Noah Schmadel
Noah Schmadel is a hydrologist with the USGS Water Resource Mission Area.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
- Sustainable management of water resources including both water quality and quantity
- Integrated hydro-terrestrial constituent modeling and data collection strategies to forecast regional water quality outcomes
- Dominant river corridor components including hyporheic zones, floodplains, and ponded waters
- Hydrologic and chemical alterations caused by land use and water resource decisions
ENGINEERING AND MODELING TOOLS
- Developing regional water quality models and improving their physical basis (SAS, SPARROW)
- Hydroinformatics including data mining, standardization, preservation, and transferability (R, Python, Matlab, SQL Server, Visual Basic)
- Contaminant and heat transport modeling through surface water and groundwater systems including calibration, sensitivity analyses, and numerical and analytical solution techniques (COMSOL Multiphysics)
- Identifying cumulative and relative effects of river corridor processes (NHD)
- Assessing hydro-chemical alterations caused by land use and water resource decisions (NLCD, NWIS)
- Stream channel and watershed characterization techniques using remotely-sensed imagery and topographic analyses (LiDAR-derived DEMs, thermal infrared imagery, ArcGIS)
Professional Experience
Hydrologist, October 2020-Present, U.S. Geological Survey, Oregon Water Science Center
- Providing predictive modeling to support national to local water availability challenges
Research Hydrologist, Mendenhall Fellow, August 2019-Present, U.S. Geological Survey, Earth System Processes Division, Reston, Virginia, Advisory board: Drs. G Schwarz, C Konrad, D Wolock, and J Harvey
- Dynamic national hydro-terrestrial constituent model • Build and calibrate non-linear multi-regression models to make seasonal regional water quality predictions • Use physically-based approaches
Postdoctoral Researcher, February 2017-August 2019, U.S. Geological Survey, Earth System Processes Division, Reston, Virginia, Advisor: Dr. Judson Harvey
- National river corridor water quality model
• Built and calibrated nonlinear least squares regression models to make regional water-quality predictions
• Used physically-based approaches to explain and improve regional observations
Education and Certifications
Bachelor of Science in Environmental Engineering, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona, 2006
Master of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, 2009, Advisor: Dr. Bethany Neilson
Doctor of Philosophy in Civil and Environmental Engineering, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, 2014, Advisor: Dr. Bethany Neilson
Science and Products
River Corridor hot spots for biogeochemical processing: a continental scale synthesis
Rivers are the veins of the landscape, providing environmental benefits that are disproportionately high relative to their aerial extent; shedding flood waters, hosting aquatic ecosystems, transporting solutes and energy-rich materials, and storing and transforming pollutants into less harmful forms. From uplands to the coasts, rivers facilitate key biogeochemical reactions that cumulatively influ
Modeled transport components of daily chlorophyll-a in the Illinois River, 2018 through 2020 (version 1.1, April 2024)
TThis data release contains approximately three years of modeled chlorophyll-a—a proxy for planktonic algal biomass—transport through a 394-km portion of the Illinois River. Defined by four distinct reaches, model estimates include daily water balance, velocities, and algal biomass separated into its components of net growth, net loss, transported from upstream, and input from tributaries.
