Publications

Expanding coal-mining operations in the Elk River Valley (British Columbia, Canada) have increased total selenium (Se) concentrations in the transboundary Lake Koocanusa (Canada and United States), but the spatial extent of Se transport from the Elk River Mines is unknown. We evaluated multiple lines of evidence of long-range transport of Se at five sites downstream of the mines relative...

Discharge of deeply sourced groundwater to streams is difficult to locate and quantify, particularly where both discrete and diffuse discharge points exist, but diffuse discharge is one of the primary controls on solute budgets in mountainous watersheds. The noble gas helium is a unique identifier of deep groundwater discharge because groundwater with long residence times is commonly...

Intertribal networks for collecting and analyzing hydrologic and environmental data are growing. The U.S. Geological Survey can be a key partner with Tribal Nations in the further development of network capacity. A first step is the internship opportunity available through the partnership between the USGS and The Wildlife Society: The Native American Research Assistantship Program.

Estimating snow conditions is often done using numerical snowpack evolution models at spatial resolutions of 500 m and greater; however, snow depth in complex terrain often varies on sub-meter scales. This study investigated how the spatial distribution of simulated snow conditions varied across seven model spatial resolutions from 30 to 1,000 m and over two meteorological data sets...

Remote sensing can be an effective tool for mapping river bathymetry, but the need for direct measurements to calibrate image-derived depth estimates impedes broader application of this approach. One way to circumvent the need for field campaigns dedicated to calibration is to capitalize upon existing data. In this study, we introduce a framework for Bathymetric Mapping using Gage...

To explain the drivers of historical water use in the public water systems (PWSs) that serve populations in Providence, Rhode Island, and surrounding areas, and to forecast future water use, a machine-learning model (cubist regression) was developed by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with Providence Water to model daily per capita rates of domestic, commercial, and industrial...

The environmental ubiquity of tire and road wear particles (TRWP) underscores the need to understand the occurrence, persistence, and environmental effects of tire-related chemicals in aquatic ecosystems. One such chemical is 6PPD-quinone (6PPD-Q), a transformation product of the tire antioxidant 6PPD. In urban stormwater runoff 6PPD-Q can exceed acute toxicity thresholds for several...

The importance of fluvial systems in the transport of sediment, dissolved and suspended contaminants, nutrients, and bacteria through the environment is well established. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identifies sediment as the single most widespread water contaminant affecting the beneficial uses of the Nation’s rivers and streams. The evaluation of water-quality as it...

Driven by the need for integrated management of groundwater (GW) and surface water (SW), quantification of GW–SW interactions and associated contaminant transport has become increasingly important. This is due to their substantial impact on water quantity and quality. In this review, we provide an overview of the methods developed over the past several decades to investigate GW–SW...

The freshwater salinization syndrome (FSS), a concomitant watershed-scale increase in salinity, alkalinity, and major-cation and trace-metal concentrations, over recent decades, has been described for major rivers draining extensive urban areas, yet few studies have evaluated temporal and spatial FSS variations, or causal factors, at the subwatershed scale in mixed-use landscapes. This...

Wildfire substantially alters aquatic ecosystems by inducing moderate to catastrophic physical and chemical changes. However, the relations of environmental and watershed variables that drive those effects are complex. We present a Driver-Factor-Stressor-Effect (DFSE) conceptual framework to assess the current state of the science related to post-wildfire water-quality. We reviewed 64...