Common Water Issues

The following technologies represent state-of-the-art tools, methodologies, and techniques that the USGS and our partners are researching and testing. Most of these techniques are experimental and not publicly available, but could significantly improve our ability to plan for and respond to flooding events in the future.

Using a flood inundation map library to estimate where floodwaters will go and how deep they will be is crucial for planning and preparing for floods. By performing loss-estimation modeling, the potential physical, economic, and social impacts of disasters can be calculated, helping communities anticipate the effects of flooding and identify specific strategies to reduce losses and speed recovery.

2011 proved to be another record-breaking flood year in the United States. USGS Water Science Center personnel from North Dakota to Louisiana measured springtime floods on the Red River of the North, the Ohio River, the Mississippi River, and many tributaries. The Missouri River and its tributaries saw record-breaking snow-melt runoff through the summer, followed closely by Hurricane Irene and...

The Harlem and Bronx Rivers provide ecological and social resources in an intensively urban area. Connecting people to rivers requires clean water—the USGS is helping to assess the efficacy of green infrastructure to improve the quality of stormwater that flows into the rivers.

The USGS works with a wide range of cooperators to investigate many aspects of water quality. The newly integrated USGS Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Water Science Center is assisting in furthering urban water-quality research in Northwest Indiana.

Suspended sediment and nutrients from greater San Antonio can affect instream ecological health of the San Antonio River and ultimately impact Gulf of America bays and estuaries. Real-time monitoring in urban and rural parts of the river basin may provide a glimpse into the importance of urban sediment and nutrient sources. Real-time sensors provide a tool to better understand and manage water...

Several watersheds in the Baltimore region have elevated PCB loads in tidal waters. Local jurisdictions are responsible for reducing PCB loading from their watersheds. The USGS is embarking on a pilot study in the Patapsco watershed that will help determine sources of PCBs and will demonstrate innovative monitoring and analysis techniques for more efficient use of mitigation resouces.

Reconnecting people and water is an increasingly important goal in many urban areas. Parks, urban trails, boat ramps, and urban agriculture all are ways that an urban population can interact with nature and improve quality of life. USGS is participating in gathering the information that will make these projects possible.

USGS scientists are using high-resolution handheld and airborne thermal imaging cameras in groundwater/surface-water exchange studies and other investigations where surface temperature contrasts indicate various hydrological processes. These cameras are used to quickly locate and characterize thermal (temperature) anomalies along streams, lakes, wetlands, estuaries, and across the landscape...

Fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing (FO-DTS) technology can be used for characterizing estuary-aquifer and stream-aquifer interaction and for identifying transmissive fractures in bedrock boreholes.

Locating and quantifying exchanges of groundwater and surface water, along with characterizing geologic structure, is essential to water-resource managers and hydrologists for the development of effective water-resource policy, protection, and management. The USGS conducts applied research to evaluate the use of new or emerging hydrogeophysical tools and methods to improve our understanding of...

Results of water analyses conducted on numerous thermal and non-thermal features in Yellowstone National Park beginning in 2009. Water samples were collected and analyzed as part of research investigations on arsenic, iron, nitrogen, and sulfur redox species in hot springs and overflow drainages; the occurrence and distribution of dissolved mercury; and general hydrogeochemistry of hot springs.