Hydrologic Change

Downstream communities rely upon forested mountains for high-quality water needed for water supply and agricultural irrigation. However, these forests are vulnerable to disturbances such as wildfire, drought, and flood, and are also affected by air pollution from adjacent urban and agricultural lands. Interactions between forested, urban, and agricultural landscapes can have substantial impacts on...

Mountain glaciers are dynamic reservoirs of frozen water, deeply interconnected with their surrounding ecosystems. Glacier change in North America has major societal impacts, including to water resources, natural hazard risk, tourism disruption, fisheries, and global sea level change. Understanding and quantifying precise connections between changing glaciers, the surrounding landscape and climate...

Droughts, floods, and avalanches are extreme events in the water cycle that can have catastrophic and lasting impacts on ecosystems and society. In addition to these extreme events, human changes to the landscape (including land use changes) can have substantial impacts on freshwater resources as well. Science from the USGS Ecosystems Land Change Science Program helps managers and decision-makers...

Scientists from the USGS Ecosystems Land Change Science Program work hand-in-hand with park managers to support abundant and enduring outdoor recreation and tourism opportunities in the Nation’s national parks.

Hotter and drier conditions are making wildfires more intense and destructive across the United States. Science from the USGS Ecosystems Land Change Science Program informs local to national reduction of wildfire hazards, which saves money in avoided losses and fire suppression costs, as well as saves human lives.

Atmospheric nitrogen deposition, changing environmental patterns, and recreation are rapidly altering high elevation ecosystems. This project will evaluate long-term biogeochemical, hydrological, and ecological trends in Rocky Mountain National Park to understand the causes and rates of change in alpine and subalpine waters, soils, and vegetation. Resource managers of high-elevation, protected...

On a global scale, wetland systems are affected by precipitation extremes, changing sea level, and population growth, influencing their capacity to moderate storm surge, filter contaminants, and provide habitats for fish and wildlife. This research takes a long-term perspective on the resilience of wetlands to a range of environmental- and human-induced changes and supports wetland management by...

The term environmental streamflows refers to the magnitude, frequency, seasonal timing, duration, and rate of change of streamflows needed to sustain freshwater and estuary ecosystems and human wellbeing. It is important that environmental streamflow assessments by water managers consider changes in climate, land use, and water management; this cannot be done effectively without understanding...

This project focuses on development of new interdisciplinary modeling capabilities of long-term time series that capture interactions among climate, land use, water use, and water availability. Research builds on expanding the USGS Forecasting Scenarios of Land Use (FORE-SCE) model and integrating with spatially explicit models from other disciplines. Interdisciplinary models will be co-developed...

Warming and thawing of permafrost soils in the Arctic is expected to become widespread over the coming decades. Permafrost thaw changes ecosystem structure and function, affects resource availability for wildlife and society, and decreases ground stability which affects human infrastructure. Since permafrost soils contain about half of the global soil carbon (C) pool, the magnitude of C losses...

Drought and fire are powerful disturbance agents that can trigger rapid and lasting changes in the forests of western North America. Over the last decade, increases in fire size and severity coincided with warming, drought, and earlier snowmelt, factors that projected climatic changes are likely to exacerbate. However, recent observations are brief relative to the lifespans of trees and include...

Desert springs and wetlands are among the most biologically productive, diverse, and fragile ecosystems on Earth. They are home to thousands of rare, endemic, and endangered plants and animals and reflect the availability and health of emergent groundwater. Despite the ecological importance of these wetlands, our knowledge of how they might respond to future environmental conditions is limited...