and change in recoverable w
Authors
Virginia L. McGuire, Kellan R. Strauch
Basis for technical guidance to evaluate evapotranspiration covers
This report provides technical guidance to evaluate evapotranspiration (ET) cover design criteria with emphasis on applications to long-term disposal sites such as Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978 (UMTRCA) sites. Water balance covers, also known as ET covers, reduce percolation by storing precipitation then allowing vegetation to cycle it back to the atmosphere. For long-term (o
Authors
Todd Caldwell, Jena Huntington, Gwendolyn Elizabeth Davies, S. Tabatabai, M. Fuhrmann
A process-model perspective on recent changes in the carbon cycle of North America
Continental North America has been found to be a carbon (C) sink over recent decades by multiple studies employing a variety of estimation approaches. However, several key questions and uncertainties remain with these assessments. Here we used results from an ensemble of 19 state-of-the-art dynamic global vegetation models from the TRENDYv9 project to improve these estimates and study the drivers
Authors
Guillermo Murray-Tortarolo, Benjamin Poulter, Rodrigo Vargas, Daniel B. Hayes, Anna M. Michalak, Christopher J. Williams, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Jonathan Wang, Kimberly Wickland, David Butman, Hanqin Tian, Stephen Sitch, Pierre Friedlingstein, Michael O'Sullivan, Peter Briggs, Vivek Arora, Danielle Lombardozzi, Atul Jain, Wenping Yuan, Roland Seferian, Julia Nabel, Andrea Wiltshire, Almuth Arneth, Sebastian Lienerte, Sonke Zaehle, Vladislov Bastrikov, Daniel Goll, Nicholas Vuichard, Anthony P. Walker, Etushi Kato, Yue Xu, Zhen Zhang, Abishek Chaterjee, Werner A. Kurz
Evaluation of machine learning approaches for predicting streamflow metrics across the conterminous United States
Few regional or national scale studies have evaluated machine learning approaches for predicting streamflow metrics at ungaged locations. Most such studies are limited by the number of dimensions of the streamflow regime investigated. This study, in contrast, provides a comprehensive evaluation of the streamflow regime based on three widely available machine learning approaches (support vector reg
Authors
Ken Eng, David M. Wolock
Upper Rio Grande Basin water-resource status and trends: Focus area study review and synthesis
The Upper Rio Grande Basin (URGB) is a critical international water resource under pressure from a myriad of climatic, ecological, infrastructural, water-use, and legal constraints. The objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive assessment of the spatial distribution and temporal trends of selected water-budget components (snow processes, evapotranspiration (ET), streamflow processes, a
Authors
Kyle R. Douglas-Mankin, Christine Rumsey, Graham A. Sexstone, Tamara I. Ivahnenko, Natalie Houston, Shaleene Chavarria, Gabriel B. Senay, Linzy K. Foster, Jonathan V. Thomas, Allison K. Flickinger, Amy E. Galanter, C. David Moeser, Toby L. Welborn, Diana E. Pedraza, Patrick M. Lambert, Michael Scott Johnson
Simulated global coastal ecosystem responses to a half-century increase in river nitrogen loads
Coastal ecosystems are increasingly threatened by anthropogenic stressors such as harmful algal blooms and hypoxia projected to intensify through the combined effects of eutrophication and warming. As a major terrestrial nitrogen (N) source to the ocean, rivers play a critical role in shaping both coastal and global biogeochemical cycling. Combining an enhanced-resolution (1/4°), global ocean ph
Authors
Xiao Liu, Charles A. Stock, John P. Dunne, Minjin Lee, Elena Shevliakova, Sergey Malyshev, Paul C. D. Milly
Going beyond low flows: Streamflow drought deficit and duration illuminate distinct spatiotemporal drought patterns and trends in the U.S. during the last century
Streamflow drought is a recurring challenge, and understanding spatiotemporal patterns of past droughts is needed to manage future water resources. We examined regional patterns in streamflow drought metrics and compared these metrics to low flow timing and magnitude using long-term daily records for 555 minimally disturbed watersheds. For each streamgage, we calculated streamflow drought duration
Authors
John C. Hammond, Caelan E. Simeone, Jory Seth Hecht, Glenn A. Hodgkins, Melissa Lombard, Gregory J. McCabe, David M. Wolock, Michael Wieczorek, Carolyn G Olson, Todd Caldwell, Robert W. Dudley, Adam N. Price
Using tissue cysteine to predict the trophic transfer of methylmercury and selenium in lake food webs
The biomagnification of toxic methylmercury (MeHg) and selenium (Se) through aquatic food webs using nitrogen stable isotopes (δ15N) varies among ecosystems but underlying mechanisms are yet unexplained. Given the strong links between MeHg and thiol-containing amino acids and proteins containing selenocysteine, our hypothesis was that cysteine content is a better predictor of MeHg and Se transfer
Authors
Jennifer C Thera, Karen A. Kidd, Robin Stewart, Robert F Bertolo, Nelson J. O'Driscoll
The capacity of freshwater ecosystems to recover from exceedances of aquatic life criteria
In the United States, national chemical water quality criteria for the protection of aquatic life assume that aquatic ecosystems have sufficient resiliency to recover from criteria exceedences occurring up to once every 3 years. This resiliency assumption was critically reviewed through two approaches: 1) synthesis of case studies and 2) population modeling. The population modeling examined differ
Authors
Christopher A. Mebane
Examination of dissolved uranium concentrations in regional shallow groundwater relative to Operable Unit 8 of the Denver Radium Superfund Site
A radium industry existed between about 1914 and 1920 in Denver, Colorado, with operations located along the South Platte River. Sites associated with that industry were contaminated with radium and uranium processing residues and were incorporated into clean-up efforts as Operating Units (OUs) of the Denver Radium Superfund Site. Concentrations of uranium exceeding the U.S. Environmental Protecti
Authors
Carleton R. Bern
Green infrastructure in the Great Lakes—Assessment of performance, barriers, and unintended consequences
The Great Lakes Basin covers around 536,393 square kilometers, and the Great Lakes hold more than 5,400 cubic miles of water, accounting for more than 20 percent of the world’s fresh surface water supply. The Great Lakes provide a source of drinking water to tens of millions of people in Canada and the United States and support one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world. Increasing urbanizati
Authors
Nancy T. Baker, Daniel J. Sullivan, William R. Selbig, Ralph J. Haefner, David C. Lampe, E. Randall Bayless, Michael R. McHale