Biogeochemistry Group Active
Hydrologic technicians deploying a flow sensor on a shoal in San Francisco Bay to investigate phytoplankton production and nutrient transformations.
A view from the office: USGS scientists heading out to deploy sensors for sediment nutrient storage and release in Rodeo Lagoon.
USGS laboratory technician filtering for chlorophyll-a.
Scientists aboard research vessel Aiken conduct water-quality mapping in support of wastewater-derived nutrients project.
The Biogeochemistry (BGC) Group uses an interdisciplinary approach to address surface water quality issues and food web dynamics throughout California, particularly in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and San Francisco Bay.
Study areas include:
- Drivers of phytoplankton community composition and abundance and harmful algal bloom-related toxins
- Long-term continuous monitoring of numerous water quality constituents, phytoplankton, phytoplankton community structure, dissolved organic carbon and nitrogen as well as other constituents important to aquatic systems
- Changes in wastewater-derived nutrients and effects on phytoplankton community structure
- Effects of flow and water residence time on nutrient cycling and phytoplankton
- The impacts of invasive aquatic vegetation on water quality, water residence time, and native phytoplankton
- Assessing the role of wetlands in the Delta with respect to such topics as mercury, nutrients, drinking water quality and phytoplankton production
- Assessing the potential of tidal wetlands to mitigate land subsidence and sequester carbon
- Supporting improved water quality management through development of new sensors, analyses and techniques such as direct residence time measurements, custom sensor technologies, wide-area high-speed mapping surveys, remote sensing calibration and validation and other related activities
The BGC Group specializes in the application of in-situ optical sensors that monitor short- and long-term water quality trends. These sensors measure a host of biogeochemical parameters and capture continuous temporal trends – including those that may go undetected through traditional discrete sampling. The BGC Group also employs novel high-resolution boat-based mapping surveys, conducting intensive sampling for a diverse variety of biogeochemical parameters throughout the Bay-Delta.
These studies and data will help resource managers assess response to management actions and predict how the Bay-Delta will respond to future changes. The high frequency, real-time data can act as an early warning system for unanticipated, short-lived, or rapidly changing conditions, such as those due to spills, harmful algal blooms, and altered water-quality resulting from storms or levee breaches. The BGC group additionally specialize in the creation of novel data dissemination techniques in effort to ease open data acquisition, ultimately aiming to advance Bay-Delta science.
Additional Biogeochemistry Group staff include:
- Malanyon Adams
- Dulci Avouris
- Tom Bergamaschi
- Tim Baxter
- Heidi Bockisch
- Bryan Bonham
- Jake Brinkman
- Dylan Burau
- Jordy Conneely
- Ayelet Delascagigas
- Patrick Dellwo
- Nicholas Framsted
- Tommy (Hieu) Ly
- Andrea Jaegge
- Nathan Jumps
- Colin Keating
- Anne Le
- Ariana Maestas
- Kat Mai Cone
- Schuyler Nardelli
- Erica Nejad
- Dianna Oros
- Emily Richardson
- Tara Schraga
- Jesse Schroeder
- Jennifer Soto-Perez
- Corrine Sanford
- Crystal Sturgeon
- Maura Uebner
Below are other science projects associated with this project.
Below are multimedia items associated with this project.
Below are publications associated with this project.
The water-quality monitoring program for the Baltimore reservoir system, 1981-2007—Description, review and evaluation, and framework integration for enhanced monitoring
Methyl mercury dynamics in a tidal wetland quantified using in situ optical measurements
The aquatic real-time monitoring network; in-situ optical sensors for monitoring the nation's water quality
How reservoirs alter drinking water quality: Organic matter sources, sinks, and transformations
Taking the pulse of snowmelt: in situ sensors reveal seasonal, event and diurnal patterns of nitrate and dissolved organic matter variability in an upland forest stream
From deposition to erosion: Spatial and temporal variability of sediment sources, storage, and transport in a small agricultural watershed
A method for assessing carbon stocks, carbon sequestration, and greenhouse-gas fluxes in ecosystems of the United States under present conditions and future scenarios
Use and environmental occurrence of pharmaceuticals in freestall dairy farms with manured forage fields
Microbial degradation of plant leachate alters lignin phenols and trihalomethane precursors
Identifying sources of dissolved organic carbon in agriculturally dominated rivers using radiocarbon age dating: Sacramento-San Joaquin River Basin, California
Comparison of XAD with other dissolved lignin isolation techniques and a compilation of analytical improvements for the analysis of lignin in aquatic settings
Determining sources of dissolved organic carbon and disinfection byproduct precursors to the McKenzie River, Oregon
Below are data or web applications associated with this project.
Below are news stories associated with this project.
Below are partners associated with this project.
- Overview
The Biogeochemistry (BGC) Group uses an interdisciplinary approach to address surface water quality issues and food web dynamics throughout California, particularly in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and San Francisco Bay.
