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: 18419
Factors Affecting Groundwater Quality Used for Domestic Supply in Marcellus Shale Region of North-Central and North-East Pennsylvania, USA
Factors affecting groundwater quality used for domestic supply within the Marcellus Shale footprint in north-central and north-east Pennsylvania are identified using a combination of spatial, statistical, and geochemical modeling. Untreated groundwater, sampled during 2011–2017 from 472 domestic wells within the study area, exhibited wide ranges in pH (4.5–9.3), total dissolved solids (TDS, 22–196
Authors
Charles A. Cravotta, Lisa A. Senior, Matthew D. Conlon
Mean squared error, deconstructed
As science becomes increasingly cross-disciplinary and scientific models become increasingly cross-coupled, standardized practices of model evaluation are more important than ever. For normally distributed data, mean squared error (MSE) is ideal as an objective measure of model performance, but it gives little insight into what aspects of model performance are “good” or “bad.” This apparent weakne
Authors
Timothy O. Hodson, Thomas M. Over, Sydney Foks
The triple argon isotope composition of groundwater on ten-thousand-year timescales
Understanding the age and movement of groundwater is important for predicting the vulnerability of wells to contamination, constraining flow models that inform sustainable groundwater management, and interpreting geochemical signals that reflect past climate. Due to both the ubiquity of groundwater with order ten-thousand-year residence times and its importance for climate reconstruction of the la
Authors
Alan Seltzer, John A. Krantz, Jessica Ng, Wesley R. Danskin, David Bekaert, Peter H. Barry, David L. Kimbrough, Justin T. Kulongoski, Jeffrey P. Severinghaus
Turbidity–suspended-sediment concentration regression equations for monitoring stations in the upper Esopus Creek watershed, Ulster County, New York, 2016–19
Upper Esopus Creek is the primary tributary to the Ashokan Reservoir, part of the New York City water-supply system. Elevated concentrations of suspended sediment and turbidity in the watershed of the creek are of concern for the system.Water samples were collected through a range of streamflow and turbidity at 14 monitoring sites in the upper Esopus Creek watershed for analyses of suspended-sedim
Authors
Jason Siemion, Donald B. Bonville, Michael R. McHale, Michael R. Antidormi
Numerical modeling of groundwater flow in the crystalline-rock aquifer in the vicinity of the Savage Municipal Water-Supply Well Superfund site, Milford, New Hampshire
In 2010, tetrachloroethylene (PCE), a chlorinated volatile organic compound, was detected in groundwater from deep (more than 300 feet below land surface) fractures in monitoring wells tapping a crystalline-rock aquifer. The aquifer underlies the Milford-Souhegan glacial-drift aquifer, a high water-producing aquifer, and the Savage Municipal Water-Supply Well Superfund site in Milford, New Hampshi
Authors
Philip T. Harte
Depth of groundwater used for drinking-water supplies in the United States
Groundwater supplies 35 percent of drinking water in the United States. Mapping the quantity and quality of groundwater at the depths used for potable supplies requires an understanding of locational variation in the characteristics of drinking-water wells (depth and open interval). Typical depths of domestic- and public-drinking-water supply wells vary by and within aquifer across the United Stat
Authors
James R. Degnan, Leon J. Kauffman, Melinda L. Erickson, Kenneth Belitz, Paul E. Stackelberg
Relation between road-salt application and increasing radium concentrations in a low-pH aquifer, southern New Jersey
The Kirkwood–Cohansey aquifer in southern New Jersey is an important source of drinking-water supplies, but the availability of the resource is limited in some areas by high concentrations of radium, a potential carcinogen at elevated concentrations. Radium (226Ra plus 228Ra) concentrations from a network of 25 drinking-water wells showed a statistically significant increase over a decadal time sc
Authors
Bruce D. Lindsey, Charles A. Cravotta, Zoltan Szabo, Kenneth Belitz, Paul Stackelberg
Documentation and mapping of flooding from the January and March 2018 nor’easters in coastal New England
In January and March 2018, coastal Massachusetts experienced flooding from two separate nor’easters. To put the January and March floods into historical context, the USGS computed statistical stillwater elevations. Stillwater elevations recorded in January 2018 in Boston (9.66 feet relative to the North American Vertical Datum of 1988) have an annual exceedance probability of between 2 and 1 perce
Authors
Pamela J. Lombard, Scott A. Olson, Luke P. Sturtevant, Rena D. Kalmon
Accounting for fine-scale forest structure is necessary to model snowpack mass and energy budgets in montane forests
Accurately modeling the effects of variable forest structure and change on snow distribution and persistence is critical to water resource management. The resolution of many snow models is too coarse to represent heterogeneous canopy structure in forests, and therefore, most models simplify forest effects on snowpack mass and energy budgets. To quantify the loss of snowpack prediction from simplif
Authors
Patrick D. Broxton, C. David Moeser, Adrian Harpold
Cyanobacteria, cyanotoxin synthetase gene, and cyanotoxin occurrence among selected large river sites of the conterminous United States, 2017–18
The U.S. Geological Survey measured cyanobacteria, cyanotoxin synthetase genes, and cyanotoxins at 11 river sites throughout the conterminous United States in a multiyear pilot study during 2017–19 through the National Water Quality Assessment Project to better understand the occurrence of cyanobacteria and cyanotoxins in large inland and coastal rivers. This report focuses on the first 2 years of
Authors
Robert E. Zuellig, Jennifer L. Graham, Erin A. Stelzer, Keith A. Loftin, Barry H. Rosen
Factors affecting uncertainty of public supply, self-supplied domestic, irrigation, and thermoelectric water-use data, 1985–2015—Evaluation of information sources, estimation methods, and data variability
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Water-Use Program is responsible for compiling and disseminating the Nation's water-use data. Working in cooperation with local, State, and Federal agencies, the USGS has collected and published national water-use estimates every 5 years, beginning in 1950. These water-use data may vary because of actual changes in water use, because of changes in estimation metho
Authors
Carol L. Luukkonen, Kenneth Belitz, Samantha L. Sullivan, Pierre Sargent
Depths inferred from velocities estimated by remote sensing: A flow resistance equation-based approach to mapping multiple river attributes at the reach scale
Remote sensing of flow conditions in stream channels could facilitate hydrologic data collection, particularly in large, inaccessible rivers. Previous research has demonstrated the potential to estimate flow velocities in sediment-laden rivers via particle image velocimetry (PIV). In this study, we introduce a new framework for also obtaining bathymetric information: Depths Inferred from Velocitie
Authors
Carl J. Legleiter, Paul J. Kinzel