Publications
Browse more than 160,000 publications authored by our scientists over the past 100+ year history of the USGS. Publications available are: USGS-authored journal articles, series reports, book chapters, other government publications, and more.
Mission Area Publications
Mission Area Publications
We are focused on some of the most significant issues society faces, and our science is making a substantial contribution to the well-being of the Nation and the world. Learn more about the major topics our research covers and the programs focused on those topics.
Filter Total Items: 171101
Evaluating the potential for efficient, UAS-based reach-scale mapping of river channel bathymetry from multispectral images
Introduction: Information on spatial patterns of water depth in river channels is valuable for numerous applications, but such data can be difficult to obtain via traditional field methods. Ongoing developments in remote sensing technology have enabled various image-based approaches for mapping river bathymetry; this study evaluated the potential to retrieve depth from multispectral images acquire
Authors
Carl J. Legleiter, Lee R. Harrison
Apparent non-double-couple components as artifacts of moment tensor inversion
Compilations of earthquake moment tensors from global and regional catalogs find pervasive non-double-couple (NDC) components with a mean deviation from a double-couple (DC) source of around 20%. Their distributions vary only slightly with magnitude, faulting mechanism, or geologic environments. This consistency suggests that for most earthquakes, especially smaller ones whose rupture processes ar
Authors
Boris Rösler, Seth Stein, Adam T. Ringler, Jiří Vackár
Preliminary implications of viscoelastic ray theory for anelastic seismic tomography models
The recent developments in general viscoelastic ray theory provide a rigorous mathematical framework for anelastic seismic tomography. They provide closed‐form solutions of forward ray‐tracing and simple inverse problems for anelastic horizontal and spherical layered media with material gradients. They provide ray‐tracing computation algorithms valid for all angles of incidence that account for ch
Authors
Roger D. Borcherdt
Groundwater hydrology, groundwater and surface-water interactions, aquifer testing, and groundwater-flow simulations for the Fountain Creek alluvial aquifer, near Colorado Springs, Colorado, 2018–20
From 2018 through 2020, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Air Force Civil Engineering Center, conducted an integrated study of the Fountain Creek alluvial aquifer located near Colorado Springs, Colorado. The objective of the study was to characterize hydrologic conditions for the alluvial aquifer pertinent to the potential for transport of solutes. Specific goals of this report w
Authors
Connor P. Newman, Cory A. Russell, Zachary D. Kisfalusi, Suzanne S. Paschke
Estimation and comparison of 1-percent annual exceedance probability flood flows at Federal Emergency Management Agency flood insurance study flow locations across Pennsylvania
Flood-flow estimates were computed at over 5,000 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) flood insurance study (FIS) flow locations across Pennsylvania for the 1-percent annual exceedance probability flood event (1-percent AEP). Depending on a point of interest’s proximity to a streamgage, weighting techniques may be applied to obtain flood-flow estimates for ungaged flow locations using observ
Authors
Mitchell R. Weaver, Marla H. Stuckey, James E. Colgin, Mark A. Roland
Classification of lakebed geologic substrate in autonomously collected benthic imagery using machine learning
Mapping benthic habitats with bathymetric, acoustic, and spectral data requires georeferenced ground-truth information about habitat types and characteristics. New technologies like autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) collect tens of thousands of images per mission making image-based ground truthing particularly attractive. Two types of machine learning (ML) models, random forest (RF) and deep n
Authors
Joseph K. Geisz, Phillipe Alan Wernette, Peter C. Esselman
Deep learning workflow to support in-flight processing of digital aerial imagery for wildlife population surveys
Deep learning shows promise for automating detection and classification of wildlife from digital aerial imagery to support cost-efficient remote sensing solutions for wildlife population monitoring. To support in-flight orthorectification and machine learning processing to detect and classify wildlife from imagery in near real-time, we evaluated deep learning methods that address hardware limitati
Authors
Tsung-Wei Ke, Stella X Yu, Mark D. Koneff, David L. Fronczak, Luke J. Fara, Travis Harrison, Kyle Lawrence Landolt, Enrika Hlavacek, Brian R. Lubinski, Timothy White
Propensity score matching mitigates risk of faulty inferences in observational studies of effectiveness of restoration trials
Determining effectiveness of restoration treatments is an important requirement of adaptive management, but it can be non-trivial where only portions of large and heterogeneous landscapes of concern can be treated and sampled. Bias and non-randomness in the spatial deployment of treatment and thus sampling is nearly unavoidable in the data available for large-scale management trials, and the bioph
Authors
Chad Raymond Kluender, Matthew Germino, Christopher A Anthony
Identifying an understudied interface: Preliminary evaluation of the use of retention ponds on commercial poultry farms by wild waterfowl
While the recent incursion of highly pathogenic avian influenza into North America has resulted in notable losses to the commercial poultry industry, the mechanism by which virus enters commercial poultry houses is still not understood. One theorized mechanism is that waterfowl shed virus into the environment surrounding poultry farms, such as into retention ponds, and is then transmitted into pou
Authors
Jeffery D. Sullivan, Ayla McDonough, Lauren Lescure, Diann Prosser
Quantifying and evaluating strategies to decrease carbon dioxide emissions generated from tourism to Yellowstone National Park
The tourism industry needs strategies to reduce emissions and hasten the achievement of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emission reduction targets. Using a case study approach, we estimated CO2 emissions related to park tourism in Yellowstone National Park (USA) generated from transit to and from the park, transit within the park, accommodations, and park operations. Results indicate tourism to Yellow
Authors
Emily J. Wilkins, Dani T. Dagan, Jordan W. Smith
Effects and perceptions of weather, climate, and climate change on outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism in the United States: A systematic review
Weather, climate, and climate change all effect outdoor recreation and tourism, and will continue to cause a multitude of effects as the climate warms. We conduct a systematic literature review to better understand how weather, climate, and climate change affect outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism across the United States. We specifically explore how the effects differ by recreational acti
Authors
Emily J. Wilkins, Lydia Horne
Range-wide genetic analysis of an endangered bumble bee (Bombus affinis, Hymenoptera: Apidae) reveals population structure, isolation by distance, and low colony abundance
Declines in bumble bee species range and abundances are documented across multiple continents and have prompted the need for research to aid species recovery and conservation. The rusty patched bumble bee (Bombus affinis) is the first federally listed bumble bee species in North America. We conducted a range-wide population genetics study of B. affinis from across all extant conservation units to
Authors
John Mola, Ian Pearse, Michelle Boone, Elaine Evans, Mark Hepner, Robert Jean, Jade Kochanski, Cade Nordmeyer, Eric Runquist, Tamara A. Smith, Jaime Strange, Jay Watson, Jonathan B Koch