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: 18468
Preserved filamentous microbial biosignatures in the Brick Flat gossan, Iron Mountain, California
A variety of actively precipitating mineral environments preserve morphological evidence of microbial biosignatures. One such environment with preserved microbial biosignatures is the oxidized portion of a massive sulfide deposit, or gossan, such as that at Iron Mountain, California. This gossan may serve as a mineralogical analogue to some ancient martian environments due to the presence of oxidi
Authors
Amy J. Williams, Dawn Y. Sumner, Charles N. Alpers, Suniti Karunatillake, Beda A Hofmann
Corn stover harvest increases herbicide movement to subsurface drains: RZWQM simulations
BACKGROUND
Crop residue removal for bioenergy production can alter soil hydrologic properties and the movement of agrochemicals to subsurface drains. The Root Zone Water Quality Model (RZWQM), previously calibrated using measured flow and atrazine concentrations in drainage from a 0.4 ha chisel-tilled plot, was used to investigate effects of 50 and 100% corn (Zea mays L.) stover harvest and the
Authors
Martin J. Shipitalo, Robert W. Malone, Liwang Ma, Bernard T. Nolan, Rameshwar S. Kanwar, Dale L. Shaner, Carl H. Pederson
StreamStats in Georgia: a water-resources web application
Summary
Part of the mission of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is to provide information on streamflow in the Nation's streams to help understand the Nation's water resources. Streamflow statistics are used by water managers, engineers, scientists, and others to protect people and property during floods and droughts, and to manage, protect, and enhance water resources. StreamStats is a Web-based
Authors
Anthony J. Gotvald, Jonathan W. Musser
Towards automating measurements and predictions of Escherichia coli concentrations in the Cuyahoga River, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio, 2012–14
Nowcasts are systems that can provide estimates of the current bacterial water-quality conditions based on predictive models using easily-measured, explanatory variables; nowcasts can provide the public with the information to make informed decisions on the risk associated with recreational activities in natural water bodies. Previous studies on the Cuyahoga River within Cuyahoga Valley National P
Authors
Amie M.G. Brady, Meg B. Plona
Hydrogeology of the Susquehanna River valley-fill aquifer system in the Endicott-Vestal area of southwestern Broome County, New York
The village of Endicott, New York, and the adjacent town of Vestal have historically used groundwater from the Susquehanna River valley-fill aquifer system for municipal water supply, but parts of some aquifers in this urban area suffer from legacy contamination from varied sources. Endicott would like to identify sites distant from known contamination where productive aquifers could supply munici
Authors
Allan D. Randall, William M. Kappel
Effects of high salinity wastewater discharges on unionid mussels in the Allegheny River, Pennsylvania
We examined the effect of high salinity wastewater (brine) from oil and natural gas drilling on freshwater mussels in the Allegheny River, Pennsylvania, during 2012. Mussel cages (N = 5 per site) were deployed at two sites upstream and four sites downstream of a brine treatment facility on the Allegheny River. Each cage contained 20 juvenile northern riffleshell mussels Epioblasma torulosa rangian
Authors
Kathleen A. Patnode, Elizabeth Hittle, Robert Anderson, Lora Zimmerman, John W. Fulton
Source, use and disposition of freshwater in Puerto Rico, 2010
Introduction
Water diverted from streams and pumped from wells constitutes the main source of water for the 78 municipios of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. A better understanding of water-use patterns is needed, particularly regarding the amount of water used, where and how this water is used and disposed, and how human activities affect water resources. Agricultural practices, indoor and outdoo
Authors
Wanda L. Molina
Influence of a chlor-alkali superfund site on mercury bioaccumulation in periphyton and low-trophic level fauna
In Berlin, New Hampshire, USA, the Androscoggin River flows adjacent to a former chlor-alkali facility that is a US Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site and source of mercury (Hg) to the river. The present study was conducted to determine the fate and bioaccumulation of methylmercury (MeHg) to lower trophic-level taxa in the river. Surface sediment directly adjacent to the source showed
Authors
Kate L. Buckman, Mark C. Marvin-DiPasquale, Vivien F. Taylor, Ann T. Chalmers, Hannah J. Broadley, Jennifer L. Agee, Brian P. Jackson, Celia Y. Chen
Water-quality conditions and suspended-sediment transport in the Wilson and Trask Rivers, northwestern Oregon, water years 2012–14
In October 2011, the U.S. Geological Survey began investigating and monitoring water-quality conditions and suspended-sediment transport in the Wilson and Trask Rivers, northwestern Oregon. Water temperature, specific conductance, turbidity, and dissolved oxygen were measured every 15–30 minutes in both streams using real-time instream water-quality monitors. In conjunction with the monitoring eff
Authors
Steven Sobieszczyk, Heather M. Bragg, Mark A. Uhrich
Groundwater levels, trends, and relations to pumping in the Bureau of Reclamation Klamath Project, Oregon and California
The use of groundwater to supplement surface-water supplies for the Bureau of Reclamation Klamath Project in the upper Klamath Basin of Oregon and California markedly increased between 2000 and 2014. Pre-2001 groundwater pumping in the area where most of this increase occurred is estimated to have been about 28,600 acre-feet per year. Subsequent supplemental pumping rates have been as high as 128,
Authors
Marshall W. Gannett, Katherine H. Breen
Lithostratigraphic, borehole-geophysical, hydrogeologic, and hydrochemical data from the East Bay Plain, Alameda County, California
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the East Bay Municipal Utility District, carried out an investigation of aquifer-system deformation associated with groundwater-level changes at the Bayside Groundwater Project near the modern San Francisco Bay shore in San Lorenzo, California. As a part of the Bayside Groundwater Project, East Bay Municipal Utility District proposed an aquifer stora
Authors
Michelle Sneed, Patricia v.P. Orlando, James W. Borchers, Rhett R. Everett, Michael Solt, Mary McGann, Heather Lowers, Shannon Mahan
Updated numerical model with uncertainty assessment of 1950-56 drought conditions on brackish-water movement within the Edwards aquifer, San Antonio, Texas
In 2010, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the San Antonio Water System, began a study to assess the brackish-water movement within the Edwards aquifer (more specifically the potential for brackish-water encroachment into wells near the interface between the freshwater and brackish-water transition zones, referred to in this report as the transition-zone interface) and effects on spr
Authors
Linzy K. Brakefield, Jeremy T. White, Natalie A. Houston, Jonathan V. Thomas