Water Resources
Water Availability and Use Science Program
The Water Availability and Use Science Program exists to provide a more accurate assessment of the status of the water resources of the U.S., assist in the determination of the quantity and quality of water that is available for beneficial uses, identify long-term trends in water availability, and develop the basis for an improved ability to forecast the availability of fresh water.
National Water Quality Program
The National Water Quality Program seeks to answer four questions regarding the quality of our freshwater resources: 1) What is the quality of the Nation's streams and groundwater? 2) How is water quality changing over time? 3) How do natural factors and human activities affect water quality? 4) How will water quality change in response to future changes in climate and human activities?
USGS Mine Drainage Activities
The USGS Mine Drainage Activities website (now archived) promoted communication, cooperation, and collaboration among interdisciplinary USGS scientists working on problems related to mining and the environment. It contains catalogs of past mining-related projects, activities, and publications.
Assessment of the immune status of wild and laboratory-maintained smallmouth bass
Deaths of young-of-year smallmouth bass in the Chesapeake Bay drainage has been noted since 2005. Studies of affected fish have found bacterial, viral and parasitic infections. Mixed infections suggest these fish are immunosuppressed. Understanding the role of specific pathogens and environmental factors that contribute to their presence is important but equally important is the understanding...
Water Education Posters
Our Water Education Posters present nine different water-related topics drawn in a unique and creative cartoon format. These downloadable posters include additional information and activities appropriate for students in elementary and middle school.
Colorado River Basin Focus Area Study
As one of several Focus Area Studies within the USGS National Water Census (NWC), the USGS has completed a 3-year study of water availability and use in the Colorado River Basin.
Water-Quality Trends
Is water quality getting better or worse? Answering this deceptively simple question has been a fundamental objective of the USGS National Water-Quality Assessment Project’s research. Learn about trends in contaminants in the nation’s streams and rivers, trends in contaminants that collect in the bed sediment of streams and lakes, and changes in the quality of the nation’s groundwater.
Drinking Water Taste and Odor
Some water is just unpleasant to drink—it’s cloudy, or it smells or tastes bad. Some drinking water discolors teeth or skin, stains laundry or plumbing fixtures, or corrodes or clogs pipes. These effects are caused when some naturally occurring constituents occur at concentrations high enough to be a nuisance, and are particularly common where groundwater is used as a drinking water supply....
Stream Ecology
Who lives in your stream? Rivers and streams, even small ones, are teeming with a vast number of species, including fish, aquatic invertebrates, and algae. Stream ecology is the study of those aquatic species, the way they interrelate, and their interactions with all aspects of these flowing water systems.
Sediment-Associated Contaminants
Stream, river, and lake bed sediment are reservoirs for many contaminants. These contaminants include some “legacy” contaminants, like DDT, PCBs, and chlordane, and chemicals currently in use, like the insecticide bifenthrin and many flame retardants. Learn about techniques used to study sediment-associated contaminants and their importance to aquatic biota.
USGS / National Park Service Water-Quality Partnership
Since 1998, the USGS-National Park Service Water-Quality Partnership has supported 217 projects to protect and improve water quality in 119 national parks. These USGS-NPS collaborative projects support science-based resource management by the National Park Service to address critical water-quality issues for many of our Nation's most highly valued aquatic systems.
Changes in Water-Use Categories
Water-use terminology in the series of USGS water-use circulars, first published for the year 1950, has changed over time as illustrated here. Some categories were re-named but retained essentially the same definition, while other changes split existing categories or shifted components of one category to another. See the entries for these terms in the...