Publications

Nuisance levels of benthic filamentous green algae are becoming increasingly common in surface waters of Colorado and the western United States. In 2018 the U.S. Geological Survey began a study in cooperation with the White River and Douglas Creek Conservation Districts, Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum, and the Colorado River Water Conservation District to collect and analyze...

Wildfires pose a risk to water supplies in the western U.S. and many other parts of the world, due to the potential for degradation of water quality. However, a lack of adequate data hinders prediction and assessment of post-wildfire impacts and recovery. The dearth of such data is related to lack of funding for monitoring extreme events and the challenge of measuring the outsized...

An illustrated diagram of the water cycle. This is a modern, updated version of the widely used diagram featured on the USGS Water Science School. Notably, this new water cycle diagram depicts humans and major categories of human water use as key components of the water cycle, in addition to the key pools and fluxes of the hydrologic cycle. This product targets an 8th grade audience and...

Draining mine tunnels contribute contaminants to groundwater and surface water, but remediation strategies may be hindered as hydrogeologic characterization and modeling of these heterogeneous features generally relies on sparse data sets. The Captain Jack mine site in Colorado, USA, presents a unique data set allowing for temporal evaluation of groundwater connectivity in the vicinity...

Introduction The U.S. Geological Survey’s online Water Science School is a one-stop shop for water education resources. In addition to sharing images, data, and diagrams, the Water Science School provides lesson plans for teachers as well as multiple interactive activities for students, such as questionnaires, calculators, and quizzes. This bookmark introduces Drippy, the Water Science...

Continued climate warming is reducing seasonal snowpacks in the western United States, where >50% of historical water supplies were snowmelt-derived. In the Upper Colorado River Basin, declining snow water equivalent (SWE) and altered surface water input (SWI, rainfall and snowmelt available to enter the soil) timing and magnitude affect streamflow generation and water availability. To...

Global demand for safe and sustainable water supplies necessitates a better understanding of contaminant exposures in potential reuse waters. In this study, we compared exposures and load contributions to surface water from the discharge of three reuse waters (wastewater effluent, urban stormwater, and agricultural runoff). Results document substantial and varying organic-chemical...

In the western United States, bulkheads are constructed to limit drainage from abandoned, draining mine adits and to protect downstream resources from uncontrolled releases of degraded adit water. Although bulkheads improve safety and water-quality conditions at the mouth of the adit, elevated hydraulic pressure behind the bulkhead often causes continuing water-quality problems in new...

The presence of contaminants in a source water can constrain its suitability for drinking. The quality of groundwater used for public supply was assessed in 25 principal aquifers (PAs) that account for 84% of groundwater pumped for public supply in the U.S. (89.6 million people on a proportional basis). Each PA was sampled across its lateral extent using an equal-area grid, typically...

Elevated concentrations and loads of nutrients in the South Platte River and Cherry Creek in Denver, Colorado, may have adverse effects on those streams and downstream water bodies, including increased production of algae, eutrophication, and decreased recreational opportunities. This article describes streamflow and concentrations and loads of nutrients for the South Platte River and...

Nine rock-rubble fish spawning placements, or artificial reef complexes, constructed in the Detroit and St. Clair Rivers between 2004 to 2018 were surveyed periodically with multibeam sonar. These serial bathymetric surveys, conducted in 2015, 2018, 2021, and 2022, identified active sand bedform fields impinging two reef complexes: Fighting Island in the Detroit River and Middle Channel...

The Upper Rio Grande Basin (URGB) is a critical international water resource under pressure from a myriad of climatic, ecological, infrastructural, water-use, and legal constraints. The objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive assessment of the spatial distribution and temporal trends of selected water-budget components (snow processes, evapotranspiration (ET), streamflow...