Surface Water

The USGS has the principal responsibility within the federal government to provide the hydrologic information and understanding needed by others to achieve the best use and management of the nation’s water resources. Basic data are the key to solving many water-quantity or -quality problems. Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana operate a large hydrologic network across the three states, collecting surface...

Cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (HABs) are increasingly a global concern because HABs pose a threat to human and aquatic ecosystem health and cause economic damages. Toxins produced by some species of cyanobacteria (called cyanotoxins) can cause acute and chronic illnesses in humans and pets. Aquatic ecosystem health also is affected by cyanotox­ins, as well as low dissolved oxygen...

Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana Water Science Center is monitoring the effects of best management practices (BMP's) on baseflow and storm runoff in the Black Creek watershed near Harlan, IN. We will be sampling water-quality intensively for 5 years from overland field, subsurface tile, and in-stream runoff events. Results will be used to model the effectiveness of BMP’s in reducing nutrient and...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservations Service and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have focused part of the National Water Quality Initiative (NWQI) on the School Branch watershed. The USGS is collaborating, through a Clean Water Act Section 319 grant, with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to accomplish NWQI nonpoint-source water-pollution...

Indiana and Kentucky scientists have produced new low-flow statistics for Indiana streams, specifically for 7-day, 10-year low flow (7Q10); 30-day, 10-year low flow (30Q10); 1-day, 10-year low flow (1Q10); and harmonic mean streamflow. The low-flow statistics are critical for the state of Indiana to administer the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program, watershed...

Adult bighead, silver, and hybrid carp are invavsive species of fish that spread quickly once they are established in a water body. These carp damage habitat and reduce water-quality for native fish. Invasive carp have been confirmed within the Wabash River basin for at least 15 years. Scientists and natural resource managers are extremely concerned about the carp migrating to the Great Lakes...

Scientists research biology, botany, microbiology, habitat, climate, water quality, and other fields to achieve a comprehensive view of ecosystems and their health. Ecosystems can be easily stressed by human activities, climate change, sediment, nutrients, contaminants, and many other variables. Ecosystem monitoring is critical to ecosystem health and answers important questions about the...

About 1 billion pounds of conventional pesticides are used each year in the United States to control weeds, insects, and other pests. The use of pesticides has resulted in a range of benefits, including increased food production and reduction of insect-borne disease, but also raises questions about possible adverse effects on the environment, including water quality. The National Water Quality...

Starting in 2000, the U.S. Geological Survey partnered with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, the National Atmospheric Deposition Program, and the Lake Michigan Air Directors Consortium to investigate and monitor mercury in the environment in Indiana. This web page provides a list of publications and links to statewide studies of mercury in Indiana and regional mercury studies...

Eutrophication, or excess nutrients in streams, is typically one of the top reasons that a stream is listed as impaired on the 303(d) list as part of the Clean Water Act. How nutrients, primarily nitrogen and phosphorus, are transported to streams and groundwater greatly affects the best management plan to keep them on fields and out of streams and groundwater. Likewise, environmental managers and...

The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) is an interagency effort that seeks to accelerate ecosystem restoration in the Great Lakes by confronting threats to the region, such as nonpoint source pollution. Three Priority Watersheds have been targeted (Fox/Green Bay, Saginaw, and Maumee) and are characterized by having a high density of agricultural land use and have ecosystem impairments...

Sediment and nutrient runoff (nitrogen and phosphorus) from agricultural and urban land-use practices are of great concern in the Western Lake Erie Basin watersheds. Excessive nutrient inputs can lead to algal blooms that deplete the oxygen available to aquatic plants and animals. The blooms may result in cyanotoxins or cause taste and odor problems to public water supplies.