Publications

We have developed a screening tool to visualize and conceptualize the filtering properties of a layered vadose zone. Climate projections indicate that rainfall timing and magnitude may change and impact groundwater resources. This increases the importance of understanding how the vadose zone filters infiltration variability and ultimately affects recharge and groundwater resources. An approximate

Core IdeasWe describe an approximation for filtering of periodic infiltration in layered soil.Transitions in soil‐water properties between soil layers affect the filtering.Errors are smaller in soils where changes in soil‐water properties are small.Infiltration and downward percolation of water in the vadose zone are important processes that can define the availability of water resources. We prese

This report summarizes a framework for monitoring hydrogeomorphic and vegetation responses to environmental flows in support of the Willamette Sustainable Rivers Program (SRP). The SRP is a partnership between The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to provide ecologically sustainable flows downstream of dams while still meeting human needs and congressionally authori

Groundwater is an important component of the water resources of the upper Umatilla River Basin of northeastern Oregon. As such, understanding the capacity of the resource is vital. Past studies have estimated recharge in the study area. One recent study of the upper Umatilla River Basin indicated that about 80 percent of recharge entering the groundwater system is discharged to streams in the stud

Coastal wetlands store carbon dioxide (CO2) and emit CO2 and methane (CH4) making them an important part of greenhouse gas (GHG) inventorying. In the contiguous United States (CONUS), a coastal wetland inventory was recently calculated by combining maps of wetland type and change with soil, biomass, and CH4 flux data from a literature review. We assess uncertainty in this developing carbon monitor

The extensive development of oil and natural-gas resources in south Texas during the past 10 years has led to questions regarding possible environmental effects of processes associated with oil and natural-gas production, in particular the process of hydraulic fracturing, on water and other natural resources. Part of the lower San Antonio River watershed intersects an area of oil and natural-gas p

Estimates of fish entrainment on the Sacramento River near the Fremont Weir are a critical component in determining the feasibility and design of a proposed notch in the weir to increase access to the Yolo Bypass, a seasonal floodplain of the Sacramento River. Detailed hydrodynamic and velocity measurements were made at a river bend near the Fremont Weir in the winter and spring of 2016 to examine

Sand Hollow Reservoir in Washington County, Utah, was completed in March 2002 and is operated primarily for managed aquifer recharge by the Washington County Water Conservancy District. From 2002 through 2016, surface-water diversions of about 256,000 acre-feet (acre-ft) to Sand Hollow Reservoir have allowed the reservoir to remain nearly full since 2006. Groundwater levels in monitoring wells nea

We integrated field measurements, hydroponic experiments, microscopy, and spectroscopy to investigate the effect of Ca(II) on dissolved U(VI) uptake by plants in 1 mM HCO3– solutions at circumneutral pH. The accumulation of U in plants (3.1–21.3 mg kg–1) from the stream bank of the Rio Paguate, Jackpile Mine, New Mexico served as a motivation for this study. Brassica junceawas the model plant used

In many simulations of historical daily streamflow distributional bias arising from the distributional properties of residuals has been noted. This bias often presents itself as an underestimation of high streamflow and an overestimation of low streamflow. Here, 1168 streamgages across the conterminous USA, having at least 14 complete water years of daily data between 1 October 1980 and 30 Septemb

The sediments in the Lower Duwamish Waterway Superfund site in Seattle, Washington, are contaminated with chemicals including metals such as arsenic, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (cPAHs), and dioxins/furans from decades of intense anthropogenic activities. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Washington State Department of Ecology,

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Southeastern Stream Quality Assessment (SESQA) collected weekly samples for nitrogen and phosphorus in 76 wadeable streams in the urbanized Piedmont ecoregion of the Southeastern United States, during April–June 2014. Total nitrogen (TN) concentrations in excess of EPA guidelines and statistically greater than at reference locations indicated nitrogen-nutrient enr