Reports

Introduction Federal, State, Tribal, and local entities managing lands in New Mexico have concerns about wildfire risk, wildlife habitat, and flood risk. Land managers in urban areas along the Rio Grande corridor and in the State’s rural northwest and southeast also have concerns about existing and developing roads, buildings, and other infrastructure. Federal, State, Tribal, and local

The “Water for Birds Tool” is a spreadsheet-based tool (using Microsoft Excel) designed to help resource managers assess the spatial extent and types of bird habitats in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, southeastern Oregon. The tool quantifies the areas of open water, partial water, and water depths on a monthly timescale during the irrigation season (April–July) from 2021 to 2024...

The U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have developed a three-tiered strategy for monitoring eelgrass (Zostera marina) beds at Izembek Lagoon, Alaska, that targets different spatial and temporal scales. The broadest-scale monitoring (tier-1) uses satellite imagery about every 5 years to delineate the spatial extent of eelgrass beds throughout the lagoon. This...

Executive Summary The Trinity River is managed in two sections: (1) from the upper 64-kilometer “restoration reach” downstream from Lewiston Dam to the confluence with the North Fork Trinity River, and (2) the 120-kilometer lower Trinity River downstream from the restoration reach. The Stream Salmonid Simulator (S3) has been previously applied to these reaches and the Klamath River. To...

We surveyed for Least Bell’s Vireos (Vireo bellii pusillus; vireo) and Southwestern Willow Flycatchers (Empidonax traillii extimus; flycatcher) at the Mojave River Dam study area near Hesperia, California, in 2024. Four vireo surveys were completed between April 17 and July 2, 2024, and three flycatcher surveys were completed between May 23 and July 2, 2024. We detected three territorial...

Lahars, or volcanic mudflows, are the most hazardous eruption-related phenomena that will affect communities living along rivers that originate on Mount Baker. In the past 15,000 years, the largest lahars from Mount Baker have affected the Middle Fork Nooksack River drainage and beyond. Here we use the physics-based D-Claw software package to model nine lahar scenarios that are initiated...

Managing species in a rapidly changing climate requires knowledge of how species will respond to climate change and other threats while simultaneously developing management actions to reduce threats. Amphibians are one of the most threatened taxa on earth and often serve as the ‘canary in the coalmine’ for the health of ecosystems that countless other species and humans rely on. To...

Gravity data require submeter elevation accuracy for data processing, and differential global navigation satellite system (dGNSS) equipment is commonly used to acquire three-dimensional positional data to achieve such accuracy. However, lidar (light detection and ranging) data are commonly used to develop digital elevation models (DEMs) of Earth’s surface. Therefore, using elevations...

Since the early 1900s, groundwater withdrawn from the primary aquifers that compose the Gulf Coast aquifer system—the Chicot, Evangeline, and Jasper aquifers—has been an important source of water in the greater Houston area, Texas. This report, prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the Harris-Galveston Subsidence District, City of Houston, Fort Bend Subsidence...

Some earth science data are naturally grouped by region, and it is often desirable to map these data by region. However, if there are only a few samples within each region, then the map should be smoothed in an appropriate way to mitigate the problems that arise from having only a few samples. A smoothing algorithm based on a Bayesian hierarchical model is developed and presented in this...

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean resources of 28 million barrels of oil and 35.8 trillion cubic feet of gas in conventional and continuous accumulations within the Lower Cretaceous Hosston and Travis Peak Formations of the onshore U.S. Gulf Coast region.

Hydrocarbon wells are not active forever; when they become permanently disused (abandoned), well infrastructure must be remediated or repurposed. Knowing which wells are abandoned is the initial and often complicated step in taking responsibility for well infrastructure. Each State creates laws and regulates hydrocarbon operations, which includes well abandonment. The existence of...