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
The Effect of modeled recharge distribution on simulated groundwater availability and capture
Simulating groundwater flow in basin-fill aquifers of the semiarid southwestern United States commonly requires decisions about how to distribute aquifer recharge. Precipitation can recharge basin-fill aquifers by direct infiltration and transport through faults and fractures in the high-elevation areas, by flowing overland through high-elevation areas to infiltrate at basin-fill margins along mou
Authors
Fred D. Tillman, Donald R. Pool, Stanley A. Leake
Patterns and predictability in the intra-annual organic carbon variability across the boreal and hemiboreal landscape
Factors affecting total organic carbon (TOC) concentrations in 215 watercourses across Sweden were investigated using parameter parsimonious regression approaches to explain spatial and temporal variabilities of the TOC water quality responses. We systematically quantified the effects of discharge, seasonality, and long-term trend as factors controlling intra-annual (among year) and inter-annual (
Authors
Julia K. Hytteborn, Johan Temnerud, Richard B. Alexander, Elizabeth W. Boyer, Martyn N. Futter, Mats Fröberg, Joel Dahné, Kevin H. Bishop
Tracing the cycling and fate of the explosive 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene in coastal marine systems with a stable isotopic tracer, 15N-[TNT]
2,4,6-Trinitrotoluene (TNT) has been used as a military explosive for over a hundred years. Contamination concerns have arisen as a result of manufacturing and use on a large scale; however, despite decades of work addressing TNT contamination in the environment, its fate in marine ecosystems is not fully resolved. Here we examine the cycling and fate of TNT in the coastal marine systems by spikin
Authors
Richard W. Smith, Penny Vlahos, John K. Böhlke, Thivanka Ariyarathna, Mark Ballentine, Christopher Cooper, Stephen Fallis, Thomas J. Groshens, Craig R. Tobias
Topographic, latitudinal and climatic distribution of Pinus coulteri: geographic range limits are not at the edge of the climate envelope
With changing climate, many species are projected to move poleward or to higher elevations to track suitable climates. The prediction that species will move poleward assumes that geographically marginal populations are at the edge of the species' climatic range. We studied Pinus coulteri from the center to the northern (poleward) edge of its range, and examined three scenarios regarding the relati
Authors
Nathalie I. Chardon, William K. Cornwell, Lorraine E. Flint, Alan L. Flint, David D. Ackerly
Tree mortality predicted from drought-induced vascular damage
The projected responses of forest ecosystems to warming and drying associated with twenty-first-century climate change vary widely from resiliency to widespread tree mortality1, 2, 3. Current vegetation models lack the ability to account for mortality of overstorey trees during extreme drought owing to uncertainties in mechanisms and thresholds causing mortality4, 5. Here we assess the causes of t
Authors
William R.L. Anderegg, Alan L. Flint, Cho-ying Huang, Lorraine E. Flint, Joseph A. Berry, Frank W. Davis, John S. Sperry, Christopher B. Field
Enhanced microbial coalbed methane generation: A review of research, commercial activity, and remaining challenges
Coalbed methane (CBM) makes up a significant portion of the world’s natural gas resources. The discovery that approximately 20% of natural gas is microbial in origin has led to interest in microbially enhanced CBM (MECoM), which involves stimulating microorganisms to produce additional CBM from existing production wells. This paper reviews current laboratory and field research on understanding pro
Authors
Daniel J. Ritter, David S. Vinson, Elliott P. Barnhart, Denise M. Akob, Matthew W. Fields, Al B. Cunningham, William H. Orem, Jennifer C. McIntosh
Predicting redox conditions in groundwater at a regional scale
Defining the oxic-suboxic interface is often critical for determining pathways for nitrate transport in groundwater and to streams at the local scale. Defining this interface on a regional scale is complicated by the spatial variability of reaction rates. The probability of oxic groundwater in the Chesapeake Bay watershed was predicted by relating dissolved O2 concentrations in groundwater samples
Authors
Anthony J. Tesoriero, Silvia Terziotti, Daniel B. Abrams
Water's Way at Sleepers River watershed – revisiting flow generation in a post-glacial landscape, Vermont USA
The Sleepers River Research Watershed (SRRW) in Vermont, USA, has been the site of active hydrologic research since 1959 and was the setting where Dunne and Black demonstrated the importance and controls of saturation-excess overland flow (SOF) on streamflow generation. Here, we review the early studies from the SRRW and show how they guided our conceptual approach to hydrologic research at the SR
Authors
James B. Shanley, Stephen D. Sebestyen, Jeffrey J. McDonnell, Brian L. McGlynn, Thomas Dunne
Comment on “The role of interbasin groundwater transfers in geologically complex terranes, demonstrated by the Great Basin in the western United States”: report published in Hydrogeology Journal (2014) 22:807–828, by Stephen T. Nelson and Alan L. Mayo
The subject article (Nelson and Mayo 2014) presents an overview of previous reports of interbasin flow in the Great Basin of the western United States. This Comment is presented by authors of a cited study (comprising chapters in one large report) on the Great Basin carbonate and alluvial aquifer system (GBCAAS; Heilweil and Brooks 2011; Masbruch et al. 2011; Sweetkind et al. 2011a, b), who agree
Authors
Melissa D. Masbruch, Lynette E. Brooks, Victor M. Heilweil, Donald S. Sweetkind
Flood Map for the Winooski River in Waterbury, Vermont, 2014
From August 28 to 29, 2011, Tropical Storm Irene delivered rainfall ranging from approximately 4 to more than 7 inches in the Winooski River Basin in Vermont. The rainfall resulted in severe flooding throughout the basin and significant damage along the Winooski River. In response to the flooding, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, condu
Authors
Scott A. Olson
Sediment conditions in the San Antonio River Basin downstream from San Antonio, Texas, 2000-13
Sediment plays an important role in the ecological health of rivers and estuaries and consequently is an important issue for water-resource managers. To better understand sediment characteristics in the San Antonio River Basin, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the San Antonio River Authority, completed a two-part study in the San Antonio River Basin downstream from San Antonio, Texa
Authors
Darwin J. Ockerman, J. Ryan Banta, Cassi L. Crow, Stephen P. Opsahl
Assessment of interim flow water-quality data of the San Joaquin River restoration program and implications for fishes, California, 2009-11
After more than 50 years of extensive water diversion for urban and agriculture use, a major settlement was reached among the U.S. Departments of the Interior and Commerce, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Friant Water Users Authority in an effort to restore the San Joaquin River. The settlement received Federal court approval in October 2006 and established the San Joaquin River Res
Authors
Marissa L. Wulff, Larry R. Brown