Publications

To safely and economically design bridges, culverts, and other structures that are in or near streams (fig. 1 for example), it is necessary to determine the magnitude of peak streamflows such as the 100-year flow. Flood-frequency analyses use statistical methods to compute peak flows for selected recurrence intervals (100 years, for example). The recurrence interval is the average number...

This is the second of two papers that describe how data mining can aid natural-resource managers with the difficult problem of controlling the interactions between hydrologic and man-made systems. Data mining is a new science that assists scientists in converting large databases into knowledge, and is uniquely able to leverage the large amounts of real-time, multivariate data now being...

The Rocky Mountain Snowpack program established a network of snowpack-sampling sites in the Rocky Mountain region from New Mexico to Montana to monitor the chemical content of snow and to understand the effects of regional atmospheric deposition. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the National Park Service; the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service; the Colorado...

Information about total mercury and methylmercury concentrations in water samples and mercury concentrations in fish-tissue samples was summarized for 26 watersheds in Indiana that drain most of the land area of the State. Mercury levels were interpreted with information on streamflow, atmospheric mercury deposition, mercury emissions to the atmosphere, mercury in wastewater, and...

A regional groundwater-flow model of the Lake Michigan Basin and surrounding areas has been developed in support of the Great Lakes Basin Pilot project under the U.S. Geological Survey's National Water Availability and Use Program. The transient 2-million-cell model incorporates multiple aquifers and pumping centers that create water-level drawdown that extends into deep saline waters...

McBee is a small town of about 700 people located in Chesterfield County, South Carolina, in the Sandhills region of the upper Coastal Plain. The halogenated organic compounds ethylene dibromide (EDB) and dibromochloropropane (DBCP) have been detected in several public and domestic supply and irrigation wells since 2002 at concentrations above their U.S. Environmental Protection Agency...

Fish commonly respond to stress, including stress from chemical exposures, with reduced growth. However, the relevance to wild populations of subtle and sometimes transitory growth reductions may not be obvious. At low-level, sustained exposures, Cu is one substance that commonly causes reduced growth but little mortality in laboratory toxicity tests with fish. To explore the relevance...

Daily streamflow time series are critical to a very broad range of hydrologic problems. Whereas daily streamflow time series are readily obtained from gaged catchments, streamflow information is commonly needed at catchments for which no measured streamflow information exists. At ungaged catchments, methods to estimate daily streamflow time series typically require the use of a reference

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Marine Corps Base, Camp Lejeune, monitored water-resources conditions in the surficial, Castle Hayne, Peedee, and Black Creek aquifers in Onslow County, North Carolina, from November 2007 through September 2008. To comply with North Carolina Central Coastal Plain Capacity Use Area regulations, large-volume water suppliers in Onslow...

The occurrence of antibiotics in surface water and groundwater in urban basins has become a topic of increasing interest in recent years. Little is known about the occurrence, fate, or transport of these compounds and the possible health effects in humans and aquatic life. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the City of Columbus, Division of Power and Water, did a study to...

This report presents a preliminary emergency assessment of the debris-flow hazards from drainage basins burned by the Fourmile Creek fire in Boulder County, Colorado, in 2010. Empirical models derived from statistical evaluation of data collected from recently burned basins throughout the intermountain western United States were used to estimate the probability of debris-flow occurrence...

In recent years carbon dioxide intrusion has become recognized as a potentially serious health threat where homes are constructed on or near reclaimed surface coal mines. When carbon dioxide invades the living space of a home, it can collect near the floor, displace the oxygen there, and produce an oxygen-deficient environment. In this investigation, several lines of inquiry were pursued...