Publications

As part of a long-term cooperative program to monitor water quality within the Scituate Reservoir watershed, the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the Providence Water Supply Board collected streamflow and water-quality data at the Scituate Reservoir and tributaries. Streamflow and concentrations of chloride and sodium estimated from records of specific conductance were used to...

A series of 15 digital flood-inundation maps was developed for a 10.2-mile reach of the Pawtuxet River in the municipalities of West Warwick, Warwick, and Cranston, Rhode Island, by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The coverage of the maps extends downstream from Natick Pond dam near...

The Mississippi River and other large rivers have the potential to regulate nitrogen export from terrestrial landscapes, and thus mitigate eutrophication in downstream aquatic ecosystems. In large rivers, human-constructed impoundments and connected backwaters may facilitate nitrogen removal; however, the capacity of these features is poorly quantified and incompletely incorporated into...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) investigated the spatial and temporal dynamics of cyanobacterial (blue-green algal) blooms in Willow Creek Reservoir in north-central Oregon in 2015–16. A combination of cameras and water-quality monitoring equipment was used to assess the frequency and duration of blooms and their effects on water quality. A...

Emergent hypotheses about causes of the pelagic organism decline in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta (Delta) indicate that a more complete understanding of the quality of water entering the Delta is needed. Less than half of all pesticides used in the Delta watershed are measured in samples collected for routine monitoring, and with new pesticides continually being registered for use...

Executive Summary The Long Island South Shore Estuary Reserve Coordinated Water Resources Monitoring Strategy (CWRMS) provides an overview of the water-quality and ecological monitoring within the Reserve and presents suggestions from stakeholders for future data collection, data management, and coordination among monitoring programs. The South Shore Estuary Reserve, hereafter referred...

Groundwater has been a part of the city of Santa Barbara’s water-supply portfolio since the 1800s; however, since the 1960s, the majority of the city’s water has come from local surface water, and the remainder has come from groundwater, State Water Project, recycled water, increased water conservation, and as needed, seawater desalination. Although groundwater from the Santa Barbara and...

No abstract available.

Hierarchical and partitional cluster analyses were used to compartmentalize Water Conservation Area 1, a managed wetland within the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Florida, USA, based on physical, biological, and climatic geospatial attributes. Single, complete, average, and Ward’s linkages were tested during the hierarchical cluster analyses, with...

Advances in spectroscopic techniques have led to an increase in the use of optical measurements (absorbance and fluorescence) to assess dissolved organic matter composition and infer sources and processing. Although optical measurements are easy to make, they can be affected by many variables rendering them less comparable, including by inconsistencies in sample collection (for example...

The U.S. Geological Survey and Bureau of Reclamation collected water-quality data from March 2012 to March 2015 at locations in the Lost River and Klamath River Basins, Oregon, in an effort to characterize water quality and compute a nutrient budget for the Bureau of Reclamation Klamath Reclamation Project. The study described in this report resulted in the following significant findings...

We use synoptic surveys of stream discharge, stable isotopes, and dissolved noble gases to identify the source of groundwater discharge to the Verde River in central Arizona. The Verde River more than doubles in discharge in Mormon Pocket over a 1.4 km distance that includes three discrete locations of visible spring input to the river and other diffuse groundwater inputs. A detailed...