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.
Mission Area Publications
Mission Area Publications
We are focused on some of the most significant issues society faces, and our science is making a substantial contribution to the well-being of the Nation and the world. Learn more about the major topics our research covers and the programs focused on those topics.
Filter Total Items: 171795
Sampling and analysis plan for the Koocanusa Reservoir and upper Kootenai River, Montana, water-quality monitoring program, 2021
In 2021, the U.S. Geological Survey will collect water-quality samples and environmental data from 3 sites in Koocanusa Reservoir and from 1 site in the Kootenai River. The transboundary Koocanusa Reservoir is in southeastern British Columbia, Canada, and northwestern Montana, United States, and was formed with the construction of Libby Dam on the Kootenai River 26 kilometers upstream from Libby,
Authors
Sara L. Caldwell Eldridge, Melissa A. Schaar, Chad B. Reese, Ashley M. Bussell, Thomas Chapin
The effects of management practices on grassland birds—Clay-colored Sparrow (Spizella pallida)
Keys to Clay-colored Sparrow (Spizella pallida) management include providing grasslands with a shrub or forb component or shrub-dominated edge habitat, which includes dense grass and moderately high litter cover, and avoiding disturbances that completely eliminate woody vegetation. Clay-colored Sparrows have been reported to use habitats with 20–186 centimeters (cm) average vegetation height, 3–50
Authors
Jill A. Shaffer, Lawrence D. Igl, Douglas H. Johnson, Marriah L. Sondreal, Christopher M. Goldade, Melvin P. Nenneman, Betty R. Euliss
Advancing best practices for the analysis of the vulnerability of military installations in the Pacific Basin to coastal flooding under a changing climate – RC-2644
Coastal flooding takes many forms, ranging from major flooding associated with storms to minor
flooding associated with exceptionally high tides and other oceanic and atmospheric phenomena on storm-free days. A major societal challenge is to understand and predict how flood magnitude and frequency will manifest at particular places and times, now and in the future. Of particular interest here is h
Authors
John Marra, William Sweet, Eric Leuliette, Michael Kruk, Ayesha Genz, Curt Storlazzi, Peter Ruggiero, Meredith Leung, Dylan L. Anderson, Mark Merrifield, Janet Becker, Ian Robertson, Matthew J. Widlansky, Philip R. Thompson, Fernando Mendez, Ana Rueda, Jose A. A. Antolinez, Laura Cagigal, Melissa Menendez, Hector Lobeto, Jayantha Obeysekera, Chris Chiesa
Landscape configuration influences Oma‘o (Myadestes obscurus) song diversity
Acoustic communication in the form of songs is a learned behavior in oscine that can be passed down from one generation to the next through cultural transmission. Over time songs can change when populations become isolated from one another, creating dialects that are distinct to a population. Habitat fragmentation is an isolating mechanism that can influence differences in songs between population
Authors
Nicole Fernandez, Kristina L. Paxton, Eben H. Paxton, Adam A. Pack, Patrick J. Hart
Genetic diversity, structure, and effective population size of an endangered, endemic hoary bat, ʻōpeʻapeʻa, across the Hawaiian Islands
Island bat species are disproportionately at risk of extinction, and Hawaiʻi’s only native terrestrial land mammal, the Hawaiian hoary bat (Lasiurus semotus) locally known as ʻōpeʻapeʻa, is no exception. To effectively manage this bat species with an archipelago-wide distribution, it is important to determine the population size on each island and connectivity between islands. We used 18 nuclear m
Authors
Corinna Pinzari, Mona Renee Bellinger, Donald K. Price, Frank J Bonaccorso
Context-dependent representation of within- and between-model uncertainty: Aggregating probabilistic predictions in infectious disease epidemiology
Probabilistic predictions support public health planning and decision making, especially in infectious disease emergencies. Aggregating outputs from multiple models yields more robust predictions of outcomes and associated uncertainty. While the selection of an aggregation method can be guided by retrospective performance evaluations, this is not always possible. For example, if predictions are co
Authors
Emily Howerton, Michael C. Runge, Tiffany L. Bogich, Rebecca K. Borchering, Hidetoshi Inamine, Justin Lessler, Luke C Mullany, William J.M. Probert, Claire P. Smith, Shaun Truelove, Cècile Viboud, Katriona Shea
Improvements to estimate ADCP uncertainty sources for discharge measurements
The use of moving boat ADCPs (Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers) for discharge measurements requires identification of the sources and magnitude of uncertainty to ensure accurate measurements. Recently, a tool known as QUant was developed to estimate the contribution to the uncertainty estimates for each transect of moving-boat ADCP discharge measurements, by varying different sampling configurat
Authors
José M. Díaz Lozada, Carlos M. García, Kevin Oberg, Thomas M. Over, Federico Flores Nieto
Diet composition and resource overlap of sympatric native and introduced salmonids across neighboring streams during a peak discharge event
Species assemblages composed of non-native and native fishes are found in freshwater systems throughout the world, and interactions such as interspecific competition that may negatively affect native species are expected when non-native species are present. In the Smith River watershed, Montana, rainbow trout were introduced by 1930. Native mountain whitefish and non-native rainbow trout have pres
Authors
Tanner L. Cox, Michael J. Lance, Lindsey K. Albertson, Michelle A. Briggs, Adeline J. Dutton, Alexander V. Zale
Survey of fish communities in tributaries to the Mohawk River, New York, 2019
Fish communities of the Mohawk River and associated sections of the New York State Canal System have been well documented but little information is available regarding the status of fish communities in the extensive network of tributaries that feed the Mohawk River. This lack of information is problematic because changes in species distributions or general ecosystem health may go unnoticed in the
Authors
Scott D. George, Dylan R. Winterhalter, Barry P. Baldigo
Estimating flood magnitude and frequency for unregulated streams in Wisconsin
Flood frequency characteristics and estimated flood discharges for the 50-, 20-, 10-, 4-, 2-, 1-, 0.5-, and 0.2-percent annual exceedance probabilities were computed at 299 streamgaged locations in Wisconsin. The State was divided into four flood frequency regions using a cluster analysis to produce regions which are homogeneous with respect to physical basin characteristics. Regression equations
Authors
Sara B. Levin, Christopher A. Sanocki
Over half a century record of limnology data from Lake Powell, desert southwest United States: From reservoir filling to present day (1964–2021)
Lake Powell is a large water storage reservoir in the arid southwestern United States. Here, we present a 58-yr limnology dataset that captures water quality parameters from reservoir filling to present day (temperature, salinity, major ions, total suspended solids), as well as a 38-yr record of Secchi depth, and a ~ 30-yr record of nutrients, phytoplankton, and zooplankton assemblages. The datase
Authors
Bridget Deemer, Caitlin M. Andrews, Kristin E. Strock, Nicholas Voichick, James Hensleigh, John Beaver, Robert Radtke
A novel non-destructive workflow for examining germanium and co-substituents in ZnS
A suite of complementary techniques was used to examine germanium (Ge), a byproduct critical element, and co-substituent trace elements in ZnS and mine wastes from four mineral districts where germanium is, or has been, produced within the United States. This contribution establishes a comprehensive workflow for characterizing Ge and other trace elements, which captures the full heterogeneity of s
Authors
Sarah M. Hayes, Ryan J. McAleer, Nadine M. Piatak, Sarah Jane White, Robert R. Seal