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Publications

This list of Water Resources Mission Area publications includes both official USGS publications and journal articles authored by our scientists. A searchable database of all USGS publications can be accessed at the USGS Publications Warehouse.

Filter Total Items: 18497

The 2024 “Hacking Limnology” Workshop Series and Virtual Summit: Increasing inclusion, participation, and representation in the aquatic sciences

No abstract available.
Authors
Michael Frederick Meyer, Robert T. Hensley, Carolina C. Barbosa, Jonathan J Borelli, Johannes Feldbauer, Merritt Elizabeth Harlan, Burak Kuyumcu, Robert Ladwig, Jorrit Mesman, Rachel M. Pilla, Qinglong Zhang, Jacob Aaron Zwart, Ana I Ayala, Craig B Brinkerhoff, David Kneis, Daniel Mercado-Bettín, Cassandra Nickles, Donald C. Pierson, Patch Thongthaisong, Inne Vanderkelen

Predictions of groundwater PFAS occurrence at drinking water supply depths in the United States

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), known colloquially as “forever chemicals”, have been associated with adverse human health effects and have contaminated drinking water supplies across the United States owing to their long-term and widespread use. People in the United States may unknowingly be drinking water that contains PFAS because of a lack of systematic analysis, particularly in dom
Authors
Andrea K. Tokranov, Katherine Marie Ransom, Laura M. Bexfield, Bruce D. Lindsey, Elise Watson, Danielle Dupuy, Paul Stackelberg, Miranda S. Fram, Stefan Voss, James A. Kingsbury, Bryant Jurgens, Kelly Smalling, Paul M. Bradley

Software application for spectral mixture analysis for surveillance of harmful algal blooms (SMASH): A tool for identifying cyanobacteria genera from remotely sensed data

Remote sensing is often used to detect algae, but standard techniques do not provide information on the types of algae present or their potential to form a harmful algal bloom (HAB). We developed a framework for identifying algal genera based on reflectance: SMASH, short for Spectral Mixture Analysis for Surveillance of HABs. The Software Application for SMASH (SAS) was developed in MATLAB and mak
Authors
Carl J. Legleiter, Tyler Victor King

Managing water for birds— A tool for the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge

The “Water for Birds Tool” is an Excel-based model designed for resource managers to assess the spatial extent and types of bird habitats in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The model quantifies the area of open water, partial water, and water depths on a monthly timescale during the irrigation season (April–July) from 2021–2024. This model combines previously published datasets and incorpora
Authors
Cassandra Smith

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

Reducing wastewater nitrogen loading by >90% with carbon-amended septic systems: A field demonstration in Barnstable (Cape Cod), Massachusetts

Onsite wastewater treatment systems (OWTS) are a major source of excess nutrients and co-pollutants in watersheds across the United States. In Barnstable County (Cape Cod), Massachusetts, effluent from septic systems and cesspools contributes approximately 80% of the controllable reactive nitrogen (N) load to numerous impaired estuaries and degrades water quality in the region's sole source aquife
Authors
Laura Erban, Sara Wigginton, Brian Baumgaertel, Bryan Horsley, Timothy D. McCobb, Zee Crocker, Scott Horsley, Timothy Gleason

Predictive understanding of stream salinization in a developed watershed using machine learning

Stream salinization is a global issue, yet few models can provide reliable salinity estimates for unmonitored locations at the time scales required for ecological exposure assessments. Machine learning approaches are presented that use spatially limited high-frequency monitoring and spatially distributed discrete samples to estimate the daily stream-specific conductance across a watershed. We comp
Authors
Jared David Smith, Lauren Elizabeth Koenig, Margaux Jeanne Sleckman, Alison P. Appling, Jeffrey M Sadler, Vincent T. DePaul, Zoltan Szabo

Environmental and societal consequences of winter ice loss from lakes

More than half a billion people live near lakes that freeze over in the winter. However, lakes are rapidly losing winter ice cover in response to warming, and the rate of loss has accelerated over the past 25 years. Hampton et al. reviewed the state of seasonal ice cover on lakes and discuss some of the consequences of its disappearance. Ice loss will affect culture, economy, water quality, fisher
Authors
Stephanie E. Hampton, Stephen M. Powers, Hilary A. Dugan, Lesley B. Knoll, Bailey C. McMeans, Michael Frederick Meyer, Catherine M. O'Reilly, Ted Ozersky, Sapna Sharma, David C Barrett, Sudeep Chandra, Joachim Jansen, Ryan P. McClure, Milla Rautio, Gesa A. Weyhenmeyer, Xiao Yang

State of science, gap analysis, and prioritization for southeastern United States water-quality impacts from coastal storms—Fiscal year 2023 program report to the Water Resources Mission Area from the Water Availability Impacts of Extreme Events Program—H

Tropical cyclones (coastal storm events that include tropical depressions, tropical storms, and hurricanes) cause landscape-scale disturbances that can lead to impaired water quality and thus reduce water availability for use. Stakeholders and scientists at local and national scales have illustrated a need for understanding these risks to water quality. A regional and comprehensive understanding o
Authors
Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Tara L. Root, Matthew D. Petkewich, MaryLynn Musgrove, Amy C. Gill, J. Curtis Weaver, Christopher H. Conaway, Bruce D. Lindsey, Francis Parchaso, Noah Knowles, Elizabeth J. Tomaszewski

Hyperspectral Image Transects during Transient Events in Rivers (HITTER): Framework development and application to a tracer experiment on the Missouri River, USA

Rivers convey a broad range of materials, such as sediment, nutrients, and contaminants. Much of this transport can occur during or immediately after an episodic, pulsed event like a flood or an oil spill. Understanding the flow processes that influence the motion of these substances is important for managing water resources and conserving aquatic ecosystems. This study introduces a new remote sen
Authors
Carl J. Legleiter, Victoria Mary Scholl, Brandon James Sansom, Matthew Alexander Burgess

Dynamic water-quality responses to wildfire in Colorado

In 2020, Colorado experienced the most severe wildfire season in recorded history, with wildfires burning 625 357 acres across the state. Two of the largest fires burned parts of Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP), and a study was initiated to address concerns about potential effects on drinking water quality from mobilization of ash and sediment. The study took advantage of a wealth of pre-fire
Authors
David W. Clow, Garrett Alexander Akie, Sheila F. Murphy, Evan John Gohring

Correlation analysis of groundwater and hydrologic data, Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park, Hawai‘i

Designated in 1978, Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park is located on the west coast of the Island of Hawaiʻi. The Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park encompasses about 1,200 acres of coastal land and nearshore ecosystems, which include wetlands, anchialine pools (landlocked bodies of brackish water with hydrologic connections to the ocean), fishponds, a fishtrap, and coral reefs. Thes
Authors
Brytne K. Okuhata, Delwyn S. Oki
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