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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

Selecting the optimal fine-scale historical climate data for assessing current and future hydrological conditions

High-resolution historical climate grids are readily available and frequently used as inputs for a wide range of regional management and risk assessments, including water supply, ecological processes, and as baseline for climate change impact studies that compare them to future projected conditions. Because historical gridded climates are produced using various methods, their portrayal of landscap
Authors
Michelle A. Stern, Lorraine E. Flint, Alan L. Flint, Ryan M Boynton, Joseph A E Stewart, Jessica W Wright, James H. Thorne

Simple relationships between residence time and annual nutrient retention, export, and loading for estuaries

Simple mathematical models are derived from mass balances for water and transported substance to provide insight into the relationships between import, export, transport, and internal removal for nonconservative substances in an estuary. Extending previous work, our models explicitly include water and substance inputs from the ocean and are expressed in terms of timescales (i.e., mean residence ti
Authors
Jian Shen, Jiabi Du, Lisa Lucas

Isotopic discrimination of natural and anthropogenic perchlorate sources in groundwater in a semi-arid region of northeastern Oregon (USA)

Perchlorate (ClO4−) has synthetic and natural sources. Synthetic ClO4− is released to the environment from its use as an oxidant in military and aerospace applications, and from its presence in a variety of common commercial products, such as safety flares, chlorate herbicides, and fireworks. Natural sources of ClO4− in the environment include imported nitrate fertilizers derived from salt deposit
Authors
Paul B. Hatzinger, John K. Böhlke, W.A. Jackson, Baohua Gu, Stanley J. Mroczkowski, Neil C. Sturchio

Lessons learned from 20 y of monitoring suburban development with distributed stormwater management in Clarksburg, Maryland, USA

Urban development is a well-known stressor for stream ecosystems, presenting a challenge to managers tasked with mitigating its effects. For the past 20 y, streamflow, water quality, geomorphology, and benthic communities were monitored in 5 watersheds in Montgomery County, Maryland, USA. This study presents a synthesis of multiple studies of monitoring efforts in the study area and new analysis o
Authors
Kristina G. Hopkins, Sean Woznicki, Brianna Williams, Charles C. Stillwell, Eric Naibert, Marina Metes, Daniel Jones, Dianna M. Hogan, Natalie Celeste Hall, Rosemary M. Fanelli, Aditi S. Bhaskar

December 23, 2021, Red Hill synoptic groundwater-level survey, Hālawa area, O‘ahu, Hawai‘i

On December 23, 2021, groundwater levels were measured in selected wells in the Hālawa area, O‘ahu, Hawai‘i, constituting a synoptic groundwater-level survey (shortened herein to “synoptic survey”) of the area. Groundwater levels were measured mainly from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. (times listed in Hawai‘i standard time) and provide a snapshot of groundwater levels during the survey period. Following
Authors
Rylen K. Nakama, Jackson N. Mitchell, Delwyn S. Oki

Pervasive, preferential flow through mega-thick unsaturated zones in the Southern Great Basin

Recharge from preferential flow through mega-thick (100–1,000 m) unsaturated zones is a pervasive phenomenon, as demonstrated with a case study of volcanic highland recharge areas in the Great Basin province in southern Nevada, USA. Statistically significant rising water-level trends occur for most study-area wells and resulted from a relatively wet period (1969–2005) in south-central Nevada. Wet
Authors
Tracie R. Jackson, Joseph M. Fenelon, Seth Reilly Gainey

Linear regression model documentation for computing water-quality constituent concentrations using continuous real-time water-quality data for the Republican River, Clay Center, Kansas, July 2018 through March 2021

The Republican River is the primary inflow to Milford Lake and drains areas of Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado. Milford Lake has been listed as impaired and designated hypereutrophic by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment because of excessive nutrient loading. Milford Lake had confirmed harmful algal blooms every summer from 2011 through 2017 and in 2020 and 2021.In the lower Republican
Authors
Brianna M. Leiker

Site- and individual-level contaminations affect infection prevalence of an emerging infectious disease of amphibians

Emerging infectious disease outbreaks are one of multiple stressors responsible for amphibian declines globally. In the northeastern United States, ranaviral diseases are prevalent in amphibians and other ectothermic species, but there is still uncertainty as to whether their presence is leading to population level effects. Further, there is also uncertainty surrounding the potential interactions
Authors
Kelly L. Smalling, Brittany A. Mosher, Luke R. Iwanowicz, Keith Loftin, Adam Boehlke, Michelle Hladik, Carly R. Muletz-Wolz, Nandadevi Córtes-Rodríguez, Robin Femmer, Evan H. Campbell Grant

Occurrence and sources of lead in private wells, Sturbridge, Massachusetts

Lead (Pb) occurrence and sources and aqueous geochemistry were assessed in private wellhead and tap water at a targeted area of concern for possible exceedances and at a control area in the same geologic formation, and in wells at a nearby landfill in south-central Massachusetts (MA). Total Pb concentrations were below the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) Action Level of 15 μg/L in all
Authors
Leah M. Santangelo, Craig J. Brown, James B. Shanley, Michael Pribil, Danny Rutherford

Near-surface geophysics perspectives on Integrated, Coordinated, Open, Networked (ICON) Science

Pointing to the Integrated, Coordinated, Open, Networked Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability (ICON-FAIR) principles, we have determined several opportunities for implementation within the realm of near-surface geophysics (NSG), representing a broad range of data acquisition and processing technologies. Our work explores the multifaceted community-driven nature of NSG and,
Authors
M. Salman, L. Slater, Martin A. Briggs, L. Li

Climate change and fishes in estuaries

This chapter provides an overview of the main drivers of change in estuarine systems, their expected causes and impacts on estuarine fish and fisheries. An analysis of global, regional and local patterns of estuarine fish and how climate-induced change may impact estuarine systems and their fish communities is provided. We also examine the main environmental, climatic and biological stressors like
Authors
Bronwyn M Gillanders, Matthew N. McMillan, P. Reis-Santos, Lee J. Baumgartner, Larry R. Brown, John Conallin, Frederick V. Feyrer, Sofia Henriques, Nicola C. James, Andrés J Jaureguizar, André L. M. Pessanha, Rita P. Vasconcelos, An V. Vu, Benjamin Walther, Arif Wibowo

Joint-species analysis reveals potential displacement of native fishes by non-native fishes within the Santa Ana River, California

Accurate estimates of abundance are a cornerstone for resource managers to make effective decisions for fish conservation. However, multiple sampling methods often are required to sample fish communities, and ignoring the detection process can create substantial bias in latent state parameter estimation (e.g., abundance, survival). We developed a joint-species N-mixture model that integrated snork
Authors
Brock Huntsman, Larry R. Brown, Kai Palenscar, Chris Jones, Kerwin Russell, Heather Dyer, Brett Mills, Marissa L. Wulff, Jason May