Publications

Between October 31 and November 3, 2019, historic flooding in localized areas of the Mohawk Valley and southern Adirondack region in central New York State resulted in one fatality and an estimated $33 million in damages. Flooding resulted from high-intensity, hyperlocal rainfall in the region within a 24-hour period between October 31 and November 1, 2019, at the end of a much wetter...

Studies of recovery from acidic deposition have focused on reversal of acidification and its associated effects, but as recovery proceeds slowly, chemical dilution of surface waters is emerging as a key factor in the recovery process that has significant chemical and biological implications. This investigation uses long-term chemical records from 130 streams in the Adirondack region of...

The degradation of benthic communities (benthos) is one of four remaining beneficial use impairments (BUIs) in the Eighteenmile Creek Area of Concern (AOC), located on the south shore of Lake Ontario in New York. The historical rationale for listing this BUI as impaired relied heavily on inferred or expected impact to benthic communities based on elevated contaminant concentrations in...

Eutrophication is one of the largest threats to aquatic ecosystems and chlorophyll a measurements are relevant indicators of trophic state and algal abundance. Many studies have modeled chlorophyll a in rivers but model development and testing has largely occurred at individual sites which hampers creating generalized models capable of making broad-scale predictions. To address this gap...

Changes in groundwater quality have been evaluated for more than 2,200 wells in 25 Principal Aquifers in the United States based on repeated decadal sampling (once every 10 years) from 1988 to 2021. The purpose of this study is to identify contaminants with changing concentrations, the locations and magnitude of those changes, the factors driving those changes, the obstacles to...

Geophysical logging is the measurement and analysis of electrical, acoustic, nuclear, and other physical properties in a borehole using wireline or direct push technology. Geophysical logging is one of the primary methods of collecting subsurface information for hydrogeologic investigations. Groundwater scientists and engineers should have a basic understanding of borehole geophysics and...

Potential acute and chronic human health effects associated with exposure to cyanobacteria and cyanotoxins, including respiratory symptoms, are an understudied public health concern. We examined the relationship between estimated cyanobacteria biomass and the frequency of respiratory-related hospital visits for residents living near Green Bay, Lake Michigan, Wisconsin during 2017–2019...

We rarely consider light limitation in ecosystem productivity, yet light limitation is a major constraint on river autotrophy. Because the light that reaches benthic autotrophs must first pass through terrestrial vegetation and an overlying water column that can be loaded with sediments or colored organic material, there is strong selection for river autotrophs to have high light use...

Long-term monitoring of water quality responses to natural and anthropogenic perturbation of watersheds informs policies for managing natural resources. Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and nitrate (NO3−) in streams draining forested landscapes provide valuable information on ecosystem function due to their biogeochemical reactivity and solubility in water. Here we evaluate a 20-year...

The lack of contemporary data on contaminants in resident fish prevents an analysis of temporal trends in contaminant concentrations and the present-day status of the “Restrictions on Fish and Wildlife Consumption” Beneficial Use Impairment (BUI) in the Niagara River Area of Concern (AOC). During 2018, concentrations of 260 contaminants in four groups of fish species from five areas in...

Cyanobacteria are the most common toxigenic algae in inland waters. Their toxins can affect the health of aquatic and terrestrial organisms, including humans. Other algal groups, such as haptophytes (e.g., Prymnesium parvum) and euglenoids (e.g., Euglena sanguinea), can also form harmful algal blooms (HABs) whose toxins cause injury to aquatic biota but currently have no known effects on...

The use of the phrase “harmful algal bloom” and the acronym HAB originated in the marine science world, and referred to blooms also known as red tides, which can kill fish and sea life. The organisms that make up marine HABs generally do not thrive in lakes. In freshwater, HABs are most often associated with blooms of toxin-producing cyanobacteria. The term HAB started to be used broadly...