New England Water Science Center Projects

The Cambridge Water Department supplies approximately 13 million gallons per day of drinking water to more than 100,000 customers. Raw water is obtained from a serial system of three primary storage reservoirs—Cambridge Reservoir (also known as the Hobbs Brook Reservoir), Stony Brook Reservoir, and Fresh Pond Reservoir—in parts of Cambridge, Lexington, Lincoln, Waltham, and Weston, Massachusetts...

Lake and impoundment levels are used for calculating a drought severity index.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP), is investigating the effects of sea-level rise and climate change on the groundwater resources of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

The Groundwater Index in the Massachusetts Drought Management Plan provides a general overview of groundwater levels relative to long-term groundwater levels in Massachusetts. The methods used to compute the Groundwater Index were revised for the 2019 version of the Drought Management Plan. The 2019 plan aligns the drought categories and specifies the drought status from select percentile ranges...

High-quality light detection and ranging (lidar) data from USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) has unlocked the potential to derive new and innovative hydrography datasets such as the USGS next generation 3D Hydrography Program (3DHP) that can be used for many hydrologic and hydraulic (H&H) modeling applications. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) mapping partners require elevation and...

The U.S. Geological Survey and NASA are collaborating on a study to develop methods to estimate river flows from satellite observations.

Communities across Massachusetts may face potential consequences of climate change, ranging from more extreme rainfall to more pronounced and frequent droughts. Climate change could alter the state’s hydrology in potentially complex and unanticipated ways. Typical approaches for projecting hydrologic risk under climate change can misrepresent and underestimate the variability of climate and...

The Providence Water Supply Board (Providence Water) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) are collaborating on a study to predict future water demand in and around the city of Providence.

During the past 20 years, nitrogen loads to Long Island Sound (LIS) have been substantially reduced in large watersheds affected by municipal wastewater loads.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a diverse group of over 4,000 different compounds. Since the 1940s, PFAS have been manufactured and used around the globe, including in the United States. PFAS are resistant to chemical and thermal breakdown and impart stain and water-resistance properties, making them useful for a variety of commercial applications, but also persistent in the...

This web page provides the user with access to a table showing current conditions for active groundwater level sites, historical observations, and various summary statistics for both currently active and discontinued sites, for stations in Connecticut.

This site provides an interactive map with symbols showing locations of groundwater level measurement sites in New England. The symbols are color coded to indicate percentile classes and whether the sites report data in real-time-delivered to NWISWEB, continuous or periodic measurements.

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP), is currently conducting a 4-year water-quality investigation in the lower portion of the Merrimack River watershed, April 2020 – October 2024.

Coastal estuaries in southern New England and New York show the effects of excess nutrients and coastal eutrophication. These include excessive growth of macroalgae, excessive blooms of phytoplankton, oxygen depletion, hypoxia and deteriorated substrates. State and Federal regulators have responded to these nutrient-caused impairments by requiring more stringent permit limits for National...

As part of water-quality data collection activities in New England, water samples are analyzed for chloride in monitoring networks and projects across Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Chloride is of interest because high concentrations may affect aquatic life in streams or affect water quality of reservoirs and aquifers used for drinking water.

2018 Nor’easters in Coastal Massachusetts

The USGS, in cooperation with the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection will be collecting water-quality and hydrologic data at six embayments from April 2021 to June 2027: Mystic, Norwalk, Saugatuck, Sasco-Southport complex, Farm, and Poquonnock.

Tropical Storm Irene arrived in New England on August 28, 2011, bringing extreme winds, rapidly changing pressure, and record-setting rainfall to the region. Over the next 18 hours, the resulting coastal flooding and historic riverine flooding resulted in damages estimated to be in excess of $7 billion and approximately 45 deaths (Suro and others, 2015). The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) was...

On August 28, 2011 Tropical Storm Irene made landfall in New England, leading to coastal storm surge, significant riverine flooding, sediment transport to Long Island Sound, and major infrastructure damage and destruction. Ten years later, the USGS New England Water Science Center looks back at Irene, the data collected by our Center during the event, the response by our employees before, during...

The New England Water Science Center collects data and does interpretive studies on hydrology, hydraulics, and water quality in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration and State Departments of Transportation (DOTs) in New England and other states.

Primarily through the efforts of Glenn Hodgkins and Robert Dudley, the New England Water Science Center has been studying historical changes in streamflows, groundwater levels, and lake ice in New England and across the country for 20 years. Glenn and Rob have analyzed a wealth of historical data, including 100+ years of streamflow data and 150+ years of lake-ice data at some locations...