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Browse more than 65,000 articles authored by our scientists over the past 100+ year history of the USGS and refine search by topic, location, year, and advanced search.

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Rainfall reduces the potential for competitive suppression of a globally endangered ungulate by livestock

Protected areas often are too small to house populations of wide-ranging species. Viability of wildlife populations therefore depends on whether interactions with humans and their land uses are negative, neutral, or positive. In central Iran, we measured interactions between globally endangered onagers (Equus hemionus onager) and livestock by analyzing remotely-sensed vegetation metrics within liv
Authors
Saeideh Esmaeili, Mahmoud-Reza Hemami, Petra Kaczensky, Kathryn A. Schoenecker, Sarah R.B. King, Bahareh Shahriari, Chris Walzer, Jake Goheen

A high-resolution, daily hindcast (1990-2021) of Alaskan river discharge and temperature from coupled and optimized physical models

Water quality and freshwater ecosystems are affected by river discharge and temperature. Models are frequently used to estimate river temperature on large spatial and temporal scales due to limited observations of discharge and temperature. In this study, we use physically based river routing and temperature models to simulate daily discharge and river temperature for rivers in 138 basins in Alask
Authors
Dylan Blaskey, Michael Gooseff, Yifan Cheng, Andrew Newman, Joshua C. Koch, Keith Musselman

Opportunities and challenges for precipitation forcing data in post-wildfire hydrologic modeling applications

The frequency and extent of wildfires have increased in recent decades with immediate and cascading effects on water availability in many regions of the world. Precipitation is used as primary input to hydrologic models and is a critical driver of post-wildfire hydrologic hazards including debris flows, flash floods, water-quality effects, and reservoir sedimentation. These models are valuable too
Authors
Trevor Fuess Partridge, Zachary Johnson, Rachel Sleeter, Sharon L. Qi, Michelle A. Walvoord, Sheila F. Murphy, Cara L. Peterman-Phipps, Brian A. Ebel

Predator disturbance contributed to Common Murre Uria aalge breeding failures in Cook Inlet, Alaska following the 2014–2016 Pacific marine heatwave

The 2014-2016 Pacific marine heatwave caused unprecedented die-offs and multi-year reproductive failures for Common Murres Uria aalge along the west coast of North America. Lingering impacts, such as declines in colony attendance and productivity, have persisted at some colonies following the heatwave and are attributed largely to changes in prey availability and quality. Here, we present evidence
Authors
Caitlin Elizabeth Marsteller, Mayumi L. Arimitsu, Sarah K. Schoen, Samuel B Stark, John F. Piatt

Intercomparison of same-day remote sensing data for measuring winter cover crop biophysical traits

Winter cover crops are planted during the fall to reduce nitrogen losses and soil erosion and improve soil health. Accurate estimations of winter cover crop performance and biophysical traits including biomass and fractional vegetative groundcover support accurate assessment of environmental benefits. We examined the comparability of measurements between ground-based and spaceborne sensors as well
Authors
Alison Thieme, Kusuma Prabhakara, Jyoti Jennewein, Brian T Lamb, Gregory T. McCarty, W. Dean Hively

Versatile modeling of deformation (VMOD) inversion framework: Application to 20 years of observations at Westdahl Volcano and Fisher Caldera, Alaska, US

We developed an open source, extensible Python-based framework, that we call the Versatile Modeling of Deformation (VMOD), for forward and inverse modeling of crustal deformation sources. VMOD abstracts from specific source model implementations, data types and inversion methods. We implement the most common geodetic source models which can be combined to model and analyze multi-source deformation
Authors
Mario Angarita, Ronni Grapenthin, Scott Henderson, Michael S Christoffersen, Kyle R. Anderson

Eutrophication saturates surface elevation change potential in tidal mangrove forests

Coastal mangrove forests are at risk of being submerged due to sea-level rise (SLR). However, mangroves have persisted with changing sea levels due to a variety of biotic and physical feedback mechanisms that allow them to gain and maintain relative soil surface elevation. Therefore, mangrove’s resilience to SLR is dependent upon their ability to build soil elevation at a rate that tracks with SLR
Authors
Jeremy R. Conrad, Ken Krauss, Brian W. Benscoter, Ilka C. Feller, Nicole Cormier, Darren Johnson

SSEBop evapotranspiration estimates using synthetically derived Landsat data from the continuous change detection and classification algorithm

The operational Simplified Surface Energy Balance (SSEBop) model has been utilized to generate gridded evapotranspiration data from Landsat images. These estimates are primarily driven by two sources of information: reference evapotranspiration and Landsat land surface temperature (LST) values. Hence, SSEBop is limited by the availability of Landsat data. Here, in this proof-of-concept paper, we u
Authors
Mikael Peter Hiestand, Heather J. Tollerud, W. Chris Funk, Gabriel B. Senay, Mackenzie Friedrichs, Kate Fickas

Spatial, seasonal, and diel controls of nitrogen-carbon-oxygen cycling during lake-water infiltration to an aquifer

Many freshwater lakes are groundwater flow-through systems. Although lakes commonly are considered to be sinks for nitrogen inputs, relatively little is known about carbon and nitrogen export from lakes to groundwater. The current study focused on lake-bottom biogeochemical processes accompanying the transport of nitrogen, dissolved oxygen (O2), and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) during lake-water
Authors
Deborah A. Repert, Jennifer C. Underwood, John K. Böhlke, Denis R. LeBlanc, Robert B. Hull, Douglas B. Kent, Ariel Reed, Stanley J. Mroczkowski

Carbon dioxide toxicity to zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) is dependent on water chemistry

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is gaining interest as a tool to combat aquatic invasive species, including zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha). However, the effects of water chemistry on CO2 efficacy are not well described. We conducted five trials in which we exposed adult zebra mussels to a range of CO2 in water with adjusted total hardness and specific conductance. We compared dose–responses and found d
Authors
Matthew Barbour, Matthew J Meulemans, Todd J. Severson, Jeremy K. Wise, Diane L. Waller

Existing evidence on the effects of climate variability and climate change on ungulates in North America: A systematic map

BackgroundClimate is an important driver of ungulate life-histories, population dynamics, and migratory behaviors. Climate conditions can directly impact ungulates via changes in the costs of thermoregulation and locomotion, or indirectly, via changes in habitat and forage availability, predation, and species interactions. Many studies have documented the effects of climate variability and climate
Authors
Kate Malpeli, Sarah C. Endyke, Sarah R. Weiskopf, Laura Thompson, Ciara G. Johnson, Katherine Anne Kurth, Maxfield A. Carlin

Evaluating the potential for efficient, UAS-based reach-scale mapping of river channel bathymetry from multispectral images

Introduction: Information on spatial patterns of water depth in river channels is valuable for numerous applications, but such data can be difficult to obtain via traditional field methods. Ongoing developments in remote sensing technology have enabled various image-based approaches for mapping river bathymetry; this study evaluated the potential to retrieve depth from multispectral images acquire
Authors
Carl J. Legleiter, Lee R. Harrison