Publications

The primary mission of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Water Mission Area is to collect and disseminate reliable, impartial, and timely information needed to understand the water resources of the Nation, including data on streamflow, groundwater, water quality, water use, and availability. Management of data throughout the entire data lifecycle is necessary to meet the mission and maintain the U

The Nooksack River is a dynamic gravel-bedded river in northwestern Washington, draining off Mount Baker and the North Cascades into Puget Sound. Working in cooperation with the Whatcom County Flood Control Zone District, the U.S. Geological Survey studied topographic, hydrologic, and climatic data for the Nooksack River basin to document recent changes in sediment storage, long-term bed elevation

Forage fish are small, abundant, schooling planktivores that form a critical link in marine food webs by transferring energy from plankton up to birds, fishes, and marine mammals. Forage fishes in Puget Sound include the iconic Pacific herring as well as lesser known species such as surf smelt and the Pacific sand lance. There are significant knowledge gaps regarding the basic life history and p

The natural wood regime forms the third leg of a tripod of physical processes that supports river science and management, along with the natural flow and sediment regimes. The wood regime consists of wood recruitment, transport, and storage in river corridors. Each of these components can be characterized in terms of magnitude, frequency, rate, timing, duration, and mode. We distinguish the natura

Regional climate is an important control on the rate of coarse sediment mobilization and transport in alpine river systems. Changes in climate are then expected to cause a cascade of geomorphic responses, including adjustments in downstream channel morphology. However, the mechanics and sensitivity of channel response to short‐term climate variability remain poorly documented. In the Nooksack Rive

We assessed how diatom metrics were related to different ranges of agricultural land use. Diatom assemblage composition, nutrients, and landscape characteristics were determined at 232 sites in eight agriculturally dominated study areas of the continental United States. Two regional groups based on differences in diatom relations to human disturbance were determined. Changes in diatom species comp

No abstract available.

Groundwater levels and surface water flow measurements were collected from August 2016 to September 2018 to provide the Mason Conservation District and other stakeholders with basic knowledge of existing water resources in Mason County, Washington. Additionally, the data were collected with the intent of contributing to informed decision making about groundwater use, management, and conservation t

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) provided technical support to the Washington Department of Ecology (Ecology) in their assessment of the role groundwater plays in contributing pollutant loading to the Green-Duwamish River near Seattle, Washington. Ecology is developing watershed hydrology models of the Green-Duwamish watershed, and need to assign realistic contaminant concentrations to t

Site 10 at Naval Magazine Indian Island is an approximately 3.7-acre inactive landfill. The site was used as the primary landfill for the island from about 1945 until the mid-1970s, receiving paints, batteries, trash, and materials. In a memorandum to Washington State Department of Ecology, Naval Facilities Engineering Command Northwest (NAVFAC NW) stipulated that a new tidal study would be conduc

The Miocene Columbia River Basalt Group and younger sedimentary deposits of lacustrine, fluvial, eolian, and cataclysmic-flood origins compose the aquifer system of the Quincy Basin in eastern Washington. Irrigation return flow and canal leakage from the Columbia Basin Project have caused groundwater levels to rise substantially in some areas. Water resource managers are considering extraction of

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has developed the PRObability of Streamflow PERmanence (PROSPER) model, a GIS raster-based empirical model that provides streamflow permanence probabilities (probabilistic predictions) of a stream channel having year-round flow for any unregulated and minimally-impaired stream channel in the Pacific Northwest region, U.S. The model provides annual predictions for