Coastal 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...

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...

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.

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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.