Conference Papers
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 almost 5,000 conference papers authored by our scientists and refine search by topic, location, year, and advanced search.
Filter Total Items: 5326
The impact of climate change on transportation in the gulf coast
Climate affects the design, construction, safety, operations, and maintenance of transportation infrastructure and systems. The prospect of a changing climate raises critical questions regarding how alterations in temperature, precipitation, storm events, and other aspects of the climate could affect the nation's transportation system. This regional assessment of climate change and its potential i
Authors
M.J. Savonis, V.R. Burkett, J.R. Potter, R. Kafalenos, R. Hyman, K. Leonard
The moon as a radiometric reference source for on-orbit sensor stability calibration
The wealth of data generated by the world's Earth-observing satellites, now spanning decades, allows the construction of long-term climate records. A key consideration for detecting climate trends is precise quantification of temporal changes in sensor calibration on-orbit. For radiometer instruments in the solar reflectance wavelength range (near-UV to shortwave-IR), the Moon can be viewed as a s
Authors
T.C. Stone
Theory, practice, and history in critical GIS: Reports on an AAG panel session
Extending a special session held at the 2008 annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers in Boston, this commentary collection highlights elements of the critical GIS research agenda that are particularly pressing. Responding to a Progress report on critical GIS written by David O'Sullivan in 2006, these six commentaries discuss how different interpretations of 'critical' are traced
Authors
M.W. Wilson, B.S. Poore
TinyOS-based quality of service management in wireless sensor networks
Previously the cost and extremely limited capabilities of sensors prohibited Quality of Service (QoS) implementations in wireless sensor networks. With advances in technology, sensors are becoming significantly less expensive and the increases in computational and storage capabilities are opening the door for new, sophisticated algorithms to be implemented. Newer sensor network applications requir
Authors
N. Peterson, L. Anusuya-Rangappa, B.A. Shirazi, R. Huang, W.-Z. Song, M. Miceli, D. McBride, A. Hurson, R. LaHusen
Toward production from gas hydrates: Current status, assessment of resources, and simulation-based evaluation of technology and potential
Gas hydrates (GHs) are a vast energy resource with global distribution in the permafrost and in the oceans. Even if conservative estimates are considered and only a small fraction is recoverable, the sheer size of the resource is so large that it demands evaluation as a potential energy source. In this review paper, we discuss the distribution of natural GH accumulations, the status of the primary
Authors
G. J. Moridis, T. S. Collett, R. Boswell, M. Kurihara, M. T. Reagan, C. Koh, E. D. Sloan
TreeMAC: Localized TDMA MAC protocol for real-time high-data-rate sensor networks
Earlier sensor network MAC protocols focus on energy conservation in low-duty cycle applications, while some recent applications involve real-time high-data-rate signals. This motivates us to design an innovative localized TDMA MAC protocol to achieve high throughput and low congestion in data collection sensor networks, besides energy conservation. TreeMAC divides a time cycle into frames and fra
Authors
W.-Z. Song, R. Huang, B. Shirazi, R.L. Husent
U.S. Department of Energy's Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership Program: Overview
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has formed a nationwide network of seven regional partnerships to help determine the best approaches for capturing and permanently storing gases that can contribute to global climate change. The Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships (RCSPs) are tasked with determining the most suitable technologies, regulations, and infrastructure for carbon capture, transp
Authors
J. Litynski, S. Plasynski, L. Spangler, R. Finley, E. Steadman, D. Ball, K.J. Nemeth, B. McPherson, L. Myer
U.S. Geological Survey research in Handcart Gulch, Colorado—An alpine watershed with natural acid-rock drainage
Handcart Gulch is an alpine watershed along the Continental Divide in the Colorado Rocky Mountain Front Range. It contains an unmined mineral deposit typical of many hydrothermal mineral deposits in the intermountain west, composed primarily of pyrite with trace metals including copper and molybdenum. Springs and the trunk stream have a natural pH value of 3 to 4. The U.S. Geological Survey began
Authors
Andrew H. Manning, Jonathan S. Caine, Philip L. Verplanck, Dana J. Bove, Katherine G. Kahn
Understanding CO2 Plume Behavior and Basin-Scale Pressure Changes during Sequestration Projects through the use of Reservoir Fluid Modeling
Large scale geologic sequestration tests are in the planning stages around the world. The liability and safety issues of the migration of CO2 away from the primary injection site and/or reservoir are of significant concerns for these sequestration tests. Reservoir models for simulating single or multi-phase fluid flow are used to understand the migration of CO2 in the subsurface. These models can
Authors
H.E. Leetaru, S.M. Frailey, J. Damico, E. Mehnert, J. Birkholzer, Q. Zhou, P.D. Jordan
Understanding differences between DELFT3D and empirical predictions of alongshore sediment transport gradients
Predictions of alongshore transport gradients are critical for forecasting shoreline change. At
the previous ICCE conference, it was demonstrated that alongshore transport gradients
predicted by the empirical CERC equation can differ substantially from predictions made by
the hydrodynamics-based model Delft3D in the case of a simulated borrow pit on the
shoreface. Here we use the Delft3D momen
Authors
Jeffrey H. List, Lindino Benedet, Daniel M. Hanes, Peter Ruggiero
Using "big data" to optimally model hydrology and water quality across expansive regions
This paper describes a new divide and conquer approach that leverages big environmental data, utilizing all available categorical and time-series data without subjectivity, to empirically model hydrologic and water-quality behaviors across expansive regions. The approach decomposes large, intractable problems into smaller ones that are optimally solved; decomposes complex signals into behavioral c
Authors
E.A. Roehl, J.B. Cook, P.A. Conrads
Using a coupled groundwater/surface-water model to predict climate-change impacts to lakes in the Trout Lake Watershed, northern Wisconsin
A major focus of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Trout Lake Water, Energy, and Biogeochemical Budgets (WEBB) project is the development of a watershed model to allow predictions of hydrologic response to future conditions including land-use and climate change. The coupled groundwater/surface-water model GSFLOW was chosen for this purpose because it could easily incorporate an existing groundwater flo
Authors
Randall J. Hunt, John F. Walker, Steven L. Markstrom, Lauren E. Hay, John Doherty