Reports

The combination of rainfall and snowmelt in northern New England and rainfall in southern New England resulted in minor to major flooding from April 15 to 24, 2019, according to stage and streamflow data collected at 63 selected U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) streamgages. A typical USGS streamgage measures and records stream stage and estimates streamflow based on a relation (rating curve...

The Eurasia Basin Petroleum Province comprises the younger, eastern half of the Arctic Ocean, including the Eurasia Basin and the outboard part of the continental margin of northern Europe in the Barents and Kara Seas. The province includes the slope and rise sedimentary prism of the Lena Delta, the north-facing outer shelf, slope, and rise of the European passive margin, and sedimentary...

The Sacramento metropolitan (SacMetro) study unit covers approximately 3,250 square kilometers of the Central Valley along the eastern edge of the northern and southern ends of the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys, respectively. Groundwater withdrawals supply a significant portion of the water-resource needs of the region. In the southern portion of the study unit, groundwater accounts...

Approaches and techniques for control of exotic annual grasses are a high priority in sagebrush-steppe and other rangelands. Strains of the soil bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens (Pf) have been proposed to be selectively pathogenic to multiple species of exotic annual grasses with effects evident by the second year, and with no effect on native or desirable species including native...

Numerous studies have established strong linkages between acid deposition, soil and surface-water acidification, and toxicity to aquatic biota. Little is known however, about the effects of acidification on fish assemblages in headwater streams because they are highly variable, and pre-acidification data are often lacking. The primary purpose of this study was to describe spatial and...

Thousands of screened water diversions throughout the Columbia River Basin of the Pacific Northwest are sources of entrainment (unintended diversion into an unsafe passage route), injury, and mortality for a range of fish species and screening criteria have been developed to reduce and mitigate these effects. Large knowledge gaps exist concerning the potential effects of these screens on...

The National Park Service (NPS) is in the process of establishing a formal socioeconomic monitoring (SEM) program that will provide a standard visitor survey instrument and a long-term, systematic sampling design for in-park visitor surveys. The development of the pilot SEM survey provided the opportunity to add to the set of available visitor spending profiles for use in the NPS Visitor...

Managing for sagebrush ecosystems that are resilient to disturbance and resistant to invasive plants often requires managers to make tough decisions in the face of considerable complexity and uncertainty. The deci¬sion making environment is often characterized by multiple management objectives, limited manage¬ment authorities and capabilities, dynamic ecosystems and plant communities...

The following report is divided into three sections each of which describes work conducted by different project cooperators. Chapter One describes smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu) predation on subyearling fall Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in Lower Granite Reservoir in 2018. Smallmouth bass abundance increased seasonally in shoreline habitats and was highest in the...

The degradation of coastal habitats, particularly coral reefs, raises risks by increasing the exposure of coastal communities to flooding hazards. The protective services of these natural defenses are not assessed in the same rigorous economic terms as artificial defenses, such as seawalls, and therefore often are not considered in decision making. Here we combine engineering, ecologic...

An extensive fauna of at least 77 taxa is reported from the basal Wilson Grove Formation in a small quarry just north of the town of Bloomfield, Sonoma County, California. The fauna represents intertidal to shallow subtidal water depths and water temperatures interpreted from the fauna, consistent with the latitude of the fossil locality (37° north) during the late Miocene. The fauna...

Hydrologic influences on water levels were investigated at Three Oaks Recreation Area (TORA), a former sand-and-gravel quarry converted into recreational lakes in Crystal Lake, Illinois. From 2009 to 2015, average water levels in the lakes declined nearly 4 feet. It was not clear if these declines were related to variations in weather (precipitation or evaporation) or other hydrologic...