Publications

Modeling geomorphic evolution in estuaries is necessary to model the fate of legacy contaminants in the bed sediment and the effect of climate change, watershed alterations, sea level rise, construction projects, and restoration efforts. Coupled hydrodynamic and sediment transport models used for this purpose typically are calibrated to water level, currents, and/or suspended-sediment

Laboratory-scale virus transport experiments were conducted in columns packed with sand under saturated and unsaturated conditions. The viruses employed were the male-specific RNA coliphage, MS2, and the Salmonella typhimurium phage, PRD1. The mathematical model developed by Sim and Chrysikopoulos (Water Resour Res 36:173–179, 2000) that accounts for processes responsible for removal of...

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the landward reach of the San Francisco Estuary, provides habitat for threatened delta smelt, endangered winter-run Chinook salmon, and other species of concern. It is also the location of huge freshwater diversion facilities that entrain large numbers of fish. Reducing the entrainment of listed fishes into these facilities has required curtailment of...

Acoustic Doppler current profilers are deployed to measure both the mean flow and turbulent properties in a channel with significant curvature. Direct measurements of the Reynolds stress show a significant asymmetry over the tidal cycle where stresses are enhanced during the flood tide and less prominent over the ebb tide. This asymmetry is corroborated by logarithmic fits using...

Lignin phenols have proven to be powerful biomarkers in environmental studies; however, the complexity of lignin analysis limits the number of samples and thus spatial and temporal resolution in any given study. In contrast, spectrophotometric characterization of dissolved organic matter (DOM) is rapid, noninvasive, relatively inexpensive, requires small sample volumes, and can even be...

Hindcasting decadal-timescale bathymetric change in estuaries is prone to error due to limited data for initial conditions, boundary forcing, and calibration; computational limitations further hinder efforts. We developed and calibrated a tidal-timescale model to bathymetric change in Suisun Bay, California, over the 1867–1887 period. A general, multiple-timescale calibration ensured...

Uranium (U) concentrations in groundwater in several parts of the eastern San Joaquin Valley, California, have exceeded federal and state drinking water standards during the last 20 years. The San Joaquin Valley is located within the Central Valley of California and is one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world. Increased irrigation and pumping associated with...

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) dynamics during storm events has received considerable attention in forested watersheds, but the extent to which storms impart rapid changes in DOM concentration and composition in highly disturbed agricultural watersheds remains poorly understood. In this study, we used identical in situ optical sensors for DOM fluorescence (FDOM) with and without...

Groundwater pumping has led to extensive water-level declines and seawater intrusion in coastal Los Angeles, California (USA). A SUTRA-based solute-transport model was developed to test the hydraulic implications of a sequence-stratigraphic model of the Dominguez Gap area and to assess the effects of water-management scenarios. The model is two-dimensional, vertical and follows an...

The Los Angeles Basin is a densely populated coastal area that significantly depends on groundwater. A part of this groundwater supply is at risk from saltwater intrusion—the impetus for this study. High-resolution seismic-reflection data collected from the Los Angeles–Long Beach Harbor Complex have been combined with borehole geophysical and descriptive geological data from four nearby...

Information on the ocean/atmosphere state over the period spanning the Last Glacial Maximum - from the Late Pleistocene to the Holocene - provides crucial constraints on the relationship between orbital forcing and global climate change. The Pacific Ocean is particularly important in this respect because of its dominant role in exporting heat and moisture from the tropics to higher...

Studying the dynamics and geochemical behavior of dissolved and particulate organic material is difficult because concentration and composition may rapidly change in response to aperiodic as well as periodic physical and biological forcing. Here we describe a method useful for quantifying fluxes and analyzing dissolved organic matter (DOM) dynamics. The method uses coupled optical and...