Streams and Rivers

The Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge, just 7 miles south of downtown Albuquerque on the Rio Grande, will reconnect people, especially young people, with nature in this highly populated area. The USGS is gathering data that will help gauge the success of habitat restoration efforts.

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 Mexico 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 National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) studies require analyses of stream and bed-sediment samples for major ions, nutrients, sediments, and organic contaminants that are consistent across time and space. Procedures have been designed specifically to produce information that is comparable among studies in different parts of the Nation.

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.

Patent for a sequential, time-integrated collector having an electronic controller that actuates either of two electrically-actuated valves, each connected to a water reservoir. (Full details provided by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office website.)

As one of several Focus Area Studies within the USGS National Water Census (NWC), the USGS has completed a 3-year study of water availability and use in the Colorado River Basin.