Water Resources

Issue: As Chesapeake Bay Program partners work to reduce pollution, knowing sources of sediment, phosphorus, and nitrogen transported to the Bay is critical for effective and efficient management. Streams and their associated floodplains have an important influence on the transport of nutrients and sediment through the Chesapeake watershed and into tidal waters. The USGS is conducting...

Estuaries and their surrounding wetlands are coastal transition zones where freshwater rivers meet tidal seawater. As sea levels rise, tidal forces move saltier water farther upstream, extending into freshwater wetland areas. Human changes to the surrounding landscape may amplify the effects of this tidal extension, impacting the resiliency and function of the upper estuarine wetlands. One visible...

The Greater Everglades Ecosystem, which includes Everglades National Park and Biscayne National Park, experienced significant alterations in the 20th century with the construction of canals to divert water, water management practices, growth of agriculture, and the rapidly expanding urban population of Miami and south Florida. In the 1990s a federal, state, and local effort to restore the Greater...

The Appalachian Basin Geologic Mapping Project performs geologic mapping at local and regional scales, and geologic research in The Valley and Ridge and Appalachian Plateaus physiographic provinces. These provinces include parts of 11 states and mainly borders the Blue Ridge / Piedmont and North Interior Lowlands Provinces. Only one state has Valley and Ridge geology (NJ), two have Appalachian...

The Blue Ridge and Inner Piedmont Geologic Mapping Task (BRIP) is the western focus of geologic mapping and framework studies of the Piedmont and Blue Ridge Project. BRIP will conduct modern geologic mapping and geologic framework studies in the Wytheville, Hickory and Boone 30x60-min. sheets. Collectively, the objectives of BRIP are to (1) characterize the geologic framework of the Blue Ridge and...

The Greater Everglades Ecosystem covers much of south Florida, and the highest areas are only a few meters above sea level. Predictions of sea level rise and changes in storm intensity for the 21st century are particularly concerning to the urban population of Miami and the east coast, but also represent a challenge to Everglades National Park and Biscayne National Park resource managers. The...

The Piedmont and Blue Ridge Project is a geologic mapping project supported by the USGS National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program. The Piedmont Blue Ridge Project aims to understand the geologic framework and tectonic evolution of terranes and basins in the Appalachian Piedmont and Blue Ridge, and their significance for water, mineral and energy resources, natural hazards, and engineering...

This project, centered on South Carolina and Georgia, extends coastal-basement geologic mapping and related research south of a geologic map in production for pre-Cretaceous rocks beneath the Atlantic Coastal Plain from Virginia to southern New Jersey, and adds detail to a national-scale basement domain map constructed to delineate mineral-resource prospectivity. Plans include efforts to build on...