Publications
Browse more than 160,000 publications authored by our scientists over the past 100+ year history of the USGS. Publications available are: USGS-authored journal articles, series reports, book chapters, other government publications, and more.
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Land cover differentially affects abundance of common and rare birds
While rare species are vulnerable to global change, large declines in common species (i.e., those with large population sizes, large geographic distributions, and/or that are habitat generalists) also are of conservation concern. Understanding if and how commonness mediates species' responses to global change, including land cover change, can help guide conservation strategies. We explored avian p
Authors
Kristin P. Davis, Paul C. Banko, Liba Pejchar
A web-based application for exploring potential changes in design peak flow of U.S. urban areas driven by land cover change
Floods have become increasingly prominent in recent decades, especially in urban areas causing devastating effects on lives and livelihoods worldwide. Efficient tools to assess the drivers of floods, such as increasing urbanization could help to minimize flood hazards. A Google Earth Engine (GEE) application was developed to explore the potential changes (1985-2020) in design peak-flow of urban ar
Authors
Kul Bikram Khand, Gabriel B. Senay
Diverse portfolios: Investing in tributaries for restoration of large river fishes in the Anthropocene
Rehabilitation of large Anthropocene rivers requires engagement of diverse stakeholders across a broad range of sociopolitical boundaries. Competing objectives often constrain options for ecological restoration of large rivers whereas fewer competing objectives may exist in a subset of tributaries. Further, tributaries contribute toward building a “portfolio” of river ecosystem assets through phys
Authors
Kristen L. Bouska, Brian Daniel Healy, Michael James Moore, Corey Garland Dunn, Jonathan J Spurgeon, Craig Paukert
A framework for estimating global river discharge from the Surface Water and Ocean Topography satellite mission
The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission will vastly expand measurements of global rivers, providing critical new data sets for both gaged and ungaged basins. SWOT discharge products (available approximately 1 year after launch) will provide discharge for all river that reaches wider than 100 m. In this paper, we describe how SWOT discharge produced and archived by the US and French s
Authors
Michael Durand, Colin Gleason, Tamlin Pavelsky, Renato Frasson, Michael Turmon, Cedric H. David, Elizabeth Altenau, Nikki Tebaldi, Kevin Larnier, Jerome Monnier, Pierre Olivier Malaterre, Hind Oubanas, George Allen, Brian Astifan, Craig Brinkerhoff, Paul Bates, David M. Bjerklie, Stephen Coss, Robert W. Dudley, Luciana Fengolio, Pierre-Andre Garambois, Augusto Getirana, Peirong Lin, Steven A. Margulis, Pascal Matte, J.Toby Minear, Aggrey Muhebwa, Ming Pan, Daniel L. Peters, Ryan Riggs, Md Safat Sikder, Travis Simmons, Cassie Stuurman, Jay Taneja, Angelica Tarpanelli, Kerstin Schulze, Mohammad Tourian, Jida Wang
Forage fish species prefer habitat within designated offshore wind energy areas on the US Northeast Shelf ecosystem
As the world develops sources of renewable energy, there is an intensifying interest in offshore wind energy production. The Northeast U.S. Continental Shelf (NES) ecosystem has favorable wind dynamics, with active development of wind energy. In this study, we present species distribution models that consider both occupancy and biomass responses for a broad spectrum of fish and macroinvertebrate t
Authors
Kevin Friedland, Evan M. Adams, Chandra Goetsch, Julia Gulka, Damien Brady, Everett Rzeszowski, Daniel Crear, Sarah Gaichas, Andrew Gill, M. Conor McManus, Elizabeth T. Methratta, Janelle L. Morano, Michelle Staudinger
Increased utilization of storm surge barriers: A research agenda on estuary impacts
Rising coastal flood risk and recent disasters are driving interest in the construction of gated storm surge barriers worldwide, with current studies recommending barriers for at least 11 estuaries in the United States alone. Surge barriers partially block estuary-ocean exchange with infrastructure across an estuary or its inlet and include gated areas that are closed only during flood events. The
