Science and Decisions Center
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The USGS Science and Decisions Center (SDC) is an interdisciplinary organization advancing the use of science in natural resource decision making. The Center focuses on research and applications in three science areas: decision science (adaptive management and structured decision making), ecosystem services, and resilience/sustainability.
Science and Decisions Center WebsiteNews
The Right Tool for the Right Job
Land managers, regulators and other participants in market-based conservation wanting to assess the ecological benefits provided by restored, enhanced and preserved land now have a one-stop shop for the quantification tools used to measure these benefits, courtesy of the USGS and the USDA.
Better Together: How Ecosystem Services and Adaptive Decision-Making Can Improve Land Management
An ecosystem services approach combined with adaptive decision-making can aid land and resource managers in administering their regions for the benefit of communities and stakeholders, according to a recent report by the U.S. Geological Survey and Resources for the Future
USGS Releases Selenium Modeling Framework for Montana and British Columbia’s Lake Koocanusa
Resource managers, regulators, and stakeholders of Montana and British Columbia’s Lake Koocanusa now have a new approach for understanding the implications of different levels of selenium, and to explore alternative selenium criteria for waters in the Lake.
Publications
Demonstrating the Value of Earth Observations—Methods, Practical Applications, and Solutions—Group on Earth Observations Side Event Proceedings
Executive SummaryThe U.S. Geological Survey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the European Association for Remote Sensing Companies, and the European Space Agency in coordination with the GEOValue Community hosted a side event to the Group on Earth Observations Plenary on October 23–24, 2017, in Washington, D.C. The workshop,...
Pearlman, Francoise; Lawrence, Collin B.; Pindilli, Emily J.; Geppi, Denna; Shapiro, Carl D.; Grasso, Monica; Pearlman, Jay; Adkins, Jeffery; Sawyer, Geoff; Tassa, Alessandra
The Mississippi Alluvial Plain aquifers—An engine for economic activity
U.S. Geological Survey science supports groundwater resource management in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain region. The USGS Science and Decisions Center is working with the Water Availability and Use Science Program to integrate economics into a sophisticated model of groundwater in the region. The model will quantify the status of the groundwater...
Alhassan, Mustapha; Lawrence, Collin B.; Richardson, Steven; Pindilli, Emily J.
Valuation of the flood attenuation ecosystem service in Difficult Run, VA, USA
Floodplains and riparian wetlands provide several ecosystem services that directly benefit people. We present a methodology for valuing the flood attenuation ecosystem service in Difficult Run, a suburban watershed with extensive natural floodplains in northern Virginia. High-resolution lidar-derived data were...
Lawrence, Collin B.; Pindilli, Emily J.; Hogan, Dianna M.
About the Science and Decisions Center
Today's natural resource managers must make effective decisions with broad–scale societal impacts.
Adaptive Management
Adaptive management is "learning by doing" and adapting based on what is learned, in an objective, science-based management strategy that explicitly recognizes and delineates uncertainty.
Ecosystem Services
Ecosystem services are attributes and outputs of ecosystems that are valued by human users. Ecosystem services are produced by ecosystem processes such as nutrient cycling, climate regulation, and maintenance of biodiversity. Ecosystems also provide marketable goods like seafood and timber.
Resilience
Resilience is the ability of a system or a community to absorb shocks and still maintain the same basic structure and functions. Management for ecological resilience seeks flexible system behaviors that can deliver ecosystem goods and services on a sustained basis.
Database of Biodiversity and Habitat Quantification Tools Used for Market-based Conservation in the United States
This dataset includes quantification tools being used or developed for habitat and biodiversity markets in the United States. These tools are designed to estimate the ecological quality or functionality of a site for conservation mechanisms such as payment for ecosystem services programs, eco-label certification programs, habitat exchanges, and conservation banking. The dataset consists of...
Demonstrating the Value of Earth Observations—Methods, Practical Applications, and Solutions—Group on Earth Observations Side Event Proceedings
Executive SummaryThe U.S. Geological Survey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the European Association for Remote Sensing Companies, and the European Space Agency in coordination with the GEOValue Community hosted a side event to the Group on Earth Observations Plenary on October 23–24, 2017, in Washington, D.C. The workshop,...
Pearlman, Francoise; Lawrence, Collin B.; Pindilli, Emily J.; Geppi, Denna; Shapiro, Carl D.; Grasso, Monica; Pearlman, Jay; Adkins, Jeffery; Sawyer, Geoff; Tassa, Alessandra The Mississippi Alluvial Plain aquifers—An engine for economic activity
U.S. Geological Survey science supports groundwater resource management in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain region. The USGS Science and Decisions Center is working with the Water Availability and Use Science Program to integrate economics into a sophisticated model of groundwater in the region. The model will quantify the status of the groundwater...
Alhassan, Mustapha; Lawrence, Collin B.; Richardson, Steven; Pindilli, Emily J. Valuation of the flood attenuation ecosystem service in Difficult Run, VA, USA
Floodplains and riparian wetlands provide several ecosystem services that directly benefit people. We present a methodology for valuing the flood attenuation ecosystem service in Difficult Run, a suburban watershed with extensive natural floodplains in northern Virginia. High-resolution lidar-derived data were...
Lawrence, Collin B.; Pindilli, Emily J.; Hogan, Dianna M. The potential for citizen science to produce reliable and useful information in ecology
We examined features of citizen science that influence data quality, inferential power, and usefulness in ecology. As background context for our examination, we considered topics such as ecological sampling (probability based, purposive, opportunistic), linkage between sampling technique and statistical inference(designbased,modelbased),...
