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: 18424
Lake Tahoe water monitoring and research activities
Several decades ago, deteriorating water quality and clarity in Lake Tahoe prompted the initiation of environmental programs in the Lake Tahoe basin. Data on seasonal sediment loads from tributary streams, and nutrient loads from surrounding streams and groundwater aquifers, were needed to document the causes of this deterioration, the local and regional effectiveness of environmental programs, an
Authors
Ramon C. Naranjo
Passive seismic survey of sediment thickness, Dasht-e-Nawar basin, eastern Afghanistan
Exploration of water resources is needed for public supply, extraction of mineral resources, and economic development in Afghanistan. Remotely-sensed data are useful for identifying the general nature of surface sediments, however, “boots on the ground” geophysical surveys or drilling programs are needed to quantify the thickness of sediments or aquifers. The nature of such investigations presents
Authors
Thomas J. Mack
Cyanotoxin occurrence in large rivers of the United States
Cyanotoxins occur in rivers worldwide but are understudied in lotic ecosystems relative to lakes and reservoirs. Eleven large river sites located throughout the United States were sampled during June–September 2017 to determine the occurrence of cyanobacteria with known cyanotoxin-producing strains, cyanotoxin synthetase genes, and cyanotoxins. Chlorophyll-a concentrations spanned the range from o
Authors
Jennifer L. Graham, Neil Dubrovsky, Guy Foster, Lindsey R. King, Keith Loftin, Barry Rosen, Erin Stelzer
Field observations of wind waves in Upper Delaware Bay with living shorelines
Constructed oyster reefs (CORs) provide shore protections and habitats for fish and shellfish communities via wave energy attenuation. However, the processes and mechanism of CORs on wave attenuation remain unclear, thus limiting the effective assessment of CORs for shoreline protection. This paper presents results of a field investigation on wave characteristics and wave spectral variations along
Authors
Ling Zhu, Q. Chen, Hongqing Wang, William D. Capurso, L.M. Niemoczynski, Kelin Hu, Gregg Snedden
Molecular identification of water-extractable organic carbon from thermally heated soils: C-13 NMR and accurate mass analyses find benzene and pyridine carboxylic acids
To simulate the effects of wildfire on the combustion process in soils and their potential to leach organic compounds into streams and groundwater, mineral soil samples were heated at temperatures of 150–550 °C. Then, the soils were leached with deionized water, filtered, and analyzed for dissolved organic carbon. The water extract was concentrated by both XAD-8 and XAD-4 resins and analyzed by C-
Authors
Earl Michael Thurman, Yun Yu, Imma Ferrer, Kevin A. Thorn, Fernando L. Rosario-Ortiz
Uptake, metabolism, and elimination of fungicides from coated wheat seeds in Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica)
Pesticides coated to the seed surface potentially pose an ecological risk to granivorous birds that consume incompletely buried or spilled seeds. To assess the toxicokinetics of seeds treated with current-use fungicides, Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) were orally dosed with commercially coated wheat seeds. Quail were exposed to metalaxyl, tebuconazole, and fludioxonil at either a low (0.07, 0.
Authors
Michael S. Gross, Thomas G. Bean, Michelle Hladik, Barnett A. Rattner, Kathryn Kuivila
Tidal wetland gross primary production across the continental United States, 2000–2019
We mapped tidal wetland gross primary production (GPP) with unprecedented detail for multiple wetland types across the continental United States (CONUS) at 16‐day intervals for the years 2000–2019. To accomplish this task, we developed the spatially explicit Blue Carbon (BC) model, which combined tidal wetland cover and field‐based eddy covariance tower data into a single Bayesian framework, and u
Authors
R.A. Feagin, I. Forbrich, T. P. Huff, J.G. Barr, J. Ruiz-Plancarte, J.D. Fuentes, R.G. Najjar, R. Vargas, A. Vazquez Lule, L. Windham-Myers, Kevin D. Kroeger, E. J. Ward, G. W. Moore, M. Leclerc, K. W. Krauss, C.L. Stagg, M. Alber, S. H. Knox, K. V. R. Schafer, T.S. Bianchi, J. A. Hutchings, H. Nahrawi, A. Noormets, B. Mitra, A. Jaimes, A.L. Hinson, Brian A. Bergamaschi, J.S. King, G. Miao
Water tracks enhance water flow above permafrost in upland Arctic Alaska hillslopes
Upland permafrost regions occupy approximately one third of the Arctic landscape. In upland regions, hydrologic fluxes are influenced by water tracks, curvilinear features on hillslopes that preferentially fill with and route water in response to snowmelt and rainfall when the soil above continuous permafrost thaws in the summer. As continued warming of the Arctic may alter hydrologic cycling lead
Authors
Sarah G. Evans, Sarah E Godsey, Caitlin R Rushlow, Clifford I. Voss
Binning singletons: Mentoring through networking at ASM microbe 2019
The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) national conference, Microbe, is the flagship meeting for microbiologists across the globe. The presence of roughly 10,000 attendees provides enormous opportunities for networking and learning. However, such a large meeting can be intimidating to many, especially early career scientists, students, those attending alone, and those from historically underr
Authors
Joseph B. James, Amanda L. Gunn, Denise M. Akob
Effects of John Martin Reservoir on water quality and quantity: Assessment by chemical, isotopic, and mass-balance methods
Water quality and quantity can be influenced by transit through and storage in reservoirs. Assessing such effects can be challenging, however, because of mixing and residence times, and inter-annual net storage and release from both the reservoir itself and surrounding porosity. Here, different methodologies were used to assess the effect of John Martin Reservoir (JMR), located on the Arkansas Riv
Authors
Carleton R. Bern, Michael J. Holmberg, Zachary D. Kisfalusi
Evaluation of hydrologic impact of an irrigation curtailment program in the Upper Klamath Lake Basin using Landsat satellite data
Upper Klamath Lake (UKL) is the source of the Klamath river that flows through southern Oregon and northern California. The UKL basin is home to two endangered species and provides water for 81,000+ ha (200,000+ acres) of irrigation on the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) Klamath Project located downstream of the UKL basin. Irrigated agriculture also occurs along the tributaries to UKL.
Authors
Naga Manohar Velpuri, Gabriel Senay, Matthew Schauer, C. Amanda Garcia, Ramesh Singh, MacKenzie Friedrichs, Stefanie Bohms, Jonathan V. Haynes, Terrence D. Conlon
Dunes in the world's big rivers are characterized by low-angle lee-side slopes and a complex shape
Dunes form critical agents of bedload transport in all of the world’s big rivers, and constitute appreciable sources of bed roughness and flow resistance. Dunes also generate stratification that is the most common depositional feature of ancient riverine sediments. However, current models of dune dynamics and stratification are conditioned by bedform geometries observed in small rivers and laborat
Authors
Julia Cisneros, Jim L. Best, Thaienne van Dijk, Renato Paes de Almeida, Mario Amsler, Justin A. Boldt, Bernardo Freitas, Cristiano Galeazzi, Richard J. Huizinga, Marco Ianniruberto, Hongbo Ma, Jeff Nittrouer, Kevin Oberg, Oscar Orfeo, Daniel Parsons, Ricardo N. Szupiany, Ping Wang, Yuanfeng Zhang