Reports

Accurate measurements of suspended-sediment concentration require suspended-sediment samplers to operate isokinetically, within an intake-efficiency range of 1.0 ± 0.10, where intake efficiency is defined as the ratio of the velocity of the water through the sampler intake to the local ambient stream velocity. Local ambient stream velocity is defined as the velocity of the water in the...

Atmospheric wet-deposition monitoring in Rocky Mountain National Park included precipitation depth and aqueous chemical measurements at co-located National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP) sites CO89 and CO98 (Loch Vale) during 2012. The co-located sites are separated by approximately 6.5 meters horizontally and 0.5 meters in altitude, which meets NADP siting criteria. Median weekly...

The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens severely affected the North Fork Toutle River (hereafter Toutle River), Washington, and threatened anadromous salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) populations in the basin. The Toutle River was further affected in 1989 when a sediment retention structure (SRS) was constructed to trap sediments in the upper basin. The SRS completely blocked upstream volitional...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Southern Utah Valley Municipal Water Association, updated an existing USGS model of southern Utah and Goshen Valleys for hydrologic and climatic conditions from 1991 to 2011 and used the model for projection and groundwater management simulations. All model files used in the transient model were updated to be compatible with...

The Ohio River alluvial aquifer near Carrollton, Ky., is an important water resource for the cities of Carrollton and Ghent, as well as for several industries in the area. The groundwater of the aquifer is the primary source of drinking water in the region and a highly valued natural resource that attracts various water-dependent industries because of its quantity and quality. This...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is responsible for monitoring flows in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal (CSSC) near Lemont, Illinois, as a part of the Lake Michigan Diversion Accounting overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Chicago District. Lake Michigan Diversion Accounting is mandated by a U.S. Supreme Court decree in order to monitor, and limit, the State of Illinois’...

he U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, developed spreadsheet mass-balance models for total phosphorus using results from three synoptic sampling periods conducted in the lower Boise River watershed during August and October 2012, and March 2013. The modeling reach spanned 46.4 river miles (RM) along the Boise River from Veteran’s...

Evaporation from Lake Mead was measured using the eddy-covariance method for the 2-year period starting March 2010 and ending February 2012. When corrected for energy imbalances, annual eddy-covariance evaporation was 2,074 and 1,881 millimeters (81.65 and 74.07 inches), within the range of previous estimates. There was a 9-percent decrease in the evaporation rate and a 10-percent...

Water allocation in the Upper Klamath Basin has become difficult in recent years due to the increase in occurrence of drought coupled with continued high water demand. Upper Klamath Lake is a central component of water distribution, supplying water downstream to the Klamath River, supplying water for irrigation diversions, and providing habitat for various species within the lake and...

In 2002, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimated undiscovered oil and gas resources that have the potential for additions to reserves in the San Juan Basin Province (5022), New Mexico and Colorado (fig. 1). Paleozoic rocks were not appraised. The last oil and gas assessment for the province was in 1995 (Gautier and others, 1996). There are several important differences between the...

In 2008 2009, 998 fish were collected from 43 water bodies across 11 western Alaskan national parks and analyzed for reproductive abnormalities. Exposure to estrogenic substances such as pesticides can induce abnormalities like intersex. Results suggest there is a greater propensity for male intersex fish collected from parks located in the Rocky Mountains, and specifically in Rocky...

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) Georgia Water Science Center (GaWSC) maintains a long-term hydrologic monitoring network of more than 320 realtime streamgages, including 10 real-time lake-level monitoring stations and 63 realtime water-quality monitors. Additionally, the GaWSC operates more than 180 groundwater wells, 35 of which are real-time. One of the many benefits from...