Book Chapters
Science Quality and Integrity
The USGS provides unbiased, objective, and impartial scientific information upon which our audiences, including resource managers, planners, and other entities, rely.
The USGS provides unbiased, objective, and impartial scientific information upon which our audiences, including resource managers, planners, and other entities, rely.
Browse more than 5,500 book chapters authored by our scientists over the past 100+ year history of the USGS and refine search by topic, location, year, and advanced search.
Filter Total Items: 6071
Movement mysteries unveiled: spatial ecology of juvenile green sea turtles
Locations of important foraging areas are not well defined for many marine species. Unraveling these mysteries is vital to develop conservation strategies for these species, many of which are threatened or endangered. Satellite-tracking is a tool that can reveal movement patterns at both broad and fine spatial scales, in all marine environments. This chapter presents records of the longest duratio
Authors
Donna J. Shaver, Kristen M. Hart, Ikuko Fujisaki, Cynthia Rubio, Autumn R. Sartain-Iverson
Tamarix as wildlife habitat
No abstract available.
Authors
Heather L. Bateman, Eben H. Paxton, William S. Longland
GPS location history data mining and anomalous detection: the scenario of bar-headed geese migration
It is important to discover common movement sequences and uncommon behaviors during the migration of wild birds. In this paper, we propose a new approach to analyze the GPS location history data of migratory birds. The stopover sites are first extracted from the location history data of birds, and their movement sequences are generated automatically. Then, a consistency calculation method is intro
Authors
Ze Luo, Yan Xiong, Baoping Yan, Diann J. Prosser, John Y. Takekawa
Environmental impact of the landslides caused by the 12 May 2008, Wenchuan, China earthquake
The magnitude 7.9 (Mw) Wenchuan, China, earthquake of May 12, 2008 caused at least 88,000 deaths of which one third are estimated to be due to the more than 56,000 earthquake-induced landslides. The affected area is mountainous, featuring densely-vegetated, steep slopes through which narrowly confined rivers and streams flow. Numerous types of landslides occurred in the area, including rock avalan
Authors
Lynn M. Highland, Ping Sun
Managing inherent complexity for sustainable Walleye fisheries in Lake Erie
No abstract available.
Authors
Edward F. Roseman, Richard Drouin, Marc Gaden, Roger L. Knight, Jeffrey Tyson, Zhao Yingming
Wildfire and landscape change
Wildfire is a worldwide phenomenon that is expected to increase in extent and severity in the future, due to fuel accumulations, shifting land management practices, and climate change. It immediately affects the landscape by removing vegetation, depositing ash, influencing water-repellent soil formation, and physically weathering boulders and bedrock. These changes typically lead to increased eros
Authors
P. Santi, S. Cannon, J. DeGraff
Moving forward with imperfect information
This chapter summarized the scope of what is known and not known about climate in the Southwestern United States. There is now more evidence and more agreement among climate scientists about the physical climate and related impacts in the Southwest compared with that represented in the 2009 National Climate Assessment (Karl, Melillo, and Peterson 2009). However, there remain uncertainties about th
Authors
Kristen Averyt, Levi D. Brekke, David E. Busch, Laurna Kaatz, Leigh Welling, Eric H. Hartge, Tom Iseman
Desertification of rangelands: 4.20
Desertification, the broad-scale conversion of perennial grasslands to dominance by annuals or xerophytic shrubs, has affected drylands globally over the past several centuries. Desertification is a cumulative threat that includes both climatic (e.g., drought) and land-use drivers (e.g., livestock overgrazing, fire). In this chapter, we determine the vulnerability of different ecosystem services t
Authors
D. P. C. Peters, B. T. Bestelmeyer, K. M. Havstad, A. Rango, S. R. Archer, A. C. Comrie, H. R. Gimblett, L. López-Hoffman, O. E. Sala, E. R. Vivoni, M. L. Brooks, J. Brown, H. C. Monger, J. H. Goldstein
Photography applications
Photographic imaging is the oldest form of remote sensing used in coral reef studies. This chapter briefly explores the history of photography from the 1850s to the present, and delves into its application for coral reef research. The investigation focuses on both photographs collected from low-altitude fixed-wing and rotary aircraft, and those collected from space by astronauts. Different types o
Authors
Susan A. Cochran
Current Therapy in Reptile Medicine and Surgery
No abstract available.
Authors
Robert N. Reed, Kenneth L. Krysko
Modeling groundwater flow and quality
In most areas, rocks in the subsurface are saturated with water at relatively shallow depths. The top of the saturated zone—the water table—typically occurs anywhere from just below land surface to hundreds of feet below the land surface. Groundwater generally fills all pore spaces below the water table and is part of a continuous dynamic flow system, in which the fluid is moving at velocities ran
Authors
Leonard F. Konikow, Pierre D. Glynn