Book Chapters
Science Quality and Integrity
The USGS provides unbiased, objective, and impartial scientific information upon which our audiences, including resource managers, planners, and other entities, rely.
The USGS provides unbiased, objective, and impartial scientific information upon which our audiences, including resource managers, planners, and other entities, rely.
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
Geomorphology and sediment regimes of intermittent rivers and ephemeral streams
The geomorphology and sediment regimes of intermittent rivers and ephemeral streams (IRES) are extremely diverse, owing in large part to the substantial spatiotemporal variability of the associated hydrological regimes. We describe the geomorphological character and sediment transport processes along IRES within the context of four geomorphological zones—upland, piedmont, lowland, and floodout—to
Authors
Kristin Jaeger, Nicholas A. Sutfin, Stephen Tooth, Katerina Michaelides, Michael B. Singer
Hydrological connectivity in intermittent rivers and ephemeral streams
In intermittent rivers and ephemeral streams (hereafter, IRES), hydrological connectivity mediated by either flowing or nonflowing water extends along three spatial dimensions—longitudinal, lateral, and vertical—and varies over time. Flow intermittence disrupts this connectivity, operating through complex hydrological transitions (e.g., between flowing and nonflowing phases). These transitions occ
Authors
Andrew J. Boulton, Robert J. Rolls, Kristin Jaeger, Thibault Datry
Allowable take of a population of red-winged blackbirds in the northern Great Plains
Red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA), which has provisions against take. Blackbirds may be taken legally without a Federal permit, however, under an existing Depredation Order (50 CFR 21.43), which allows for take of blackbirds that are in the process of doing, or about to do, agricultural damage. Modeling the effect of take on blackb
Authors
Michael C. Runge, John R. Sauer
Examples of storm impacts on barrier islands
This chapter focuses on the morphologic variability of barrier islands and on the differences in storm response. It describes different types of barrier island response to individual storms, as well as the integrated response of barrier islands to many storms. The chapter considers case study on the Chandeleur Island chain, where a decadal time series of island elevation measurements have document
Authors
Nathaniel G. Plant, Kara S. Doran, Hilary F. Stockdon
Assessing welfare of individual sirenians in the wild and in captivity
Assessing the welfare of wild populations of sirenians has required a “generalist” approach. The outcome has been a subjective decision as to whether what the observers are witnessing in an individual or group of animals is normal and whether that has positive or negative consequences. The understanding of sirenian welfare requirements, and a decision process for whether to support and maintain th
Authors
Mark Flint, Robert K. Bonde
Human interactions with sirenians (manatees and dugongs)
There are three extant sirenian species of the Trichechidae family and one living Dugongidae family member. Given their close ties to coastal and often urbanized habitats, sirenians are exposed to many types of anthropogenic activities that result in challenges to their well-being, poor health, and even death. In the wild, they are exposed to direct and indirect local pressures as well as subject
Authors
Robert K. Bonde, Mark Flint
Mortality investigation
No abstract available.
Authors
Brian Stacy, Allen M. Foley, Thierry M. Work, Terry M. Norton
Recent climate extremes associated with the West Pacific Warming Mode
Here we analyze empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs) of observations and a 30 member ensemble of Community Earth System Model version 1 (CESM1) simulations, and suggest that precipitation declines in the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA) and the northern Middle East/Southwestern Asia (NME/SWE: Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, Saudi Arabia north of 25°N, Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon) may be interpreted as an
Authors
Chris Funk, Andrew Hoell
Volcanic unrest and hazard communication in Long Valley Volcanic Region, California
The onset of volcanic unrest in Long Valley Caldera, California, in 1980 and the subsequent fluctuations in unrest levels through May 2016 illustrate: (1) the evolving relations between scientists monitoring the unrest and studying the underlying tectonic/magmatic processes and their implications for geologic hazards, and (2) the challenges in communicating the significance of the hazards to the p
Authors
David P. Hill, Margaret T. Mangan, Stephen R. McNutt
Earthquake source properties from instrumented laboratory stick-slip
Stick-slip experiments were performed to determine the influence of the testing apparatus on source properties, develop methods to relate stick-slip to natural earthquakes and examine the hypothesis of McGarr [2012] that the product of stiffness, k, and slip duration, Δt, is scale-independent and the same order as for earthquakes. The experiments use the double-direct shear geometry, Sierra White
Authors
Brian D. Kilgore, Arthur F. McGarr, Nicholas M. Beeler, David A. Lockner
Application of molluscan analyses to the reconstruction of past environmental conditions in estuaries
Molluscs possess a number of attributes that make them an excellent source of past environmental conditions in estuaries: they are common in estuarine environments; they typically have hard shells and are usually well preserved in sediments; they are relatively easy to detect in the environment; they have limited mobility as adults; they grow by incremental addition of layers to their shells; and
Authors
G. Lynn Wingard, Donna Surge