Colorado Water Science Center
Publications
Thermal regimes of Rocky Mountain lakes warm with climate change
Anthropogenic climate change is causing a wide range of stresses in aquatic ecosystems, primarily through warming thermal conditions. Lakes, in response to these changes, are experiencing increases in both summer temperatures and ice-free days. We used continuous records of lake surface temperature and air temperature to create statistical models...
Roberts, James J.; Fausch, Kurt D.; Schmidt, Travis S.; Walters, David M. Cross-section data and pressure transducer location of the South Platte River near Fort Morgan, Colorado, 2017
The USGS Colorado Water Science Center, in cooperation with the Colorado Water Conservation Board, collected hydraulic data for the South Platte River for areas adjacent to Fort Morgan, Colo., based on the USGS streamgage 06759500 South Platte River at Fort Morgan, CO. The hydraulic data include survey point data for 54...
Kohn, Michael S. The Niobrara Formation as a challenge to water quality in the Arkansas River, Colorado, USA
Study regionArkansas River, east of the Rocky Mountains.Study focusCretaceous sedimentary rocks in the western United States generally pose challenges to water quality, often through mobilization of salts and trace metals by irrigation. However, in the Arkansas River Basin of Colorado, patchy exposure of multiple Cretaceous formations has made it...
Bern, Carleton R.; Stogner, Sr., Robert W. Synoptic sampling and principal components analysis to identify sources of water and metals to an acid mine drainage stream
Combining the synoptic mass balance approach with principal components analysis (PCA) can be an effective method for discretising the chemistry of inflows and source areas in watersheds where contamination is diffuse in nature and/or complicated by groundwater interactions. This paper presents a field-scale study in which synoptic sampling and PCA...
Byrne, Patrick; Runkel, Robert L.; Walton-Day, Katie Methane and benzene in drinking-water wells overlying the Eagle Ford, Fayetteville, and Haynesville Shale hydrocarbon production areas
Water wells (n = 116) overlying the Eagle Ford, Fayetteville, and Haynesville Shale hydrocarbon production areas were sampled for chemical, isotopic, and groundwater-age tracers to investigate the occurrence and sources of selected hydrocarbons in groundwater. Methane isotopes and hydrocarbon gas compositions indicate most of the methane in the...
McMahon, Peter B.; Barlow, Jeannie R. B.; Engle, Mark A.; Belitz, Kenneth; Ging, Patricia B.; Hunt, Andrew G.; Jurgens, Bryant C.; Kharaka, Yousif K.; Tollett, Roland W.; Kresse, Timothy M.
The U.S. Geological Survey Monthly Water Balance Model Futures Portal
The U.S. Geological Survey Monthly Water Balance Model Futures Portal (https://my.usgs.gov/mows/) is a user-friendly interface that summarizes monthly historical and simulated future conditions for seven hydrologic and meteorological variables (actual evapotranspiration, potential evapotranspiration, precipitation, runoff, snow water equivalent,...
Bock, Andrew R.; Hay, Lauren E.; Markstrom, Steven L.; Emmerich, Christopher; Talbert, Marian Spatiotemporal variability of snow depletion curves derived from SNODAS for the conterminous United States, 2004-2013
Assessment of water resources at a national scale is critical for understanding their vulnerability to future change in policy and climate. Representation of the spatiotemporal variability in snowmelt processes in continental-scale hydrologic models is critical for assessment of water resource response to continued climate change. Continental-...
Driscoll, Jessica M.; Hay, Lauren E.; Bock, Andrew R.
Water-quality trends in the nation’s rivers and streams, 1972–2012—Data preparation, statistical methods, and trend results
Since passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, Federal, State, and local governments have invested billions of dollars to reduce pollution entering rivers and streams. To understand the return on these investments and to effectively manage and protect the Nation’s water resources in the future, we need to know how and why water quality has been...
Oelsner, Gretchen P.; Sprague, Lori A.; Murphy, Jennifer C.; Zuellig, Robert E.; Johnson, Henry M.; Ryberg, Karen R.; Falcone, James A.; Stets, Edward G.; Vecchia, Aldo V.; Riskin, Melissa L.; De Cicco, Laura A.; Mills, Taylor J.; Farmer, William H. A software tool to assess uncertainty in transient-storage model parameters using Monte Carlo simulations
Researchers and practitioners alike often need to understand and characterize how water and solutes move through a stream in terms of the relative importance of in-stream and near-stream storage and transport processes. In-channel and subsurface storage processes are highly variable in space and time and difficult to measure. Storage estimates are...
Ward, Adam S.; Kelleher, Christa A.; Mason, Seth J. K.; Wagener, Thorsten; McIntyre, Neil; McGlynn, Brian L.; Runkel, Robert L.; Payn, Robert A. Effects of internal phosphorus loadings and food-web structure on the recovery of a deep lake from eutrophication
We used monitoring data from Lake Lugano (Switzerland and Italy) to assess key ecosystem responses to three decades of nutrient management (1983–2014). We investigated whether reductions in external phosphorus loadings (Lext) caused declines in lake phosphorus concentrations (P) and phytoplankton biomass (Chl a), as assumed by the predictive...
Lepori, Fabio; Roberts, James J.
The U.S. Geological Survey Monthly Water Balance Model Futures Portal
Simulations of future climate suggest profiles of temperature and precipitation may differ significantly from those in the past. These changes in climate will likely lead to changes in the hydrologic cycle. As such, natural resource managers are in need of tools that can provide estimates of key components of the hydrologic cycle, uncertainty...
Bock, Andy
Bathymetry of Clear Creek Reservoir, Chaffee County, Colorado, 2016
To better characterize the water supply capacity of Clear Creek Reservoir, Chaffee County, Colorado, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Pueblo Board of Water Works and Colorado Mountain College, carried out a bathymetry survey of Clear Creek Reservoir. A bathymetry map of the reservoir is presented here with the elevation-surface...
Kohn, Michael S.; Kinzel, Paul J.; Mohrmann, Jacob S.