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.
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Synopsis of the history of sea otter conservation in the United States
In the late 1860s, declining US sea otter populations elicited concern because of prior excessive harvests. Congress mandated protection of Alaskan sea otters in 1868, but hunting continued unrestrained. The Fur Seal Treaty of 1911 (abrogated in 1941) protected sea otters in international waters, but was not applicable to most sea otter habitats and failed to terminate all legal sea otter harvests
Authors
Glenn R. VanBlaricom
The conservation of sea otters: a prelude
The story of sea otters over the past 275 years chronicles their decline to near extinction and the roads to recovery that cross various conflicts, and in the end provides lessons that will aid the conservation of other threatened species and compromised ecosystems. Sea otters inspire strong human emotions ranging from adoration to disdain. They are protected internationally, federally, and at sta
Authors
James L. Bodkin, Shawn E. Larson
The International Charter 'Space and Major Disasters'
No abstract available.
Authors
Brenda Jones, Timothy S. Stryker, Ahmed Mahmood, Gabriel Platzeck
The role of floodplain restoration in mitigating flood risk, Lower Missouri River, USA
Recent extreme floods on the Lower Missouri River have reinvigorated public policy debate about the potential role of floodplain restoration in decreasing costs of floods and possibly increasing other ecosystem service benefits. The first step to addressing the benefits of floodplain restoration is to understand the interactions of flow, floodplain morphology, and land cover that together determin
Authors
Robert B. Jacobson, Garth A. Lindner, Chance Bitner
The transboundary nature of seabird ecology
The term ‘seabird’ is generally applied to avian species that forage in the marine environment over open water. Seabirds typically nest in colonies and are long-lived species with low annual reproductive rates. Seabird breeding sites typically occur on islands or along coasts and as such are often at the boundaries of ecological or political zones. During the breeding season, seabirds cross a very
Authors
Patrick G.R. Jodice, Robert M. Suryan
The Yellowstone “hot spot” track results from migrating basin-range extension
Whether the volcanism of the Columbia River Plateau, eastern Snake River Plain, and Yellowstone (western U.S.) is related to a mantle plume or to plate tectonic processes is a long-standing controversy. There are many geological mismatches with the basic plume model as well as logical flaws, such as citing data postulated to require a deep-mantle origin in support of an “upper-mantle plume” model.
Authors
Gillian R. Foulger, Robert L. Christiansen, Don L. Anderson
Ursus maritimus
No abstract available.
Authors
Øystein Wiig, Steven C. Amstrup, Todd C. Atwood, Kristin L Kaidre, Nicholas J Lunn, Martyn E. Obbard, Eric V. Regehr, Gregory W. Thiemann
Using the Maxent program for species distribution modelling to assess invasion risk
MAXENT is a software package used to relate known species occurrences to information describing the environment, such as climate, topography, anthropogenic features or soil data, and forecast the presence or absence of a species at unsampled locations. This particular method is one of the most popular species distribution modelling techniques because of its consistent strong predictive performance
Authors
Catherine S. Jarnevich, Nicholas E. Young
Northwest
Key Messages 1. Changes in the timing of streamflow related to changing snowmelt are already observed and will continue, reducing the supply of water for many competing demands and causing far-reaching ecological and socioeconomic consequences. 2. In the coastal zone, the effects of sea level rise, erosion, inundation, threats to infrastructure and habitat, and increasing ocean acidity collectivel
Authors
Philip W. Mote, Amy K. Snover, Susan M. Capalbo, Sanford D. Eigenbrode, Patricia Glick, Jeremy S. Littell, Richard Raymondi, Spencer Reeder
Chemical mixtures in potable water in the U.S.
In recent years, regulators have devoted increasing attention to health risks from exposure to multiple chemicals. In 1996, the US Congress directed the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to study mixtures of chemicals in drinking water, with a particular focus on potential interactions affecting chemicals' joint toxicity. The task is complicated by the number of possible mixtures in drinkin
Authors
Sarah J. Ryker
Introduction: Hazard mapping
Twenty papers were accepted into the session on landslide hazard mapping for oral presentation. The papers presented susceptibility and hazard analysis based on approaches ranging from field-based assessments to statistically based models to assessments that combined hydromechanical and probabilistic components. Many of the studies have taken advantage of increasing availability of remotely sensed
Authors
Rex L. Baum, Toyohiko Miyagi, Saro Lee, Oleksandr M Trofymchuk
Paleoclimate
As host to one of the major continental-scale ice sheets, and with considerable spatial variability of climate related to its physiography and location, North America has experienced a wide range of climates over time. The aim of this chapter is to review the history of those climate variations, focusing in particular on the continental-scale climatic variations between the Last Glacial Maximum (L
Authors
Patrick J. Bartlein, Steven W. Hostetler, Jay R. Alder