Authors
Philip M. Orton, David K. Ralston, Bram C. van Prooijen, David Secor, Neil K. Ganju, Ziyu Chen, Sarah Fernald, Bennett Brooks, Kristin Marcell
Nitrifying microorganisms linked to biotransformation of perfluoroalkyl sulfonamido precursors from legacy aqueous film forming foams
Drinking water supplies across the United States have been contaminated by firefighting and fire-training activities that use aqueous film-forming foams (AFFF) containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Much of the AFFF is manufactured using electrochemical fluorination by 3M. Precursors with six perfluorinated carbons (C6) and non-fluorinated amine substituents make up approximately o
Authors
Bridger J. Ruyle, Lara Schultes, Denise M. Akob, Cassandra Rashan Harris, Michelle Lorah, Simon Vojta, Jitka Becanova, Shelly McCann, Heidi M. Pickard, Ann Pearson, Rainer Lohmann, Chad D. Vecitis, Elsie M. Sunderland
Uptake of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances by fish, mussel, and passive samplers in mobile laboratory exposures using groundwater from a contamination plume at a historical fire training area, Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Aqueous film-forming foams historically were used during fire training activities on Joint Base Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and created an extensive per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) groundwater contamination plume. The potential for PFAS bioconcentration from exposure to the contaminated groundwater, which discharges to surface water bodies, was assessed with mobile-laboratory experiments u
Authors
Larry B. Barber, Heidi M. Pickard, David Alvarez, Jitka Becanova, Steffanie H. Keefe, Denis R. LeBlanc, Rainer Lohmann, Jeffery Steevens, Alan M. Vajda
Compensatory recruitment unlikely in high-elevation amphibian populations challenged with disease
Understanding the causes of population variation in host response to disease, and the mechanisms of persistence, can serve as vital information for species conservation. One such mechanism of population persistence that has gained support is the demographic process of compensatory recruitment. Host populations may persist by increasing recruitment to compensate for reduced survival due to infectio
Authors
Bennett Hardy, Erin L. Muths, Bradley Lambert, Scott C. Schneider, W. C. Funk, Larissa L. Bailey
Rock-to-metal ratios of the rare earth elements
The relative quantities of ore mined and waste rock (i.e., overburden) removed to produce the rare earth elements—their rock-to-metal ratios—were calculated for 21 individual operations or regions covering nearly all mine production in 2018. The results indicate that the rock-to-metal ratios for the total rare earth elements ranged from a low of 1.6 × 101 to a high of 3.6 × 103, with operations in
Authors
Nedal T. Nassar, Graham W. Lederer, Abraham J. Padilla, Joseph Gambogi, Daniel James Cordier, Jaime L. Brainard, Joseph D. Lessard, Ryan Charab
The geometry and kinematics of the latest paleozoic Allatoona Fault, one of the youngest thrusts in the southernmost Appalachian Hinterland, Alabama and Georgia, U.S.A.
The Allatoona thrust fault in the southernmost hinterland of the Appalachian Blue Ridge-Piedmont megathrust sheet is among the latest structures in the kinematic sequence of events along the west flank of the orogen. It is an out-of-sequence, craton-directed thrust fault that cuts metamorphic isograds and earlier thrusts, and it has a nearly linear trace of ≥280 km, making it one of the major thru
Authors
James F. Tull, Christopher Holm-Denoma, Nawwaf A. Almuntshry, Ericka L. McMahan
Drought survival strategies differ between coastal and montane conifers in northern California
Increasingly severe and prolonged droughts are contributing to tree stress and forest mortality across western North America. However, in many cases, we currently have poor information concerning how drought responses in forests vary in relation to competition, climate, and site and tree characteristics. We used annual tree ring evidence of 13C discrimination (Δ13C) and growth metrics to assess dr
Authors
Wallis Robinson, Lucy P. Kerhoulas, Rosemary L. Sherriff, Gabriel Roletti, Phillip J. van Mantgem