Publications

The Chicago Department of Transportation’s Sustainable Streetscapes Program is an innovative program that strives to convert Chicago’s neighborhood commercial areas, riverwalks, and bicycle facilities into active, attractive places for Chicagoans to live, work, and play. The objective of each project is to create flourishing public places while improving the ability of infrastructure to...

As part of the Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is conducting an assessment of the vulnerability of the Chicago Area Waterway System and Des Plaines River to Asian carp (specifically, Hypophthalmichthys nobilis (bighead carp) and Hypophthalmichthys molitrix (silver carp)) spawning and recruitment. As part of this assessment, the...

Groundwater-quality data collected from 1995 through 2013 from 106 monitoring wells open to the base of the Silurian aquifer surrounding the Tunnel and Reservoir Plan (TARP) System in Cook County, Illinois, were analyzed by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, to assess the efficacy of the monitoring network and...

The U.S. Geological Survey used interpretations of hydrogeologic conditions and tritium-based groundwater age estimates to assess the travel time of groundwater at a landfill site near Clinton, Illinois (the “Clinton site”) where a chemical waste unit (CWU) was proposed to be within the Clinton landfill unit #3 (CLU#3). Glacial deposits beneath the CWU consist predominantly of low...

Missouri was the leading producer of lead in the United States—as well as the world—for more than a century. One of the lead sources is known as the Old Lead Belt, located in southeast Missouri. The primary ore mineral in the region is galena, which can be found both in surface deposits and underground as deep as 200 feet. More than 8.5 million tons of lead were produced from the Old...

Asian carp eggs are semi-buoyant and must remain suspended in the water to survive, supported by the turbulence of the flow, until they hatch and develop the ability to swim. Analysis of the transport and dispersal patterns of Asian carp eggs will facilitate the development and implementation of control strategies to target the early life stages. Experimenting with Asian carp eggs is...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, designed and operates a series of monitoring stations on streams and springs throughout Missouri known as the Ambient Water-Quality Monitoring Network. During the 2014 water year (October 1, 2013, through September 30, 2014), data were collected at 74 stations—72 Ambient Water-Quality Monitoring...

Pharmaceuticals are present in low concentrations (

Next-Generation Radar (NEXRAD) has become an integral component in the estimation of precipitation (Kitzmiller and others, 2013). The high spatial and temporal resolution of NEXRAD has revolutionized the ability to estimate precipitation across vast regions, which is especially beneficial in areas without a dense rain-gage network. With the improved precipitation estimates, hydrologic...

Introduction The Great Lakes face a number of serious challenges that cause damage to water quality, habitat, ecology, and coastal health. Excess nutrients from point and nonpoint sources have a history of causing harmful algal blooms (HABs); since the late 1990s, a resurgence of HABs have forced beach closures and resulted in water quality impairments across the Great Lakes. Studies...

Introduction The Great Lakes face a number of serious challenges that cause damage to water quality, habitat, ecology, and coastal health. Excess nutrients from point and nonpoint sources have a history of causing harmful algal blooms (HABs); since the late 1990s, a resurgence of HABs have forced beach closures and resulted in water quality impairments across the Great Lakes. Studies...

The Great Lakes face a number of serious challenges that cause damage to water quality, habitat, ecology, and coastal health. Excess nutrients from point and nonpoint sources have a history of causing harmful algal blooms (HABs); since the late 1990s, a resurgence of HABs have forced beach closures and resulted in water quality impairments across the Great Lakes. Studies increasingly...