Publications

Landslides and floods of lava and water tremendously affected the Columbia River during its long history of transecting the Cascade Volcanic Arc. This field trip touches on aspects of the resulting geology of the scenic Columbia River Gorge, including the river-blocking Bonneville landslide of ~550 years ago and the great late- Pleistocene Missoula floods. Not only did these events...

This chapter examines the uncertainties inherent in the water and chemical budgets of the lake in relation to the differences between chemical mass change in storage and to the balance between solute inputs and solute outputs associated with water fluxes. It begins by discussing uncertainty in the water budgets used to determine chemical budgets. It then examines uncertainties in...

Surrogate technologies to continuously monitor suspended sediment show promise toward supplanting traditional data collection methods requiring routine collection and analysis of water samples. Commercially available instruments operating on bulk optic (turbidity), laser optic, pressure difference, and acoustic backscatter principles are evaluated based on cost, reliability, robustness...

The maps and graphs appearing in this summary describe streamflow conditions for water-year 2008 (October 1, 2007 to September 30, 2008) in the context of the 79-year period 1930-2008, unless otherwise noted. The illustrations are based on observed data from the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) National Streamflow Information Program. The period 1930-2008 was used because prior to 1930...

This article highlights major findings from two USGS reports: DeSimone (2009) and DeSimone and others (2009). These reports can be accessed at http://water.usgs.gov/nawqa. This article is followed by a summary of treatment considerations and options for owners of private domestic wells, written by Cliff Treyens of the National Ground Water Association.

The laboratory for analysis of low-ionic-strength water at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Water Science Center in Troy, N.Y., analyzes samples collected by USGS projects throughout the Northeast. The laboratory's quality-assurance program is based on internal and interlaboratory quality-assurance samples and quality-control procedures that were developed to ensure proper sample...

"The Great Salt Lake (GSL) of Utah, USA, is the largest saline lake in North America, and its brines are some of the most concentrated anywhere in the world. The lake occupies a closed basin system whose chemistry reflects solute inputs from the weathering of a diverse suite of rocks in its drainage basin. GSL is the remnant of a much larger lacustrine body, Lake Bonneville, and it has a...

Mass balance models of dissolved gases in streams, lakes, and rivers serve as the basis for estimating wholeecosystem rates for various biogeochemical processes. Rates of gas exchange between water and the atmosphere are important and error-prone components of these models. Here we present a simple and efficient modification of the SF6 gas tracer approach that can be used concurrently...

Many streams across North America have been modified or restored in order to stabilize channel banks and beds; however, the effects of stream restoration on fish assemblages and stream habitat are seldom monitored, evaluated, or published. Because the impacts on ecosystems are poorly understood, subsequent restoration projects cannot build upon known successes or failures.

Human activities have greatly increased the transport of biologically available nitrogen (N) through watersheds to potentially sensitive coastal ecosystems. Lentic water bodies (lakes and reservoirs) have the potential to act as important sinks for this reactive N as it is transported across the landscape because they offer ideal conditions for N burial in sediments or permanent loss via

Over the past century, flow regulation and vegetation encroachment have reduced active channel widths along the central Platte River, Nebraska. During the last two decades, an annual program of in-channel vegetation management has been implemented to stabilize or expand active channel widths. Vegetation management practices are intended to enhance riverine habitats which include...

In hydrologic studies, especially those using dynamic unsaturated zone moisture modeling, calculations based on property transfer models informed by hydraulic property databases are often used in lieu of measured data from the site of interest. Reliance on database-informed predicted values has become increasingly common with the use of neural networks. High-quality data are needed for...