Brown, Eleanor D.; Williams, Byron K. Estimating the societal benefits of carbon dioxide sequestration through peatland restoration
The Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge (GDS) is a forested peatland that provides a number of ecosystem services including carbon (C) sequestration. We modeled and analyzed the potential capacity of the GDS to sequester C under four management scenarios: no management, no management with catastrophic fire, current management, and...
Pindilli, Emily J.; Sleeter, Rachel; Hogan, Dianna M. Double loop learning in adaptive management: the need, the challenge, and the opportunity
Adaptive management addresses uncertainty about the processes influencing resource dynamics, as well as the elements of decision making itself. The use of management to reduce both kinds of uncertainty is known as double-loop learning. Though much work has been done on the theory and procedures to address structural uncertainty, there has been...
Williams, Byron K.; Brown, Eleanor D.
Geologic map of the Fort Collins 30'×60' quadrangle, Larimer and Jackson Counties, Colorado, and Albany and Laramie Counties, Wyoming
The rocks and landforms of the Fort Collins 30′ × 60′ 1:100,000-scale U.S. Geological Survey quadrangle reveals a particularly complete record of geologic history in the northern Front Range of Colorado. The Proterozoic basement rocks exposed in the core of the range preserve evidence of Paleoproterozoic marine sedimentation, volcanism, and...
Workman, Jeremiah B.; Cole, James C.; Shroba, Ralph R.; Kellogg, Karl S.; Premo, Wayne R.
Descriptive models for epithermal gold-silver deposits: Chapter Q in
Epithermal gold-silver deposits are vein, stockwork, disseminated, and replacement deposits that are mined primarily for their gold and silver contents; some deposits also contain substantial resources of lead, zinc, copper, and (or) mercury. These deposits form in the uppermost parts of the crust, at depths less than about 1,500 meters below the...
John, David A.; Vikre, Peter G.; du Bray, Edward A.; Blakely, Richard J.; Fey, David L.; Rockwell, Barnaby W.; Mauk, Jeffrey L.; Anderson, Eric D.; Graybeal, Frederick T. Understanding the captivity effect on invertebrate communities transplanted into an experimental stream laboratory
Little is known about how design and testing methodologies affect the macroinvertebrate communities that are held captive in mesocosms. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted a 32‐d test to determine how seeded invertebrate communities changed once removed from the natural stream and introduced to the laboratory. We evaluated larvae survival...
Schmidt, Travis S.; Rogers, Holly; Miller, Janet L.; Mebane, Christopher A.; Balistrieri, Laurie S. Distinguishing brackish lacustrine from brackish marine deposits in the stratigraphic record: A case study from the late Miocene and early Pliocene Bouse Formation, Arizona and California, USA
Brackish marine and brackish continental environments are fundamentally different from a compositional perspective. Brackish water is often defined as having salinity lower than that of standard seawater but higher than that of freshwater, but less regard is given to the origin of the salts involved. The simple dilution of...
Bright, Jordon; Cohen, Andrew S.; Starratt, Scott W. Paleoseismic results from the Alpine site, Wasatch fault zone: Timing and displacement data for six holocene earthquakes at the Salt Lake City–Provo segment boundary
To improve the characterization of Holocene earthquakes on the Wasatch fault zone (WFZ), we conducted light detection and ranging (lidar)‐based neotectonic mapping and excavated a paleoseismic trench across an 8‐m‐high fault scarp near Alpine, Utah, located <1  km"><1 km<1 km south of the boundary...
Bennett, Scott E. K.; Duross, Christopher; Gold, Ryan D.; Briggs, Richard W.; Personius, Stephen; Reitman, Nadine G.; Devore, Joshua; Hiscock, Adam; Mahan, Shannon A.; Gray, Harrison J.; Gunnarson, Sydney; Stephenson, William J.; Pettinger, Elizabeth; Odum, Jackson K.
Aeromagnetic map of Mountain Pass and vicinity, California and Nevada
Magnetic investigations of Mountain Pass and vicinity were begun as part of an effort to study regional crustal structures as an aid to understanding the geologic framework and mineral resources of the eastern Mojave Desert. The study area, which straddles the state boundary between southeastern California and southern Nevada, encompasses Mountain...
Ponce, David A.; Ponce, David A.; Denton, Kevin M.
Mauna Loa Lava Flow, April 2, 1984
A USGS scientist walks along a lava flow from the April 2, 1984 Mauna Loa eruption. The scientist stops to observe a standing wave of lava at the end. The lava flow is moving at 64 km/hr (40 mph) towards Hilo, Hawai'i.
The Right Tool for the Right Job
Land managers, regulators and other participants in market-based conservation wanting to assess the ecological benefits provided by restored, enhanced and preserved land now have a one-stop shop for the quantification tools used to measure these benefits, courtesy of the USGS and the USDA.
Better Together: How Ecosystem Services and Adaptive Decision-Making Can Improve Land Management
An ecosystem services approach combined with adaptive decision-making can aid land and resource managers in administering their regions for the benefit of communities and stakeholders, according to a recent report by the U.S. Geological Survey and Resources for the Future
USGS Releases Selenium Modeling Framework for Montana and British Columbia’s Lake Koocanusa
Resource managers, regulators, and stakeholders of Montana and British Columbia’s Lake Koocanusa now have a new approach for understanding the implications of different levels of selenium, and to explore alternative selenium criteria for waters in the Lake.
Bighorn Sheep on A Desert Island: Been There, Dung That
In a finding authors are coining an "unintentional rewilding," scientists identified a cave dung deposit as belonging to bighorn sheep that became extinct on a desert island sometime between the 6th and the 20th century.
