Water Resources
Publications
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.
Inclusion of pesticide transformation products is key to estimating pesticide exposures and effects in small U.S. streams
Improved analytical methods can quantify hundreds of pesticide transformation products (TPs), but understanding of TP occurrence and potential toxicity in aquatic ecosystems remains limited. We quantified 108 parent pesticides and 116 TPs in more than 3 700 samples from 442 small streams in mostly urban basins across five major regions of the...
Mahler, Barbara; Nowell, Lisa H.; Sandstrom, Mark W.; Bradley, Paul; Romanok, Kristin; Konrad, Christopher; Van Metre, Peter Assessment of peak flow scaling and Its effect on flood quantile estimation in the United Kingdom
Regional flood frequency analysis (RFFA) methods are essential tools to assess flood hazard and plan interventions for its mitigation. They are used to estimate flood quantiles when the at‐site record of streamflow data is not available or limited. One commonly used RFFA method is the index flood method (IFM), which assumes that peak floods...
Formetta, Giuseppe; Over, Thomas M.; Stewart, Elizabeth
Practical field survey operations for flood insurance rate maps
The U.S. Geological Survey assists the Federal Emergency Management Agency in its mission to identify flood hazards and zones for risk premiums for communities nationwide, by creating flood insurance rate maps through updating hydraulic models that use river geometry data. The data collected consist of elevations of river channels, banks, and...
Taylor, Nicholas J.; Simeone, Caelan E. Continental-scale analysis of shallow and deep groundwater contributions to streams
Groundwater discharge generates streamflow and influences stream thermal regimes. However, the water quality and thermal buffering capacity of groundwater depends on the aquifer source-depth. Here, we pair multi-year air and stream temperature signals to categorize 1729 sites across the continental United States as having major dam influence,...
Hare, D.; Helton, A. M.; Johnson, Zachary C.; Lane, Jr., John W.; Briggs, Martin A. Characterization of groundwater recharge and flow in California's San Joaquin Valley from InSAR-observed surface deformation
Surface deformation in California's Central Valley (CV) has long been linked to changes in groundwater storage. Recent advances in remote sensing have enabled the mapping of CV deformation and associated changes in groundwater resources at increasingly higher spatiotemporal resolution. Here, we use interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR)...
Neely, W.R.; Borsa, A.A.; Burney, J.A.; Levy, M.C.; Silverii, F.; Sneed, Michelle The tide turns: Episodic and localized cross-contamination of a California coastline with cyanotoxins
The contamination of coastal ecosystems from a variety of toxins of marine algal origin is a common and well-documented situation along the coasts of the United States and globally. The occurrence of toxins originating from cyanobacteria along marine coastlines is much less studied, and little information exists on whether toxins from marine and...
Tatters, Avery O.; Smith, Jayme; Kudela, Raphael M.; Hayashi, Kendra; Howard, Meredith D. A.; Donovan, Ariel; Loftin, Keith; Caron, David A.
Groundwater management process simulations using an updated version of the three-dimensional numerical model of groundwater flow in northern Utah Valley, Utah County, Utah
Groundwater is a primary source of drinking water in northern Utah County. The groundwater system is recharged mainly from precipitation in the adjacent Wasatch Mountains and infiltration of streamflow. In 2004, groundwater withdrawals were estimated to be roughly 44,500 acre-feet per year. In 2016, groundwater withdrawals were estimated to be...
Stolp, Bernard J.; Brooks, Lynette E.
Procedures for field data collection, processing, quality assurance and quality control, and archiving of relative- and absolute-gravity surveys
Repeat microgravity surveys carried out using relative- and absolute-gravity meters are useful for identifying changes in subsurface mass, such as the volume of water stored in an aquifer. These surveys require careful field procedures to achieve the part-per-billion accuracy required to measure the small changes in gravity relevant for hydrologic...
Kennedy, Jeffrey R.; Pool, Donald R.; Carruth, Robert L. Exploring biophysical linkages between coastal forestry management practices and aquatic bivalve contaminant exposure
Terrestrial land use activities present cross-ecosystem threats to riverine and marine species and processes. Specifically, pesticide runoff can disrupt hormonal, reproductive, and developmental processes in aquatic organisms, yet non-point source pollution is difficult to trace and quantify. In Oregon, U.S.A., state and federal forestry pesticide...
Scully-Engelmeyer, Kaegan; Granek, Elise F.; Nielsen-Pincus, Max; Lanier, Andy; Rumrill, Steven S; Moran, Patrick W.; Nilsen, Elena; Hladik, Michelle; Pillsbury, Lori
Volcanic Aquifers of Hawai‘i—Construction and calibration of numerical models for assessing groundwater availability on Kaua‘i, O‘ahu, and Maui
Steady-state numerical groundwater-flow models were constructed for the islands of Kaua‘i, O‘ahu, and Maui to enable quantification of the hydrologic consequences of withdrawals and other stresses that can place limits on groundwater availability. The volcanic aquifers of Hawai‘i supply nearly all drinking water for the islands’ residents,...
Izuka, Scot K.; Rotzoll, Kolja; Nishikawa, Tracy Co-transport of biogenic nano-hydroxyapatite and Pb(II) in saturated sand columns: Controlling factors and stochastic modeling
Biogenic nano-hydroxyapatite (bio-nHAP) has recently gained great interest in many domains, especially in the remediation of heavy metal-contaminated soil, due to its high reactivity, low cost, and eco-friendly nature. The co-transport and reaction of bio-nHAP with Pb(II) in saturated porous media, however, are not well understood. This work...
Zhou, Dongbao; Han, Xuan; Zhang, Yong; Wei, Wei; Green, Christopher; Sun, HongGuang; Zheng, Chunmiao Evaluation of six methods for correcting bias in estimates from ensemble tree machine learning regression model
Ensemble-tree machine learning (ML) regression models can be prone to systematic bias: small values are overestimated and large values are underestimated. Additional bias can be introduced if the dependent variable is a transform of the original data. Six methods were evaluated for their ability to correct systematic and introduced bias. Method...
Belitz, Kenneth; Stackelberg, Paul