First
Monthly inorganic nitrogen atmospheric wet deposition estimates for the conterminous United States, 1999 through 2020
This data release provides estimates of monthly wet atmospheric deposition of total inorganic nitrogen (TIN)--the summation of nitrate (NO3) and ammonium (NH4) ions--for the conterminous United States from 1999 through 2020 in units of kilograms nitrogen per square kilometer per month with spatial reference ESPG 4326. The spatial resolution of the gridded data provided in this release is approxima
Harmonized discrete and continuous water quality data in support of modeling harmful algal blooms in the Illinois River Basin, 2005 - 2020
Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are overgrowths of algae or cyanobacteria in water and can be harmful to humans and animals directly via toxin exposure or indirectly via changes in water quality and related impacts to ecosystems services, drinking water characteristics, and recreation. While HABs occur frequently throughout the United States, the driving conditions behind them are not well understood,
High-Flow Field Experiments to Inform Everglades Restoration: Experimental Data 2010 to 2022 (ver. 2.0, October 2023)
Data were collected between 2010 and 2022 in a research area of the Everglades known as the Decompartmentalization Physical Model (DPM), a wetland area in the central Everglades that includes canals and levees bordering Water Conservation Area 3A (WCA-3A) to the northwest and Water Conservation Area 3B (WCA-3B) to the southeast. During the twelve-year study period more than ten major controlled fl
Mean seasonal SPARROW model inputs and simulated nitrogen and phosphorus loads for the Northeastern United States 2002 base year
This U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) data release includes input and output tabular files associated with mean seasonal 2002 simulations of total nitrogen and total phosphorus loads of the northeastern United States. The mean seasonal (MS) simulations are performed using a dynamic configuration of the USGS's Spatially Referenced Regression On Watershed attributes (dynamicSPARROW-MS) model, nonlinear
NHD-RC: Extension of NHDPlus Version 2.1 with high-resolution river corridor attributes
This hybrid medium-resolution national hydrography dataset with river corridor attributes (NHD-RC) for the conterminous United States (CONUS) was created by merging lentic and lotic attributes from the high-resolution NHDPlus (U.S. Geological Survey, 2020) into the medium-resolution NHDPlus Version 2.1 (U.S. Geological Survey, 2016). NHD-RC includes attributes from an additional 5.4 million small
Filter Total Items: 15
Seasonally varying contributions of contemporaneous and lagged sources of instream total nitrogen and phosphorus load across the Illinois River basin
Quantifying nutrient sources in streams, their temporal and spatial variability, and drivers of that variability can support effective water resources management. Yet a lack of data and modeling capabilities has previously prevented comprehensive quantification across both space and time. Here a dynamic SPARROW (Spatially Referenced Regressions on Watershed attributes) model that accounts for a la
Authors
Noah Schmadel, Olivia L. Miller, Scott Ator, Matthew P. Miller, Gregory E. Schwarz, Dale M. Robertson, Andrew Sekellick, Kenneth Skinner, David A. Saad
Evaluation of metrics and thresholds for use in national-scale river harmful algal bloom assessments
The spatiotemporal distribution of harmful algal blooms (HABs) in rivers remains poorly understood, and there is an urgent need to develop a consistent set of metrics to better document HAB occurrences and forecast future events. Using data from seven sites in the Illinois River Basin, we computed metrics focused on HAB conditions related to excess algal growth and hypoxia. Daily mean chlorophyll
Authors
Sarah M. Stackpoole, Jacob Aaron Zwart, Jennifer L. Graham, Judson Harvey, Noah Schmadel, Jennifer C. Murphy
River control points for algal productivity revealed by transport analysis
Measurement of planktonic chlorophyll-a—a proxy for algal biomass—in rivers may represent local production or algae transported from upstream, confounding understanding of algal bloom development in flowing waters. We modeled 3 years of chlorophyll-a transport through a 394-km portion of the Illinois River and found that although algal biomass is longitudinally widespread, most net production occu
Authors
Noah Schmadel, Judson Harvey, Jay Choi, Sarah M. Stackpoole, Jennifer L. Graham, Jennifer C. Murphy
Legacy sediment as a potential source of orthophosphate: Preliminary conceptual and geochemical models for the Susquehanna River, Chesapeake Bay watershed, USA
Nutrient pollution from agriculture and urban areas plus acid mine drainage (AMD) from legacy coal mines are primary causes of water-quality impairment in the Susquehanna River, which is the predominant source of freshwater and nutrients entering the Chesapeake Bay. Recent increases in the delivery of dissolved orthophosphate (PO4) from the river to the bay may be linked to long-term increases in
Authors
Charles A. Cravotta, Travis L. Tasker, Peter M. Smyntek, Joel Blomquist, John Clune, Qian Zhang, Noah Schmadel, Natalie Katrina Schmer
Seasonally dynamic nutrient modeling quantifies storage lags and time-varying reactivity across large river basins
Nutrients that have gradually accumulated in soils, groundwaters, and river sediments in the United States over the past century can remobilize and increase current downstream loading, obscuring effects of conservation practices aimed at protecting water resources. Drivers of storage accumulation and release of nutrients are poorly understood at the spatial scale of basins to watersheds. Predictin