Study areas include:
- Drivers of phytoplankton community composition and abundance and harmful algal bloom-related toxins
- Long-term continuous monitoring of numerous water quality constituents, phytoplankton, phytoplankton community structure, dissolved organic carbon and nitrogen as well as other constituents important to aquatic systems
- Changes in wastewater-derived nutrients and effects on phytoplankton community structure
- Effects of flow and water residence time on nutrient cycling and phytoplankton
- The impacts of invasive aquatic vegetation on water quality, water residence time, and native phytoplankton
- Assessing the role of wetlands in the Delta with respect to such topics as mercury, nutrients, drinking water quality and phytoplankton production
- Assessing the potential of tidal wetlands to mitigate land subsidence and sequester carbon
- Supporting improved water quality management through development of new sensors, analyses and techniques such as direct residence time measurements, custom sensor technologies, wide-area high-speed mapping surveys, remote sensing calibration and validation and other related activities
The BGC Group specializes in the application of in-situ optical sensors that monitor short- and long-term water quality trends. These sensors measure a host of biogeochemical parameters and capture continuous temporal trends – including those that may go undetected through traditional discrete sampling. The BGC Group also employs novel high-resolution boat-based mapping surveys, conducting intensive sampling for a diverse variety of biogeochemical parameters throughout the Bay-Delta.
These studies and data will help resource managers assess response to management actions and predict how the Bay-Delta will respond to future changes. The high frequency, real-time data can act as an early warning system for unanticipated, short-lived, or rapidly changing conditions, such as those due to spills, harmful algal blooms, and altered water-quality resulting from storms or levee breaches. The BGC group additionally specialize in the creation of novel data dissemination techniques in effort to ease open data acquisition, ultimately aiming to advance Bay-Delta science.
Additional Biogeochemistry Group staff include:
- Malanyon Adams
- Dulci Avouris
- Tom Bergamaschi
- Tim Baxter
- Heidi Bockisch
- Bryan Bonham
- Jake Brinkman
- Dylan Burau
- Jordy Conneely
- Ayelet Delascagigas
- Patrick Dellwo
- Nicholas Framsted
- Tommy (Hieu) Ly
- Andrea Jaegge
- Nathan Jumps
- Colin Keating
- Anne Le
- Ariana Maestas
- Kat Mai Cone
- Schuyler Nardelli
- Erica Nejad
- Dianna Oros
- Emily Richardson
- Tara Schraga
- Jesse Schroeder
- Jennifer Soto-Perez
- Corrine Sanford
- Crystal Sturgeon
- Maura Uebner
- Science
Below are other science projects associated with this project.
Filter Total Items: 18 - Multimedia
Below are multimedia items associated with this project.
- Publications
Below are publications associated with this project.
Filter Total Items: 69The water-quality monitoring program for the Baltimore reservoir system, 1981-2007—Description, review and evaluation, and framework integration for enhanced monitoring
The City of Baltimore, Maryland, and parts of five surrounding counties obtain their water from Loch Raven and Liberty Reservoirs. A third reservoir, Prettyboy, is used to resupply Loch Raven Reservoir. Management of the watershed conditions for each reservoir is a shared responsibility by agreement among City, County, and State jurisdictions. The most recent (2005) Baltimore Reservoir Watershed MAuthorsMichael T. Koterba, Marcus C. Waldron, Tamara E.C. KrausMethyl mercury dynamics in a tidal wetland quantified using in situ optical measurements
We assessed monomethylmercury (MeHg) dynamics in a tidal wetland over three seasons using a novel method that employs a combination of in situ optical measurements as concentration proxies. MeHg concentrations measured over a single spring tide were extended to a concentration time series using in situ optical measurements. Tidal fluxes were calculated using modeled concentrations and bi-directionAuthorsB.A. Bergamaschi, J.A. Fleck, B.D. Downing, E. Boss, B. Pellerin, N. K. Ganju, D. H. Schoellhamer, A.A. Byington, W.A. Heim, M. Stephenson, R. FujiiThe aquatic real-time monitoring network; in-situ optical sensors for monitoring the nation's water quality
Floods, hurricanes, and longer-term changes in climate and land use can have profound effects on water quality due to shifts in hydrologic flow paths, water residence time, precipitation patterns, connectivity between rivers and uplands, and many other factors. In order to understand and respond to changes in hydrology and water quality, resource managers and policy makers have a need for accurateAuthorsBrian A. Pellerin, Brian A. Bergamaschi, Peter S. Murdoch, Bryan D. Downing, John Franco Saraceno, George R. Aiken, Robert G. StrieglHow reservoirs alter drinking water quality: Organic matter sources, sinks, and transformations
Within reservoirs, production, transformation, and loss of dissolved organic matter (DOM) occur simultaneously. While the balance between production and loss determines whether a reservoir is a net sink or source of DOM, changes in chemical composition are also important because they affect DOM reactivity with respect to disinfection by-product (DBP) formation. The composition of the DOM pool alsoAuthorsTamara E.C. Kraus, Brian A. Bergamaschi, Peter J. Hernes, Daniel H. Doctor, Carol Kendall, Bryan D. Downing, Richard F. LoseeTaking the pulse of snowmelt: in situ sensors reveal seasonal, event and diurnal patterns of nitrate and dissolved organic matter variability in an upland forest stream
