Publications

Terminal lakes are declining globally because of human water demands, drought, and climate change. Through literature synthesis and feedback from the resource and conservation community, we review the state of research for terminal lakes in the Great Basin of the United States, which support millions of waterbirds annually, to prioritize ecological and hydrologic information needs. From...

Groundwater resources frequently trend toward unsustainable levels because, absent effective institutions, individual water users generally act independently without considering the impacts on other users. Hydro-economic models (HEMs) of human-natural systems can play a positive role toward successful groundwater management by yielding valuable knowledge and insight. The current study...

The “Water for Birds Tool” is an Excel-based model designed for resource managers to assess the spatial extent and types of bird habitats in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The model quantifies the area of open water, partial water, and water depths on a monthly timescale during the irrigation season (April–July) from 2021–2024. This model combines previously published datasets and...

Hydrologic models are the primary tools that are used to simulate streamflow drought and assess impacts. However, there is little consensus about how to evaluate the performance of these models, especially as hydrologic modeling moves toward larger spatial domains. This paper presents a comprehensive multi-objective approach to systematically evaluating the critical features in...

Hydrological drought is a pervasive and reoccurring challenge in managing water resources. Reservoirs are critical for lessening the impacts of drought on water available for many uses. We use a novel and generalized approach to identify periods of unusually low reservoir storage—via comparisons to operational rule curves and historical patterns—to investigate how droughts affect storage...

Low-flow period properties, including timing, magnitude, and duration, influence many key processes for water resource managers and ecosystems. We computed annual low-flow period duration and timing metrics from 1951 to 2020 for 1032 conterminous United States (CONUS) streamgages and analyzed spatial patterns, trends through time, and relationships to climate. Results show northwestern...

The annual maximum extent of surface water in Klamath Marsh has naturally fluctuated in response to periods of wet and dry conditions in the surrounding basin. Field observations during the 2010s indicate that the annual maximum extent of surface water has been declining and the marsh is not responding to hydrologic inputs as it had historically. This report describes the results of a...

Remote sensing can be an effective tool for mapping river bathymetry, but the need for direct measurements to calibrate image-derived depth estimates impedes broader application of this approach. One way to circumvent the need for field campaigns dedicated to calibration is to capitalize upon existing data. In this study, we introduce a framework for Bathymetric Mapping using Gage...

Total phosphorus (TP) and suspended-sediment concentrations (SSC) and loads were computed at two U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) streamgages in the upper Klamath River Basin on the Sprague (USGS site ID 11501000) and Williamson (USGS site ID 11502500) Rivers using high temporal resolution turbidity and streamflow data to develop surrogate regression models. Regression models were updated...

The Umpqua River Basin in southwestern Oregon (Figure 1) is part of the lands inhabited by the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians and an area of active co-management authority. This Basin supports a unique fish fauna, including important populations of Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) and steelhead (O. mykiss), and other native fishes that are endemic to the region (Mims et al...

Executive SummaryChapter A. IntroductionFall Creek Dam impounds Fall Creek Lake, a 10-kilometer-long reservoir in western Oregon and is operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) primarily for flood-risk management (or flood control) in late autumn through early spring months, as well as for water quality, irrigation, recreation, and habitat in late spring through early autumn...

With the decline of bee populations worldwide, studies determining current wild bee distributions and diversity are increasingly important. Wild bee identification is often completed by experienced taxonomists or by genetic analysis. The current study was designed to compare two methods of identification including: (1) morphological identification by experienced taxonomists using images...