Authors
Noah Schmadel, Judson Harvey, Gregory E. Schwarz
The river corridor’s evolving connectivity of lotic and lentic waters
River corridors supply a substantial proportion of the fresh water for societal and ecological needs. Individual functions of flowing (lotic) streams and rivers and ponded (lentic) waterbodies such as lakes and reservoirs are well-studied, but their collective functions are not as well understood. Here we bring together nationally consistent river corridor datasets to characterize the contribution
Authors
Judson Harvey, Noah Schmadel
Accounting for temporal variability of streamflow in estimates of travel time
Retention, processing, and transport of solutes and particulates in stream corridors are influenced by the travel time of streamflow through stream channels, which varies dynamically with discharge. The effects of streamflow variability across sites and over time cannot be addressed by time-averaged models if parameters are based solely on the characteristics of mean streamflow. We develop methods
Authors
Christopher P. Konrad, Noah Schmadel, Judson Harvey, Gregory E. Schwarz, Jesus Gomez-Velez, Elizabeth W. Boyer, Durelle Scott
Climate change causes river network contraction and disconnection in the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, Oregon, USA
Headwater streams account for more than 89% of global river networks and provide numerous ecosystem services that benefit downstream ecosystems and human water uses. It has been established that changes in climate have shifted the timing and magnitude of observed precipitation, which, at specific gages, have been directly linked to long-term reductions in large river discharge. However, climate im
Authors
Adam S Ward, Steven M Wondzell, Noah Schmadel, Skuyler P Herzog
Low threshold for nitrogen concentration saturation in headwaters increases regional and coastal delivery
River corridors store, convey, and process nutrients from terrestrial and upstream sources, regulating delivery from headwaters to estuaries. A consequence of chronic excess nitrogen loading, as supported by theory and field studies in specific areas, is saturation of the biogeochemically-mediated nitrogen removal processes that weakens the capacity of the river corridor to remove nitrogen. Region
Authors
Noah Schmadel, Judson Harvey, Richard Alexander, Elizabeth W. Boyer, Gregory E. Schwarz, Jesus D. Gomez-Velez, Durelle Scott, Christopher Konrad
Geomorphic controls on hyporheic exchange across scales - Watersheds to particles
We examined the relationship between fluvial geomorphology and hyporheic exchange flows. We use geomorphology as a framework to understand hyporheic processes and how these processes change with location within a stream network, and over time in response to changes in stream discharge and catchment wetness. We focus primarily on hydrostatic and hydrodynamic processes—the processes where linkages t
Authors
Steven Wondzell, Skuyler Herzog, Michael Gooseff, Adam S Ward, Noah Schmadel
Improving predictions of fine particle immobilization in streams
Fine particles are critical to stream ecosystem functioning, influencing in-stream processes from pathogen transmission to carbon cycling, all of which depend on particle immobilization. However, our ability to predict particle immobilization is limited by: (1) availability of combined solute and particle tracer data and (2) identifying parameters that appropriately represent fine particle immobi
Authors
Jennifer D. Drummond, Noah Schmadel, Christa Kelleher, Aaron I. Packman, Adam S Ward
Solute transport and transformation in an intermittent, headwater mountain stream with diurnal discharge fluctuations
Time-variable discharge is known to control both transport and transformation of solutes in the river corridor. Still, few studies consider the interactions of transport and transformation together. Here, we consider how diurnal discharge fluctuations in an intermittent, headwater stream control reach-scale solute transport and transformation as measured with conservative and reactive tracers duri
Authors
Adam S Ward, Marie J Kurz, Noah Schmadel, Julia LA Knapp, Phillip J Blaen, Ciaran Harman, Jennifer D. Drummond, David M Hannah, Stefan Krause, Angang Li, Eugenia Marti, Alexander Milner, Kerry Neil, Stephen Plont, Aaron I. Packman, Nathan I Wisnoski, Steven Wondzell, Jay P. Zarnetske
Science and Products
River Corridor hot spots for biogeochemical processing: a continental scale synthesis
Rivers are the veins of the landscape, providing environmental benefits that are disproportionately high relative to their aerial extent; shedding flood waters, hosting aquatic ecosystems, transporting solutes and energy-rich materials, and storing and transforming pollutants into less harmful forms. From uplands to the coasts, rivers facilitate key biogeochemical reactions that cumulatively influ
Modeled transport components of daily chlorophyll-a in the Illinois River, 2018 through 2020 (version 1.1, April 2024)
TThis data release contains approximately three years of modeled chlorophyll-a—a proxy for planktonic algal biomass—transport through a 394-km portion of the Illinois River. Defined by four distinct reaches, model estimates include daily water balance, velocities, and algal biomass separated into its components of net growth, net loss, transported from upstream, and input from tributaries.
