Publications

Winter body condition is an important driver of survival, reproductive output, and overall population health in waterfowl. Diving duck species use distinct habitats, exploit unique resources, and can collectively provide an integrated index of winter habitat quality. The San Francisco Bay (SFB) is the largest estuary on the west coast of North America, serving as critical wintering...

Worldwide, about 50% of the population is served by groundwater-sourced drinking water. Numerous groundwater quality assessments have found that geogenic constituents are among the most common contaminants in drinking-water aquifers. Documenting changing groundwater quality is a crucial aspect of water availability assessments. We assess trends and occurrence of geogenic constituent...

Executive Summary The U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Calibration and Validation (Cal/Val) Center of Excellence (ECCOE) focuses on improving the accuracy, precision, calibration, and product quality of remote- sensing data, leveraging years of multiscale optical system geometric and radiometric calibration and characterization experience. The ECCOE Landsat...

Fault-related folds and their associated secondary faults play a critical yet often underrecognized role in accommodating strain and generating earthquakes in active fold-and-thrust belts. In the Seattle fault zone (SFZ), Washington, USA, we present new paleoseismic, geomorphic, and geophysical evidence for late Pleistocene and Holocene earthquakes on shallow, south-dipping secondary...

Introduction Restoration outcomes in cold desert ecosystems like sagebrush steppe are affected by weather variability, particularly during the spring, a critical time period for seedling establishment. Seedling emergence phenology is also highly variable among species in these ecosystems. Seed-based restoration outcomes are likely affected by the emergence timing of species in seed mixes...

Coastal marsh conversion into ponds, which may be triggered by sea-level rise, is considered an important driver of marsh loss and their valuable ecosystem services. Previous studies have focused on the role of wind waves in driving the expansion of interior marsh ponds, through lateral erosion of marsh edges surrounding the ponds. Here, we propose another mechanism between sea-level...

Introduction The San Francisco Bay and Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta Estuary (hereafter, Bay-Delta) is the largest estuary on the West Coast of the United States. The Bay- Delta covers more than 1,600 square miles and drains a watershed of more than 75,000 square miles, which is greater than 40 percent of California. The region surrounding the Bay- Delta is home to about 10 million people...

The distribution and abundance of Phragmites in the Great Lakes coastal zone has expanded in part due to its unique ventilation physiology and its ability to take advantage of changes in lake levels over the past several decades. During an extended period of low lake levels in the early 2000s, Phragmites expanded into vast shallow water areas as lake bottoms were exposed. Many of those...

Regulatory agencies in humid temperate environments rely on timely evaluations of streamflow depletion and drawdown to protect aquatic ecosystems and existing water users. Numerical models offer detailed insights, but their complexity and time demands often preclude their practical use in rapid decision-making. We present pycap-dss, an open-source Python package that implements a suite...

Our understanding of the impacts of climate change, sea-level rise (SLR), and freshwater management on the magnitude and variability of carbon fluxes in tidal forested wetlands remains limited. In this study, we applied a process-driven wetland biogeochemistry model, Wetland Carbon Assessment Tool—DeNitrification-DeComposition (WCAT-DNDC) model to explore responses of carbon fluxes in...

Geothermal systems are vulnerable to changes in water budget and composition, requiring science-based management. This study uses a dataset of spring water temperatures, time series of groundwater residence time tracers (tritium and carbon-14), and stable isotopes of water to understand geothermal flow in a low-temperature geothermal system in north west Colorado, United States...

Earthquake response plans and earthquake early warning (EEW) systems designed for general populations may not consider potential access and functional needs (AFN) of individuals with physical, sensory, cognitive, or social limitations. Previous efforts to map the distribution of these populations have focused on social-vulnerability indices that ignore or oversimply these limitations...