Coastal Science
Coastal Science
New Jersey has an extensive coastline with rivers, bays, and barrier islands which interact with the ocean, resulting in a need for greater understanding of these interactions. The NJWSC carries out multidisciplinary science activities across the State’s diverse coastal waters to expand our understanding.
Filter Total Items: 26
Barnegat Bay Restoration Science
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) and other partners, is conducting an extensive, coordinated study of physical, chemical, and biological processes in the Barnegat Bay-Little Egg Harbor estuary. The study integrates findings of teams from the USGS New Jersey Water Science Center and USGS Coastal and Marine Science...
Computing Flow Statistics in the Barnegat Bay Watershed as a Step Toward Developing Ecological Flow Targets
Ecological flows (also referred to as environmental flows) collectively describe the components of streamflow that are needed to ensure the structure and function of a stream ecosystem. Five major components of streamflow that are important in shaping ecological processes in streams are: magnitude, frequency, duration, timing, and rate of change. The US Geological Survey, in cooperation with the...
Hurricane Sandy Science, Ten-years Later
On October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy made landfall in New Jersey after several days of impacting the Atlantic coastline. Ten years later the impacted communities have recovered and rebuilt, and the New Jersey Water Science Center has expanded its scientific understanding of storm impacts on our state.
New Jersey Coastal Surge, Wave, and Tide Hydrodynamics Network (SWaTH)
Following Hurricane Sandy, the USGS began construction of an overland Surge, Wave, and Tide Hydrodynamics (SWaTH) Network along the Northeastern Atlantic Coast from North Carolina to Maine. This network, developed collaboratively with numerous partners, features the integration of long-term tide gage networks, with real-time rapid-deployment gages (RDG) and mobile storm-tide sensors (STS). An...
Research and Investigations
The NJWSC conducts research and investigations related to topics such as groundwater and surface-water quality related to anthropogenic and agricultural activities, hydraulic and hydrologic modeling, tracking the movement of groundwater contamination, groundwater resource assessments and modeling, ecological assessments and response to urbanization, and estimating water-use for human and...
Sandy Hook Gateway National Recreation Area Study
The Sandy Hook Unit, Gateway National Recreation Area (hereafter Sandy Hook) in New Jersey is a 10-kilometer-long spit visited by thousands of people each year who take advantage of the historical and natural resources and recreational opportunities.
The Health of Maritime Forests in Three Mid-Atlantic National Seashores
The National Resources Protection Program (NRPP) project on Fire Island, Sandy Hook, and Assateague included a description of the issues and implications; description of the methods; and summary of the tasks, including site selection, well and instrumentation installation, and monitoring groundwater levels, temperature, and specific conductance, needed to understand the impact of global climate...
Hurricanes and Storm-Tide Monitoring
The USGS works in partnership with other federal and state agencies to provide scientific data about coastal flood hazards. The New Jersey Water Science Center (NJWSC) maintains a network of continuously operating tide gages along the back bays of New Jersey which provide publicly available water-level and meteorological data to monitor coastal flood conditions. The USGS NJWSC coordinates with our...
Barnegat Bay Modeling
The development of hydrodynamic and water-quality models is proposed to provide NJDEP with the necessary analytical capability to address critical management issues relating to water quality and eutrophication in the Barnegat Bay-Little Egg Harbor Estuary. The primary objectives of this proposed study are to examine the water-quality causes of eutrophication in the BB-LEH Estuary and evaluate...
Pesticides Common in California Estuary
Pesticides were observed frequently in water, sediment, and the tissue of resident aquatic organisms from an agriculturally dominated estuary along the central California coast according to a collaborative study by U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and University of California, Davis scientists published in Marine Pollution Bulletin.
Barnegat Bay Nutrient Loading and Eutrophication
Nitrogen loading from the BB-LEH watershed and overlying airshed has resulted in shifts in ecosystem structure and function of the estuary reflected by the repeated occurrence of detrimental toxic and nuisance algal blooms, loss of essential seagrass habitat, and declining fisheries. Most of the nitrogen load enters the estuary from watershed surface-water inflow. While nitrogen loading has been...
Water Budget analysis for Water Supply Planning
In the New Jersey Coastal Plain, where confined aquifers provide over 200 million gallons per day, effective water resource planning and management under increasingly complex circumstances requires a current and improving understanding of the limitations of the available water from confined aquifers, the interconnections between confined and unconfined aquifers, and the sources of flow to critical...