First
Monthly inorganic nitrogen atmospheric wet deposition estimates for the conterminous United States, 1999 through 2020
This data release provides estimates of monthly wet atmospheric deposition of total inorganic nitrogen (TIN)--the summation of nitrate (NO3) and ammonium (NH4) ions--for the conterminous United States from 1999 through 2020 in units of kilograms nitrogen per square kilometer per month with spatial reference ESPG 4326. The spatial resolution of the gridded data provided in this release is approxima
Harmonized discrete and continuous water quality data in support of modeling harmful algal blooms in the Illinois River Basin, 2005 - 2020
Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are overgrowths of algae or cyanobacteria in water and can be harmful to humans and animals directly via toxin exposure or indirectly via changes in water quality and related impacts to ecosystems services, drinking water characteristics, and recreation. While HABs occur frequently throughout the United States, the driving conditions behind them are not well understood,
High-Flow Field Experiments to Inform Everglades Restoration: Experimental Data 2010 to 2022 (ver. 2.0, October 2023)
Data were collected between 2010 and 2022 in a research area of the Everglades known as the Decompartmentalization Physical Model (DPM), a wetland area in the central Everglades that includes canals and levees bordering Water Conservation Area 3A (WCA-3A) to the northwest and Water Conservation Area 3B (WCA-3B) to the southeast. During the twelve-year study period more than ten major controlled fl
Mean seasonal SPARROW model inputs and simulated nitrogen and phosphorus loads for the Northeastern United States 2002 base year
This U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) data release includes input and output tabular files associated with mean seasonal 2002 simulations of total nitrogen and total phosphorus loads of the northeastern United States. The mean seasonal (MS) simulations are performed using a dynamic configuration of the USGS's Spatially Referenced Regression On Watershed attributes (dynamicSPARROW-MS) model, nonlinear
NHD-RC: Extension of NHDPlus Version 2.1 with high-resolution river corridor attributes
This hybrid medium-resolution national hydrography dataset with river corridor attributes (NHD-RC) for the conterminous United States (CONUS) was created by merging lentic and lotic attributes from the high-resolution NHDPlus (U.S. Geological Survey, 2020) into the medium-resolution NHDPlus Version 2.1 (U.S. Geological Survey, 2016). NHD-RC includes attributes from an additional 5.4 million small
Filter Total Items: 15
Seasonally varying contributions of contemporaneous and lagged sources of instream total nitrogen and phosphorus load across the Illinois River basin
Quantifying nutrient sources in streams, their temporal and spatial variability, and drivers of that variability can support effective water resources management. Yet a lack of data and modeling capabilities has previously prevented comprehensive quantification across both space and time. Here a dynamic SPARROW (Spatially Referenced Regressions on Watershed attributes) model that accounts for a la
Authors
Noah Schmadel, Olivia L. Miller, Scott Ator, Matthew P. Miller, Gregory E. Schwarz, Dale M. Robertson, Andrew Sekellick, Kenneth Skinner, David A. Saad
Evaluation of metrics and thresholds for use in national-scale river harmful algal bloom assessments
The spatiotemporal distribution of harmful algal blooms (HABs) in rivers remains poorly understood, and there is an urgent need to develop a consistent set of metrics to better document HAB occurrences and forecast future events. Using data from seven sites in the Illinois River Basin, we computed metrics focused on HAB conditions related to excess algal growth and hypoxia. Daily mean chlorophyll
Authors
Sarah M. Stackpoole, Jacob Aaron Zwart, Jennifer L. Graham, Judson Harvey, Noah Schmadel, Jennifer C. Murphy
River control points for algal productivity revealed by transport analysis
Measurement of planktonic chlorophyll-a—a proxy for algal biomass—in rivers may represent local production or algae transported from upstream, confounding understanding of algal bloom development in flowing waters. We modeled 3 years of chlorophyll-a transport through a 394-km portion of the Illinois River and found that although algal biomass is longitudinally widespread, most net production occu
Authors
Noah Schmadel, Judson Harvey, Jay Choi, Sarah M. Stackpoole, Jennifer L. Graham, Jennifer C. Murphy
Legacy sediment as a potential source of orthophosphate: Preliminary conceptual and geochemical models for the Susquehanna River, Chesapeake Bay watershed, USA
Nutrient pollution from agriculture and urban areas plus acid mine drainage (AMD) from legacy coal mines are primary causes of water-quality impairment in the Susquehanna River, which is the predominant source of freshwater and nutrients entering the Chesapeake Bay. Recent increases in the delivery of dissolved orthophosphate (PO4) from the river to the bay may be linked to long-term increases in
