Publications

Winter cover crops (WCC) are an effective agricultural conservation practice for improving soil health and water quality. Several U.S. states have established incentive programs to promote planting WCC between cash crop rotations. In recent years, the area planted with WCC has steadily increased due to these efforts, although the planting area varies among states. Since these programs...

This study investigates the impacts of human activities and climate variability on hydrologic alterations in the Mobile River and Perdido River Basins of Alabama. The research uses a machine learning approach, specifically cubist models, to quantify and predict changes in flow duration curves (FDCs) under both historical (1980–2009) and future climate scenarios. Future climate...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council, has used MODFLOW 6 to develop a groundwater-flow model to simulate groundwater and surface-water interactions in the Mobile Bay, Alabama, area. The model results indicated that, on average, groundwater discharge near the coastline is equal to 2.5 percent of the surface water that flows into the...

Machine learning is the key to uncovering where populations across the globe are at risk from manganese in their groundwater-sourced drinking water.

Elevated groundwater salinity in coastal regions threatens the beneficial use of fresh groundwater. Coastal groundwater management typically focuses on preventing intrusion from modern sources of seawater; however, past geological processes can also leave a legacy of saline groundwater now hidden in the subsurface. Here, multiple extensive airborne electromagnetic surveys provide...

Cover crop adoption in the U.S. has increased over the past decades, increasing the need to quantify their performance and environmental benefits. While remote sensing (RS)-based approaches for detecting cover crop presence have been developed, there has been limited research on how cover crops with varied biomass and management practices influence detectability. Using unique field-level...

Cyanobacterial toxins (cyanotoxins) threaten aquatic ecosystems and human health, yet the factors influencing their production and distribution in freshwater remain unclear. In north-central Tennessee, nutrient-rich runoff from agricultural and urban areas, combined with a karst landscape that supports drinking and recreational water use, heightens the need to understand cyanotoxin...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, collected water-withdrawal and water-use data from a 2020 inventory of water withdrawals in Louisiana. In 2020, approximately 8,700 million gallons per day (Mgal/d) of water was withdrawn from groundwater and surface-water sources in Louisiana, which represented a 0.22...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council, assessed monotonic trends for a variety of streamflow statistics for 69 long-term U.S. Geological Survey streamgages within either the Mobile Bay or Perdido Bay watersheds that were active through at least at the end of calendar year 2019. Long-term data were defined for this investigation as...

Tidal inundation dynamics are a principal driver of hydrological and biogeochemical processes in coastal ecosystems, controlling the exchange of carbon, nutrients, and sediments between wetlands and estuaries. In this study, we assessed the utility of L-band radar imagery in deriving tidal wetland inundated volume estimates (pixel-wise water depths), which provide a more robust...

In 2024, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Tennessee Department of Transportation, updated the methods for predicting the magnitude and frequency of floods at ungaged locations on streams in urban areas in Tennessee. The study area included 136 streamgages in urban areas in Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina that had at least 10...

Water-quality degradation from nutrient pollution remains a major challenge for resource managers. Developing effective strategies requires tools to characterize nutrient sources and transport. This study used the RSPARROW framework to develop and assess new, smaller-scale models for Total Nitrogen (TN) and Total Phosphorus (TP) transport across Mississippi (MS). These state-level models...