Reports

This report presents results of a study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, to determine the occurrence of 14 commonly used human-health pharmaceutical compounds and fecal-indicator bacteria in Merrimack River water used as a drinking-water source by 135,000 residents in eastern Massachusetts. The...

Executive Summary-Ecosystem Services Derived from Wetlands Reserve Program Conservation Practices in California's Central Valley and Oregon's Upper Klamath River Basin. The Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) is one of several programs implemented by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Since the WRP's inception in 1990, it has resulted in the restoration of approximately 29,000...

Catastrophic flash flooding occurred in the early morning hours of June 11, 2010, in the upper Little Missouri River and tributary streams in southwest Arkansas. The flooding, which resulted in 20 fatalities and substantial property damage, was caused by as much as 4.7 inches of rain falling in the upper Little Missouri River watershed in 3 hours. The 4.7 inches of rain in 3 hours...

Although numerous studies have been completed on pallid sturgeon populations and behavior, few have addressed the potential for water-quality characteristics to limit recruitment and population success of pallid sturgeon. Literature on sturgeon and water-quality data indicates recruitment of pallid sturgeon may be limited by several water-quality characteristics of the lower Missouri...

Permafrost is a predominant physical feature of the Earth's Arctic and Subarctic clines and a major consideration encompassing ecosystem structure to infrastructure engineering and placement. Perennially frozen ground is estimated to cover about 85 percent of the state of Alaska where northern reaches are underlain with continuous permafrost and parts of interior Alaska are underlain by...

We conducted a survey for invasive ants at Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge, Hawai‘i Island, during 2009–2010 to evaluate potential threats to native arthropod communities and food webs. The focal area of the survey was the upper portion of the Hakalau Unit of the refuge, where native forest was being restored in abandoned cattle pastures. This area, between 1575 and 1940 m...

What is a Climate Science Center? On September 14, 2009, the Secretary of the Interior signed a Secretarial Order (No. 3289) entitled, "Addressing the Impacts of Climate Change on America's Water, Land, and Other Natural and Cultural Resources." The Order effectively established the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) Climate Science Centers (CSCs), which will integrate DOI science and

Surveys of pathogens in Pacific herring from 2007 – 2010 indicated that Ichthyophonus, viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus, and erythrocytic necrosis virus are endemic in Prince William Sound and throughout the NE Pacific. Laboratory studies with VHSV indicated that multiple herring stocks are equally susceptible to the resulting disease, Pacific herring shed copious levels of VHSV (as...

This report and the accompanying geospatial data were created to assist in analysis and interpretation of water-quality data provided by the U.S. Geological Survey's National Stream Quality Accounting Network (NASQAN) and by the U.S. Coastal Waters and Tributaries National Monitoring Network (NMN), which is a cooperative monitoring program of Federal, regional, and State agencies. The...

The hydrogeology of Florida, especially in the northern part of the state, and southwestern Georgia is characterized by a predominance of limestone aquifers overlain by varying amounts of sands, silts, and clays. This karstic system of aquifers and their associated springs is particularly vulnerable to contamination from various anthropogenic activities at the land surface. Numerous...

Microbial community genomic DNA was extracted from sediment samples collected along the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts from Texas to Florida. Sample sites were identified as being ecologically sensitive and (or) as having high potential of being impacted by Macondo-1 (M-1) well oil from the Deepwater Horizon blowout. The diversity within the microbial communities associated with the...

In cooperation with the City of Wichita Falls, the U.S. Geological Survey assessed channel changes on the Wichita River at Wichita Falls, Texas, and modeled historical floods to investigate possible causes and potential mitigation alternatives to higher flood stages in recent (2007 and 2008) floods. Extreme flooding occurred on the Wichita River on June 30, 2007, inundating 167 homes in...