This list of Water Resources Mission Area publications includes both official USGS publications and journal articles authored by our scientists. A searchable database of all USGS publications can be accessed at the USGS Publications Warehouse.
Filter Total Items: 18097
Identifying the relative importance of water-budget information needed to quantify how land-cover change affects recharge, Hawaiian Islands
Watershed management—the protection and restoration of native landscapes through a variety of actions—potentially can protect and improve groundwater availability by sustaining and enhancing groundwater recharge. The efficacy of watershed management for sustaining and enhancing groundwater recharge in the Hawaiian Islands, however, has not been quantified with certainty. A model that uses a water-
Authors
Adam G. Johnson, Alan Mair, Delwyn S. Oki
Groundwater-flow model of the Treasure Valley, southwestern Idaho, 1986–2015
Most of the population of the Treasure Valley and the surrounding area of southwestern Idaho and easternmost Oregon depends on groundwater for domestic supply, either from domestic or municipal-supply wells. Current and projected rapid population growth in the area has caused concern about the long-term sustainability of the groundwater resource. In 2016, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation
Authors
Stephen A. Hundt, James R. Bartolino
Long-term water-quality constituent trends in the Little Arkansas River, south-central Kansas, 1995–2021
The Equus Beds aquifer and Cheney Reservoir are primary sources for the city of Wichita’s current (2023) water supply. The Equus Beds aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) project was developed by the city of Wichita in the early 1990s to meet future water demands using the Little Arkansas River as an artificial aquifer recharge water source during above-base-flow conditions. Little Arkansas River wa
Authors
Mandy L. Stone, Brian J. Klager
Salinity trends in a groundwater system supplemented by 50 years of imported Colorado River water
The Indio subbasin of the Coachella Valley is a desert area of southern California where a growing population depends primarily on groundwater for drinking and agricultural uses. The aquifer system has been supplemented with Colorado River water through managed recharge and widespread irrigation since the mid-20th century. We use a combination of geochemical modeling and trend analysis to identify
Authors
Jennifer S. Harkness, Patrick Michael McCarthy, Bryant Jurgens, Zeno Levy
Implications of water, sediment, and nutrient budgets for the restoration of a shallow, turbid lake in semiarid southeastern Oregon
Malheur Lake is the largest lake in the endorheic Harney Basin in southeastern Oregon. Since the 1990s, Malheur Lake—which averages depths of about 1 meter—has been in a degraded, turbid state lacking submergent and emergent vegetation. The goals of this study were to identify the major sources of sediment and nutrients to Malheur Lake to determine the importance of managing nutrients for lake res
Authors
Cassandra D. Smith, Tamara M. Wood
Regression equations for estimating the 4-day, 3-year low-flow frequency and adjusted harmonic mean streamflow at ungaged sites for unregulated, perennial streams in New Mexico
The Federal Clean Water Act stipulates that States adopt water-quality standards to protect and enhance the quality of water in those States and to protect water quality through the creation of planning documents and discharge permits. Critical low-flow values, including the 4-day, 3-year low-flow frequency (4Q3) and harmonic mean streamflows, are necessary for developing those planning documents
Authors
Meghan T. Bell, Anne C. Tillery
Karst groundwater vulnerability determined by modeled age and residence time tracers
Karst aquifers are a vital groundwater resource globally, but features such as rapid recharge and conduit flow make them highly vulnerable to land-surface contamination. We apply environmental age tracers to the south-central Texas Edwards aquifer, a karst resource in a rapidly urbanizing and drought-prone region, to assess vulnerability to land-surface contamination and risks unique to karst aqui
Authors
MaryLynn Musgrove, Bryant Jurgens, Stephen P. Opsahl
Discharge estimation using video recordings from small unoccupied aircraft systems
Measurement of river discharge during flooding events has especially been a challenging and dangerous task in the southwestern US, where flows can be flashy, laden with sediment, and at high velocity. Small unoccupied aircraft systems (sUAS) can be deployed to access unsafe field sites and capture imagery for measuring surface flow velocity and discharge. This paper compares flow discharge estimat
Authors
Jennifer G Duan, Frank Engel, Ammon F Cadogan
Blue carbon in a changing climate and a changing context
Blue carbon, a convenient term to encompass the climate mitigation value of coastal carbon dynamics, has received global policy attention and growing datasets to support management actions. Carbon stock assessments in mangroves, seagrass, and tidal marshes document significant carbon storage in soils. Models illustrate significant downward fluxes of carbon dioxide and limited methane emissions, ma
Authors
Lisamarie Windham-Myers
Multi-decadal erosion rates from glacierized watersheds on Mount Baker, Washington, USA, reveal topographic, climatic, and lithologic controls on sediment yields
Understanding land surface change in and sediment export out of proglacial landscapes is critical for understanding geohazard and flood risks over engineering timescales and characterizing landscape evolution over geomorphic timescales. We used automated Structure from Motion software to process historical aerial photographs and, with modern lidar data, generated a high-resolution DEM time series
Authors
Eli Schwat, Erkan Istanbulluoglu, Alex Horner-Devine, Scott W. Anderson, Friedrich Knuth, David Shean
Approaches for assessing flows, concentrations, and loads of highway and urban runoff and receiving-stream stormwater in southern New England with the Stochastic Empirical Loading and Dilution Model (SELDM)
The Stochastic Empirical Loading and Dilution Model (SELDM) was designed to help quantify the risk of adverse effects of runoff on receiving waters, the potential need for mitigation measures, and the potential effectiveness of such management measures for reducing these risks. SELDM is calibrated using representative hydrological and water-quality input statistics. This report by the U.S. Geologi
Authors
Gregory E. Granato, Alana B. Spaetzel, Lillian C. Jeznach
Characterization of peak streamflows and flooding in select areas of Pennsylvania from the remnants of Hurricane Ida, September 1–2, 2021
Pennsylvania experienced heavy rainfall on September 1 and 2, 2021, as the remnants of Hurricane Ida swept over parts of the State. Much of eastern and south-central Pennsylvania received 5 to 10 inches of rain, and most of the rainfall fell within little more than 6 hours. Southeastern Pennsylvania experienced widespread, substantial flooding, and the city of Philadelphia and surrounding areas we
Authors
Marla H. Stuckey, Matthew D. Conlon, Mitchell R. Weaver