Publications

Municipal and industrial wastewater effluent is an important source of water for lotic systems, especially during periods of low flow. The accumulated wastewater effluent flows—expressed as a percentage of total streamflow (ACCWW%)—contain chemical mixtures that pose a risk to aquatic life; fish may be particularly vulnerable when chronically exposed. Although there has been considerable focus on

Communities throughout Massachusetts face the potential effects of climate change, ranging from more extreme rainfall to more pronounced and frequent droughts. Understanding the effects of climate change on hydrology is important to State and community officials to evaluate the potential effects on infrastructure and water systems. To better understand the effects of climate change on hydrology, t

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) collected data on the vertical distribution of hydraulic head, specific capacity, and water quality using aquifer-interval-isolation tests and other vertical profiling methods in 15 boreholes completed in fractured sedimentary bedrock in Northampton, Warminster, and Warwick Townships, Bucks County, Pennsylvania during 2018–19. This work was done, in cooperation wi

Models of near-field tsunamis and an extreme hurricane provide further evidence for a great precolonial earthquake along the Puerto Rico Trench. The models are benchmarked to brain-coral boulders and cobbles on Anegada, 125 km south of the trench. The models are screened by their success in flooding the mapped sites of these erratics, which were emplaced some six centuries ago. Among 25 tsunami sc

Many agricultural watersheds rely on the voluntary use of management practices (MPs) to reduce nonpoint source nutrient and sediment loads; however, the water-quality effects of MPs are uncertain. We interpreted water-quality responses from as early as 1985 through 2020 in three agricultural Chesapeake Bay watersheds that were prioritized for MP implementation, namely, the Smith Creek (Virginia),

Fossil fuel dependence can be reduced, in part, by renewable energy expansion. Increasingly, renewable energy siting seeks to avoid significant impacts on biodiversity but rarely considers how species ranges will shift under climate change. Here we undertake a systematic literature review on the topic and overlay future renewable energy siting maps with the ranges of two threatened species under f

Extreme precipitation during Hurricane Florence, which made landfall in North Carolina in September 2018, led to breaches of hog waste lagoons, coal ash pits, and wastewater facilities. In the weeks following the storm, freshwater discharge carried pollutants, sediment, organic matter, and debris to the coastal ocean, contributing to beach closures, algae blooms, hypoxia, and other ecosystem impac

Preferential groundwater discharge features along stream corridors are ecologically important at local and stream network scales, yet we lack quantification of the multiscale controls on the spatial patterning of groundwater discharge. Here we identify physical attributes that best explain variation in the presence and lateral extent of preferential groundwater discharges along two 5th order strea

In support of a preliminary analysis performed by New York State Department of Environmental Conservation that found elevated nutrient levels along selected reaches of the Mohawk River, a one-dimensional, unsteady hydraulic and water-quality model (Hydrologic Engineering Center River Analysis System Nutrient Simulation Module 1 [HEC–RAS NSM I]) was developed by the U.S. Geological Survey for the 1

The Mid-Piacenzian Warm Period (MPWP; 3.0–3.3 Ma), a warm geological period about three million years ago, has been deemed as a good past analog for understanding the current and future climate change. Based on 12 climate model outputs from Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project Phase 2 (PlioMIP2), we investigate tropical atmospheric circulation (TAC) changes under the warm MPWP and associated und

Living shorelines with salt marsh species, rock breakwaters, and sand nourishment were built along the coastal areas in the Glenn Martin National Wildlife Refuge, Maryland, in 2016 in response to Hurricane Sandy (2012). The Fog Point living shoreline at Glenn Martin National Wildlife Refuge was designed with the “headland - breakwater - embayment” pattern. Scientists from the U.S. Geological Surve

In this work, we utilize a transect of core top, mid- to late Holocene, sediments from the Eastern Siberian Sea to the central Arctic Ocean, spanning gradients in upper-ocean water column properties, to examine regional planktic foraminiferal species abundances and geochemistry. We present species- and morphotype-specific foraminiferal assemblages at these sites and stable isotope analyses of neog