Highly resolved time series data are useful to accurately identify the timing, rate, and magnitude of solute transport in streams during hydrologically dynamic periods such as snowmelt. We used in situ optical sensors for nitrate (NO3-) and chromophoric dissolved organic matter fluorescence (FDOM) to measure surface water concentrations at 30 min intervals over the snowmelt period (March 21–May 13AuthorsBrian A. Pellerin, John Franco Saraceno, James B. Shanley, Stephen D. Sebestyen, George R. Aiken, Wilfred M. Wollheim, Brian A. BergamaschiFrom deposition to erosion: Spatial and temporal variability of sediment sources, storage, and transport in a small agricultural watershed
The spatial and temporal variability of sediment sources, storage, and transport were investigated in a small agricultural watershed draining the Coast Ranges and Sacramento Valley in central California. Results of field, laboratory, and historical data analysis in the Willow Slough fluvial system document changes that transformed a transport-limited depositional system to an effective erosion andAuthorsJ.L. Florsheim, B.A. Pellerin, N.H. Oh, N. Ohara, P.A.M. Bachand, Sandra M. Bachand, B.A. Bergamaschi, P.J. Hernes, M.L. KavvasA method for assessing carbon stocks, carbon sequestration, and greenhouse-gas fluxes in ecosystems of the United States under present conditions and future scenarios
he Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), Section 712, mandates the U.S. Department of the Interior to develop a methodology and conduct an assessment of the Nation’s ecosystems, focusing on carbon stocks, carbon sequestration, and emissions of three greenhouse gases (GHGs): carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. The major requirements include (1) an assessment of all ecosystemsAuthorsBrian A. Bergamaschi, Richard Bernknopf, David Clow, Dennis Dye, Stephen Faulkner, William Forney, Robert Gleason, Todd Hawbaker, Jinxun Liu, Shu-Guang Liu, Stephen Prisley, Bradley Reed, Matthew Reeves, Matthew Rollins, Benjamin Sleeter, Terry Sohl, Sarah Stackpoole, Stephen Stehman, Robert G. Striegl, Anne Wein, Zhi-Liang ZhuUse and environmental occurrence of pharmaceuticals in freestall dairy farms with manured forage fields
Environmental releases of antibiotics from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are of increasing regulatory concern. This study investigates the use and occurrence of antibiotics in dairy CAFOs and their potential transport into first-encountered groundwater. On two dairies we conducted four seasonal sampling campaigns, each across 13 animal production and waste management systems and aAuthorsNaoko Watanabe, Brian A. Bergamaschi, Keith A. Loftin, Michael T. Meyer, Thomas HarterMicrobial degradation of plant leachate alters lignin phenols and trihalomethane precursors
Although the importance of vascular plant-derived dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in freshwater systems has been studied, the role of leached DOC as precursors of disinfection byproducts (DBPs) during drinking water treatment is not well known. Here we measured the propensity of leachates from four crops and four aquatic macrophytes to form trihalomethanes (THMs)—a regulated class of DBPs—before anAuthorsBrian A. Pellerin, Peter J. Hernes, John Franco Saraceno, Robert G.M. Spencer, Brian A. BergamaschiIdentifying sources of dissolved organic carbon in agriculturally dominated rivers using radiocarbon age dating: Sacramento-San Joaquin River Basin, California
We used radiocarbon measurements of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) to resolve sources of riverine carbon within agriculturally dominated landscapes in California. During 2003 and 2004, average Δ14C for DOC was −254‰ in agricultural drains in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta, −218‰ in the San Joaquin River, −175‰ in the California State Water Project and −152‰ in the Sacramento River. The age of buAuthorsJames O. Sickman, Carol L. DiGiorgio, M. Lee Davisson, Delores M. Lucero, Brian A. BergamaschiComparison of XAD with other dissolved lignin isolation techniques and a compilation of analytical improvements for the analysis of lignin in aquatic settings
This manuscript highlights numerous incremental improvements in dissolved lignin measurements over the nearly three decades since CuO oxidation of lignin phenols was first adapted for environmental samples. Intercomparison of the recovery efficiency of three common lignin phenol concentration and isolation techniques, namely XAD, C18with both CH3OH (C18M) and CH3CN (C18A) used independently for prAuthorsRobert G. M. Spencer, George R. Aiken, Rachael Y. Dyda, Kenna D. Butler, Brian A. Bergamaschi, Peter J. HernesDetermining sources of dissolved organic carbon and disinfection byproduct precursors to the McKenzie River, Oregon
This study was conducted to determine the main sources of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and disinfection byproduct (DBP) precursors to the McKenzie River, Oregon (USA). Water samples collected from the mainstem, tributaries, and reservoir outflows were analyzed for DOC concentration and DBP formation potentials (trihalomethanes [THMFPs] and haloacetic acids [HAAFPs]). In addition, optical propertAuthorsTamara E.C. Kraus, Chauncey W. Anderson, Karl Morgenstern, Bryan D. Downing, Brian A. Pellerin, Brian A. Bergamaschi - Web Tools
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