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Book Chapters

Browse more than 5,500 book chapters authored by our scientists over the past 100+ year history of the USGS and refine search by topic, location, year, and advanced search.

Filter Total Items: 6063

Nonlinear processes in volcanoes

No abstract available
Authors
Bernard A. Chouet

Occurrence of transformation products in the environment

Historically, most environmental occurrence research has focused on the parent compounds of organic contaminants. Research, however, has documented that the environmental transport of chemicals, such as pesticides and emerging contaminants, are substantially underestimated if transformation products are not considered. Although most examples described herein were drawn from research conducted by t
Authors
Dana W. Kolpin, William A. Battaglin, Kathleen E. Conn, Edward T. Furlong, Susan T. Glassmeyer, Stephen J. Kalkhoff, Michael T. Meyer, Douglas J. Schnoebelen

Otters, Marine

The otters (Mustelidae; Lutrinae) provide an exceptional perspective into the evolution of marine living by mammals. Most extant marine mammals (e.g. the cetaceans, pinnipeds, and sirenians) have been so highly modified by long periods of selection for life in the sea that they bear little resemblance to their terrestrial ancestors. Marine otters, in contrast, are more recent expatriates from fres
Authors
James A. Estes, James L. Bodkin, M. Ben-David

Preface

Carbon sequestration has emerged as an important option in policies to mitigate the increasing atmospheric concentrations of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2). Significant quantities of anthropogenic CO2 are sequestered by natural carbon uptake in plants, soils, and the oceans. These uptake processes are objects of intense study by biogeochemists, ecologists, and other researchers who seek to und
Authors
Brian J. McPherson, Eric T. Sundquist

Quantifying terrestrial ecosystem carbon dynamics in the Jinsha watershed, Upper Yangtze, China from 1975 to 2000

Quantifying the spatial and temporal dynamics of carbon stocks in terrestrial ecosystems and carbon fluxes between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere is critical to our understanding of regional patterns of carbon storage and loss. Here we use the General Ensemble Biogeochemical Modeling System to simulate the terrestrial ecosystem carbon dynamics in the Jinsha watershed of China's upper
Authors
Shuqing Zhao, Shuguang Liu, Runsheng Yin, Zhengpeng Li, Yulin Deng, Kun Tan, Xiangzheng Deng, David Rothstein, Jiaguo Qi

Re-greening the Sahel: Farmer-led innovation in Burkina Faso and Niger

The Sahel—the belt of land that stretches across Africa on the southern edge of the Sahara—has always been a tough place to farm. Rainfall is low and droughts are frequent. The crust of hard soil is, at times, almost impermeable, and harsh winds threaten to sweep away everything in their path. Over the past three decades, however, hundreds of thousands of farmers in Burkina Faso and Niger have tra
Authors
Chris Reij, Melinda Smale, G. Gray Tappan

Remote sensing of global croplands for food security: Way forward

This book opens a new pathway for global mapping that is focused on a specific land use theme, such as irrigated or rain-fed croplands and classes within these themes. Since croplands use most of the water consumed by humans, specific knowledge of irrigated and rain-fed croplands will be critical for precise estimates of water use. At present and in the coming decades, irrigated and rain-fed cropl
Authors
Prasad S. Thenkabail, John G. Lyon

Salt marsh-mangrove interactions in Australasia and the Americas

No abstract available.
Authors
Neil Saintilan, Kerrylee Rogers, Karen McKee

Standardizing electrofishing power for boat electrofishing: chapter 14

Standardization of electrofishing can help reduced the variability of survey data and potentially reduce injur of fish. Without standardization, differences among collections can be partially attributed to disparities in electrofishing methodology, intensity of the electrical field, and size of the electrical field rather than to disparities in fish abundance, population structure, or fish communi
Authors
L.E. (Steve) Miranda

Stochastic variation in avian survival rates: Life-history predictions, population consequences, and the potential responses to human perturbations and climate change

Stochastic variation in survival rates is expected to decrease long-term population growth rates. This expectation influences both life-history theory and the conservation of species. From this expectation, Pfister (1998) developed the important life-history prediction that natural selection will have minimized variability in those elements of the annual life cycle (such as adult survival rate) wi
Authors
Joel A. Schmutz