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
Records of engagement and decision making for environmental and socio-ecological challenges
We propose creating and maintaining records of engagement and decision-making (RoED) to help us and our communities better understand ourselves, our goals, our decisions, and the dynamic systems in which we all live. The purpose of RoED is to go well beyond noting that dialogue occurred or a decision was reached. The records should, in ways appropriate to the context and participants, document int
Authors
Kristan Cockerill, Pierre D. Glynn, Ilan Chabay, Mahmud Farooque, Raimo Hamalainen, Ben Miyamoto, Patricia McKay
A novel method for the extraction, purification and characterization of noble gases in produced fluids
Hydrocarbon systems with declining or viscous oil production are often stimulated using enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques, such as the injection of water, steam and CO2, in order to increase oil and gas production. As EOR and other methods of enhancing production such as hydraulic fracturing have become more prevalent, environmental concerns about the impact of both new and historical hydroca
Authors
Rebecca L. Tyne, Peter H Barry, D J Hillegonds, Andrew Hunt, Justin T. Kulongoski, Michael J. Stephens, D.J. Byrne, C. J. Ballentine
Adapterama II: Universal amplicon sequencing on Illumina platforms (TaggiMatrix)
Next-generation sequencing (NGS) of amplicons is used in a wide variety of contexts. In many cases, NGS amplicon sequencing remains overly expensive and inflexible, with library preparation strategies relying upon the fusion of locus-specific primers to full-length adapter sequences with a single identifying sequence or ligating adapters onto PCR products. In Adapterama I, we presented universal s
Authors
Travis C Glenn, Todd W Pierson, Natalia J Bayona-Vásquez, Troy J. Kieran, Sandra L. Hoffberg, Jesse Thomas, Daniel E. Lefever, John W. Finger Jr., Bei Gao, Xiaoming Bian, Swarnali Louha, Ramya Kolli, Kerin Bentley, Julie Rushmore, Kelvin Wong, Michael Rothrock, Anna M. McKee, Tai L. Guo, Rodney Mauricio, Marirosa Molina, Brian Cummings, Lawrence H. Lash, Kun Lu, Gregory S. Gilbert, Stephen P. Hubbell, Brant C. Faircloth
sUAS-based remote sensing of river discharge using thermal particle image velocimetry and bathymetric lidar
This paper describes a non-contact methodology for computing river discharge based on data collected from small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS). The approach is complete in that both surface velocity and channel geometry are measured directly under field conditions. The technique does not require introducing artificial tracer particles for computing surface velocity, nor does it rely upon the pres
Authors
Paul J. Kinzel, Carl J. Legleiter
PFHydro: A new watershed-scale model for post-fire runoff simulation
Runoff increases after wildfires that burn vegetation and create a condition of soil-water repellence (SWR). A new post-fire watershed hydrological model, PFHydro, was created to explicitly simulate vegetation interception and SWR effects for four burn severity categories: high, medium, low severity and unburned. The model was applied to simulate post-fire runoff from the Upper Cache Creek Watersh
Authors
Jun Wang, Michelle A. Stern, Vanessa M. King, Charles N. Alpers, Nigel W. T. Quinn, Alan L. Flint, Lorraine E. Flint
Baseline environmental monitoring of groundwater, surface water, and soil at the Ammonium Perchlorate Rocket Motor Destruction Facility at the Letterkenny Army Depot, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, 2016
Letterkenny Army Depot in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, built an Ammonium Perchlorate Rocket Motor Destruction (ARMD) facility in 2016. The ARMD Facility was designed to centralize rocket motor destruction and contain or capture all waste during the destruction process. Ideally, there would be no contaminant transport to air, soil, or water from the facility, but the Code of Federal Regulations requ
Authors
Daniel G. Galeone
Real-time assessments of water quality—A nowcast for Escherichia coli and cyanobacterial toxins
Threats to our recreational and drinking waters include disease-causing (pathogenic) organisms from fecal contamination and toxins produced by some species of cyanobacteria (cyanotoxins) that can cause acute and (or) chronic illnesses. Because traditional laboratory methods for detecting these threats take too long for prompt public health protection, tools for real-time assessments are needed to
Authors
Donna S. Francy, Amie M.G. Brady, Tammy M. Zimmerman
Morphological computation of dune evolution with equilibrium and non-equilibrium sediment-transport models
This paper presents an exploratory study that comprises the implementation and comparison of different approaches and parameterization of sediment transport mechanisms in a process-based morphological model for simulating river dunes. The purpose of this study was to assess the underlying physical processes associated with sediment transport and dune evolution simulated by the model with two diffe
Authors
Satomi Yamaguchi, Sanjay Giri, Yasuyuki Shimizu, Jonathan M. Nelson
Changes in event‐based streamflow magnitude and timing after suburban development with infiltration‐based stormwater management
Green stormwater infrastructure implementation in urban watersheds has outpaced our understanding of practice effectiveness on streamflow response to precipitation events. Long‐term monitoring of experimental urban watersheds in Clarksburg, Maryland, USA, provided an opportunity to examine changes in event‐based streamflow metrics in two treatment watersheds that transitioned from agriculture to s
Authors
Kristina G. Hopkins, Aditi S. Bhaskar, Sean Woznicki, Rosemary M. Fanelli
Prioritizing chemicals of ecological concern in Great Lakes tributaries using high-throughput screening data and adverse outcome pathways
Chemical monitoring data were collected in surface waters from 57 Great Lakes tributaries from 2010-13 to identify chemicals of potential biological relevance and sites at which these chemicals occur. Traditional water-quality benchmarks for aquatic life based on in vivo toxicity data were available for 34 of 67 evaluated chemicals. To expand evaluation of potential biological effects, measured ch
Authors
Steven R. Corsi, Laura A. DeCicco, Daniel L. Villeneuve, Brett Blackwell, Kellie Fay, Gerald Ankley, Austin K. Baldwin
Influence of land use and hydrologic variability on seasonal dissolved organic carbon and nitrate export: Insights from a multi-year regional analysis for the northeastern USA
Land use/land cover (LULC) change has significant impacts on nutrient loading to aquatic systems and has been linked to deteriorating water quality globally. While many relationships between LULC and nutrient loading have been identified, characterization of the interaction between LULC, climate (specifically variable hydrologic forcing) and solute export across seasonal and interannual time scale
Authors
Erin Seybold, Arthur J. Gold, Shreeram P. Inamdar, Carol Adair, W.B. Bowden, Matthew C.H. Vaughan, Soni M. Pradhanang, Kelly Addy, James B. Shanley, Andrew W. Vermilyea, Delphis F. Levia, Beverley Wemple, Andrew W. Schroth
Withdrawal and consumption of water by thermoelectric power plants in the United States, 2015
The U.S. Geological Survey has developed models to estimate thermoelectric water use based on linked heat and water budgets. The models produced plant-level withdrawal and consumption estimates using consistent methods for 1,122 water-using, utility-scale thermoelectric power plants in the United States for 2015. Total estimated withdrawal for 2015 was about 103 billion gallons per day (Bgal/d), a
Authors
Melissa A. Harris, Timothy H. Diehl