Publications
The list below includes official USGS publications and journal articles authored by New England Water Science Center scientists. The USGS Pubs Warehouse link provides access to all USSG publications.
Filter Total Items: 1077
Cross-sectional associations between drinking water arsenic and urinary inorganic arsenic in the US: NHANES 2003-2014
Background: Inorganic arsenic is a potent carcinogen and toxicant associated with numerous adverse health outcomes. The contribution of drinking water from private wells and regulated community water systems (CWSs) to total inorganic arsenic exposure is not clear.
Objectives: To determine the association between drinking water arsenic estimates and urinary arsenic concentrations in the 2003-2014
Authors
Maya Spaur, Melissa Lombard, Joseph D. Ayotte, Benjamin C. Bostick, Steven N. Chillrud, Ana Navas-Acien, Anne E. Nigra
Preliminary machine learning models of manganese and 1,4-dioxane in groundwater on Long Island, New York
Manganese and 1,4-dioxane in groundwater underlying Long Island, New York, were modeled with machine learning methods to demonstrate the use of these methods for mapping contaminants in groundwater in the Long Island aquifer system. XGBoost, a gradient boosted, ensemble tree method, was applied to data from 910 wells for manganese and 553 wells for 1,4-dioxane. Explanatory variables included soil
Authors
Leslie A. DeSimone
Assessing potential effects of climate change on highway-runoff flows and loads in southern New England by using planning-level space-for-time analyses
Transportation agencies need information about the potential effects of climate change on the volume, quality, and treatment of stormwater to mitigate potential effects of runoff on receiving waters. To address these concerns, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Federal Highway Administration used the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project tool and the Stochastic Empirical Loading and Dilution Model
Authors
Lillian C. Jeznach, Gregory E. Granato, Daniel Sharar-Salgado, Susan C. Jones, Daniel Imig
Stream temperature prediction in a shifting environment: The influence of deep learning architecture
Stream temperature is a fundamental control on ecosystem health. Recent efforts incorporating process guidance into deep learning models for predicting stream temperature have been shown to outperform existing statistical and physical models. This performance is in part because deep learning architectures can actively learn spatiotemporal relationships that govern how water and energy propagate th
Authors
Simon Nemer Topp, Janet R. Barclay, Jeremy Alejandro Diaz, Alexander Y. Sun, Xiaowei Jia, Daniel Lubin, Jeffrey M Sadler, Alison P. Appling
2022 drought in New England
Introduction During April through September 2022, much of New England experienced a short but extreme hydrologic drought that was similar to the drought of 2020. By August 2022, Providence, Rhode Island, was declared a Federal disaster area, and New London and Windham counties in Connecticut were declared natural disaster areas. Mandatory water use restrictions were put in place in communities in
Authors
Dee-Ann E. McCarthy, James M. LeNoir, Pamela J. Lombard
Estimating streamflow for base flow conditions at partial-record streamgaging stations at Acadia National Park, Maine
The objective of the work presented in this report is to develop equations that can be used to extend the base flow record at multiple partial-record streamgaging stations at Acadia National Park in eastern coastal Maine based on nearby continuous-record streamgaging stations. Daily mean streamflow values at U.S. Geological Survey continuous-record streamgaging station Otter Creek near Bar Harbor,
Authors
Pamela J. Lombard
Groundwater recharge in northern New England: Meteorological drivers and relations with low streamflow
Meteorological drivers of groundwater recharge for spring (February–June), fall (October–January), and recharge-year (October–June) recharge seasons were evaluated for northern New England and upstate New York from 1989 to 2018. Monthly groundwater recharge was computed at 21 observation wells by subtracting the water levels at the end of each month from the level of the previous month; only posit
Authors
Caitlin Crossett, Glenn A. Hodgkins, Hadley Menk, Lesley-Ann L. Dupigny-Giroux, Robert W. Dudley, Mary D. Lemcke-Stampone, John C. Hammond
Stabilising effects of karstic groundwater on stream fish communities
Although groundwater exchange processes are known to modulate atmospheric influences on stream temperature and flow, the implications for ecological stability are poorly understood. Here, we evaluated temporal change in stream fish communities across a gradient of groundwater influence defined by karst terrain (carbonate parent materials) within the Potomac River basin of eastern North America. We
Authors
Nathaniel P. Hitt, Karli M Rogers, Karmann G. Kessler, Martin Briggs, Jennifer Burlingame Hoyle Fair
Gross alpha-particle activity and high 226Ra concentrations do not correspond with high 210Po in the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain aquifers of the United States
210Po, which is of human-health concern based on lifetime ingestion cancer risk, is indirectly regulated in drinking water through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s gross alpha-particle activity (GAPA) maximum contaminant level of 15 pCi/L (picocuries per liter). This regulation requires independent measurement of 226Ra for samples exceeding the GAPA screening level of 5 pCi/L. There is n
Authors
Zoltan Szabo, Charles A. Cravotta, Paul Stackelberg, Kenneth Belitz
Predicted uranium and radon concentrations in New Hampshire (USA) groundwater—Using Multi Order Hydrologic Position as predictors
Two radioactive elements, uranium (U) and radon (Rn), which are of potential concern in New Hampshire (NH) groundwater, are investigated. Exceedance probability maps are tools to highlight locations where the concentrations of undesirable substances in the groundwater may be elevated. Two forms of statistical analysis are used to create exceedance probability maps for U and Rn in NH groundwater. T
Authors
Richard B. Moore, Kenneth Belitz, Joseph D. Ayotte, Terri L. Arnold, Laura Hayes, Jennifer B. Sharpe, J. Jeffrey Starn
Water-quality monitoring of the Merrimack River watershed in Massachusetts
The U.S. Geological Survey has been working in collaboration with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection on a project to collect water-quality data from the Merrimack River watershed since April 2020. Twelve locations in the Merrimack River watershed are being sampled for nutrients (such as nitrogen), metals (such as aluminum), Escherichia coli bacteria, and other measures.
Authors
Kaitlin Laabs, Natalie L. Roth, Laura K. Yates
Optical properties of dissolved organic matter in throughfall and stemflow vary across tree species and season in a temperate headwater forest
Tree-derived dissolved organic matter (DOM) comprises a significant carbon flux within forested watersheds. Few studies have assessed the optical properties of tree-derived DOM. To increase understanding of the factors controlling tree-derived DOM quality, we measured DOM optical properties, dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and calcium concentrations in throughfall and stemflow for 17 individual rai
Authors
Kevin A Ryan, Thomas Adler, Ann T. Chalmers, Julia Perdrial, Stephen Sebestyen, James B. Shanley, Aron Stubbins