Authors
Charles A. Cravotta, Travis L. Tasker, Peter M. Smyntek, Joel Blomquist, John Clune, Qian Zhang, Noah Schmadel, Natalie Katrina Schmer
Seasonally dynamic nutrient modeling quantifies storage lags and time-varying reactivity across large river basins
Nutrients that have gradually accumulated in soils, groundwaters, and river sediments in the United States over the past century can remobilize and increase current downstream loading, obscuring effects of conservation practices aimed at protecting water resources. Drivers of storage accumulation and release of nutrients are poorly understood at the spatial scale of basins to watersheds. Predictin
Authors
Noah Schmadel, Judson Harvey, Gregory E. Schwarz
The river corridor’s evolving connectivity of lotic and lentic waters
River corridors supply a substantial proportion of the fresh water for societal and ecological needs. Individual functions of flowing (lotic) streams and rivers and ponded (lentic) waterbodies such as lakes and reservoirs are well-studied, but their collective functions are not as well understood. Here we bring together nationally consistent river corridor datasets to characterize the contribution
Authors
Judson Harvey, Noah Schmadel
Accounting for temporal variability of streamflow in estimates of travel time
Retention, processing, and transport of solutes and particulates in stream corridors are influenced by the travel time of streamflow through stream channels, which varies dynamically with discharge. The effects of streamflow variability across sites and over time cannot be addressed by time-averaged models if parameters are based solely on the characteristics of mean streamflow. We develop methods
Authors
Christopher P. Konrad, Noah Schmadel, Judson Harvey, Gregory E. Schwarz, Jesus Gomez-Velez, Elizabeth W. Boyer, Durelle Scott
Climate change causes river network contraction and disconnection in the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, Oregon, USA
Headwater streams account for more than 89% of global river networks and provide numerous ecosystem services that benefit downstream ecosystems and human water uses. It has been established that changes in climate have shifted the timing and magnitude of observed precipitation, which, at specific gages, have been directly linked to long-term reductions in large river discharge. However, climate im
Authors
Adam S Ward, Steven M Wondzell, Noah Schmadel, Skuyler P Herzog
Low threshold for nitrogen concentration saturation in headwaters increases regional and coastal delivery
River corridors store, convey, and process nutrients from terrestrial and upstream sources, regulating delivery from headwaters to estuaries. A consequence of chronic excess nitrogen loading, as supported by theory and field studies in specific areas, is saturation of the biogeochemically-mediated nitrogen removal processes that weakens the capacity of the river corridor to remove nitrogen. Region
Authors
Noah Schmadel, Judson Harvey, Richard Alexander, Elizabeth W. Boyer, Gregory E. Schwarz, Jesus D. Gomez-Velez, Durelle Scott, Christopher Konrad
Geomorphic controls on hyporheic exchange across scales - Watersheds to particles
We examined the relationship between fluvial geomorphology and hyporheic exchange flows. We use geomorphology as a framework to understand hyporheic processes and how these processes change with location within a stream network, and over time in response to changes in stream discharge and catchment wetness. We focus primarily on hydrostatic and hydrodynamic processes—the processes where linkages t
Authors
Steven Wondzell, Skuyler Herzog, Michael Gooseff, Adam S Ward, Noah Schmadel
Improving predictions of fine particle immobilization in streams
Fine particles are critical to stream ecosystem functioning, influencing in-stream processes from pathogen transmission to carbon cycling, all of which depend on particle immobilization. However, our ability to predict particle immobilization is limited by: (1) availability of combined solute and particle tracer data and (2) identifying parameters that appropriately represent fine particle immobi
Authors
Jennifer D. Drummond, Noah Schmadel, Christa Kelleher, Aaron I. Packman, Adam S Ward
Solute transport and transformation in an intermittent, headwater mountain stream with diurnal discharge fluctuations
Time-variable discharge is known to control both transport and transformation of solutes in the river corridor. Still, few studies consider the interactions of transport and transformation together. Here, we consider how diurnal discharge fluctuations in an intermittent, headwater stream control reach-scale solute transport and transformation as measured with conservative and reactive tracers duri
Authors
Adam S Ward, Marie J Kurz, Noah Schmadel, Julia LA Knapp, Phillip J Blaen, Ciaran Harman, Jennifer D. Drummond, David M Hannah, Stefan Krause, Angang Li, Eugenia Marti, Alexander Milner, Kerry Neil, Stephen Plont, Aaron I. Packman, Nathan I Wisnoski, Steven Wondzell, Jay P. Zarnetske