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: 18426
Rainfall-runoff of anthropogenic waste indicators from agricultural fields applied with municipal biosolids
The presence of anthropogenic contaminants such as antimicrobials, flame-retardants, and plasticizers in runoff from agricultural fields applied with municipal biosolids may pose a potential threat to the environment. This study assesses the potential for rainfall-induced runoff of 69 anthropogenic waste indicators (AWIs), widely found in household and industrial products, from biosolids amended f
Authors
James L. Gray, Thomas Borch, Edward T. Furlong, Jessica Davis, Tracy Yager, Yun-Ya Yang, Dana W. Kolpin
Human health screening and public health significance of contaminants of emerging concern detected in public water supplies
The source water and treated drinking water from twenty five drinking water treatment plants (DWTPs) across the United States were sampled in 2010–2012. Samples were analyzed for 247 contaminants using 15 chemical and microbiological methods. Most of these contaminants are not regulated currently either in drinking water or in discharges to ambient water by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agenc
Authors
Robert Benson, Octavia D. Conerly, William Sander, Angela L. Batt, J. Scott Boone, Edward T. Furlong, Susan T. Glassmeyer, Dana W. Kolpin, Heath Mash
Multi-year microbial source tracking study characterizing fecal contamination in an urban watershed
Microbiological and hydrological data were used to rank tributary stream contributions of bacteria to the Little Blue River in Independence, Missouri. Concentrations, loadings and yields of E. coli and microbial source tracking (MST) markers, were characterized during base flow and storm events in five subbasins within Independence, as well as sources entering and leaving the city through the rive
Authors
Rebecca N. Bushon, Amie M.G. Brady, Eric D. Christensen, Erin A. Stelzer
Tracer-based characterization of hyporheic exchange and benthic biolayers in streams
Shallow benthic biolayers at the top of the streambed are believed to be places of enhanced biogeochemical turnover within the hyporheic zone. They can be investigated by reactive stream tracer tests with tracer recordings in the streambed and in the stream channel. Common in-stream measurements of such reactive tracers cannot localize where the processing primarily takes place, whereas isolated v
Authors
Julia L.A. Knapp, Ricardo González-Pinzón, Jennifer D. Drummond, Laurel G. Larsen, Olaf A. Cirpka, Judson W. Harvey
Nationwide reconnaissance of contaminants of emerging concern in source and treated drinking waters of the United States: Pharmaceuticals
Mobile and persistent chemicals that are present in urban wastewater, such as pharmaceuticals, may survive
on-site ormunicipal wastewater treatment and post-discharge environmental processes. These pharmaceuticals
have the potential to reach surface and groundwaters, essential drinking-water sources. A joint, two-phase U.S.
Geological Survey-U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study examined sour
Authors
Edward T. Furlong, Angela L. Batt, Susan T. Glassmeyer, Mary C. Noriega, Dana W. Kolpin, Heath Mash, Kathleen M. Schenck
The use of data-mining techniques for developing effective decisionsupport systems: A case study of simulating the effects ofclimate change on coastal salinity intrusion
Natural-resource managers and stakeholders face difficult challenges when managing interactions between natural and societal systems. Potential changes in climate could alter interactions between environmental and societal systems and adversely affect the availability of water resources in many coastal communities. The availability of freshwater in coastal streams can be threatened by saltwater in
Authors
Paul Conrads, Jr. Edwin Roehl
smwrGraphs—An R package for graphing hydrologic data, version 1.1.2
This report describes an R package called smwrGraphs, which consists of a collection of graphing functions for hydrologic data within R, a programming language and software environment for statistical computing. The functions in the package have been developed by the U.S. Geological Survey to create high-quality graphs for publication or presentation of hydrologic data that meet U.S. Geological Su
Authors
David L. Lorenz, Aliesha L. Diekoff
Storms, channel changes, and a sediment budget for an urban-suburban stream, Difficult Run, Virginia, USA
Determining erosion and deposition rates in urban-suburban settings and how these processes are affected by large storms is important to understanding geomorphic processes in these landscapes. Sediment yields in the suburban and urban Upper Difficult Run are among the highest ever recorded in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, ranging from 161 to 376 Mg/km2/y. Erosion and deposition of streambanks, cha
Authors
Allen C. Gellis, Michael Myers, Gregory Noe, Cliff R. Hupp, Edward Shenk, Luke Myers
Development and evaluation of a reservoir model for the Chain of Lakes in Illinois
Forecasts of flows entering and leaving the Chain of Lakes reservoir on the Fox River in northeastern Illinois are critical information to water-resource managers who determine the optimal operation of the dam at McHenry, Illinois, to help minimize damages to property and loss of life because of flooding on the Fox River. In 2014, the U.S. Geological Survey; the Illinois Department of Natural Reso
Authors
Marian M. Domanski
Microbially mediated barite dissolution in anoxic brines
Fluids injected into shale formations during hydraulic fracturing of black shale return with extraordinarily high total-dissolved-solids (TDS) and high concentrations of barium (Ba) and radium (Ra). Barite, BaSO4, has been implicated as a possible source of Ba as well as a problematic mineral scale that forms on internal well surfaces, often in close association with radiobarite, (Ba,Ra)SO4. The d
Authors
Bingjie Ouyang, Denise M. Akob, Darren S. Dunlap, Devon Renock
Hydrologic and hydraulic analyses of Great Meadow wetland, Acadia National Park, Maine
The U.S. Geological Survey completed hydrologic and hydraulic analyses of Cromwell Brook and the Sieur de Monts tributary in Acadia National Park, Maine, to better understand causes of flooding in complex hydrologic and hydraulic environments, like those in the Great Meadow wetland and Sieur de Monts Spring area. Regional regression equations were used to compute peak flows with from 2 to 100-year
Authors
Pamela J. Lombard
Evaluating mountain meadow groundwater response to Pinyon-Juniper and temperature in a great basin watershed
This research highlights development and application of an integrated hydrologic model (GSFLOW) to a semiarid, snow-dominated watershed in the Great Basin to evaluate Pinyon-Juniper (PJ) and temperature controls on mountain meadow shallow groundwater. The work used Google Earth Engine Landsat satellite and gridded climate archives for model evaluation. Model simulations across three decades indica
Authors
Rosemary W.H. Carroll, Justin L. Huntington, Keirith A. Snyder, Richard G. Niswonger, Charles Morton, Tamzen K. Stringham