Publications

Groundwater supplies 50% of drinking water worldwide and 30% in the United States. Geogenic and anthropogenic contaminants can, however, compromise water quality, thus limiting groundwater availability. Reduction/oxidation (redox) processes and redox conditions affect groundwater quality by influencing the mobility and transport of common geogenic and anthropogenic contaminants. In the glacial aqu

The Chesapeake Bay watershed has been the focus of pioneering studies of the role of atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition as a nutrient source and driver of estuarine trophic status. Here, we review the history and evolution of scientific investigations of the role of atmospheric N deposition, examine trends from wet and dry deposition networks, and present century-long (1950–2050) atmospheric N de

Hydrologic and irrigation regimes mediate the timing of selenium (Se) mobilization to rivers, but the extent to which patterns in Se uptake and trophic transfer through recipient food webs reflect the temporal variation in Se delivery is unknown. We investigated Se mobilization, partitioning, and trophic transfer along approximately 60 river miles of the selenium-impaired segment of the Lower Gunn

In an area of elevated nitrate (NO3) groundwater concentrations in the northern Chihuahuan Desert in central New Mexico (United States), a large reservoir of nitrate was found in the subsoil of an arroyo floodplain. Nitrate inventories in the floodplain subsoils ranged from 10,000 to 38,000 kg NO3-N/ha—over twice as high as any previously measured arid region. The floodplain subsoil NO3 reservoir

Salinity can interact with organic compounds and modulate their toxicity. Studies have shown that the fraction of pyrethroid insecticides in the aqueous phase increases with increasing salinity, potentially increasing the risk of exposure for aquatic organisms at higher salinities. In the San Francisco Bay Delta (SFBD) estuary, pyrethroid concentrations increase during the rainy season, coinciding

Groundwater flow model construction is often time‐consuming and costly, with development ideally focused on a specific purpose, such as quantifying well capture from water bodies or providing flow fields for simulating advective transport. As environmental challenges evolve, the incentive to re‐purpose existing groundwater flow models may increase. However, few studies have evaluated which charact

In this study, we explored the use of statistical machine learning and long-term groundwater nitrate monitoring data to estimate vadose zone and saturated zone lag times in an irrigated alluvial agricultural setting. Unlike most previous statistical machine learning studies that sought to predict groundwater nitrate concentrations within aquifers, the focus of this study was to leverage available

The U.S. Geological Survey is performing a pre-assessment of the cooling potential for reservoir thermal energy storage (RTES) in five generalized geologic regions (Basin and Range, Coastal Plains, Illinois Basin, Michigan Basin, Pacific Northwest) across the United States. Reservoir models are developed for the metropolitan areas of eight cities (Albuquerque, New Mexico; Charleston, South Carolin

Recreational waters are primary attractions at many national and state parks where feral swine populations are established, and thus are possible hotspots for visitor exposure to feral swine contaminants. Microbial source tracking (MST) was used to determine spatial and temporal patterns of fecal contamination in Congaree National Park (CONG) in South Carolina, U.S.A., which has an established pop

Streams in semi‐arid urban and agricultural environments are often heavily diverted for anthropogenic purposes. However, they simultaneously receive substantial inflows from a variety of ungaged sources including stormwater returns, tile drainage, and irrigation runoff that help sustain flow during dry periods. Due to the inability to identify sources or directly gage many of these inflows, there

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water-Use Science Project strives to report water-use estimates using the best available information for the period of the estimates. The information available on water used for irrigation activities varies from State to State and in some areas from county to county within a State, which results in many information sources and methods being used to estima

Radiochemical and chemical wastewater discharged to infiltration ponds and disposal wells since the early 1950s at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), southeastern Idaho, has affected the water quality of the eastern Snake River Plain (ESRP) aquifer. In 2006, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy, added a multilevel well-monitoring network to their o