Groundwater

The Ogallala Aquifer lies beneath 111 million acres of land in Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. The aquifer provides water for approximately 1.9 million people and has been instrumental in the development of the robust agriculture economy of the Great Plains region. It is also vitally important to the ecology of the region, serving as a...

Water management in the middle portion of the Rio Grande Basin (between Elephant Butte Reservoir in New Mexico and Presidio, Texas) is challenging because water demand has continued to increase over time despite limited river water and dropping groundwater levels. While urban and agricultural users can cope with frequent droughts by using a combination of river water and pumping...

Precipitation in Hawaiʻi’s higher elevation upland areas provides needed water to both people and ecosystems. Once it reaches the ground, rain can either run off and contribute to water flow in streams, or it can infiltrate into the ground and provide water for plants and recharge aquifers and groundwater. The exact route that water takes is controlled by many factors, including the...

Droughts in the Hawaiian Islands can enhance wildfire risk, diminish freshwater resources, and devastate threatened and endangered species on land and in nearshore ecosystems. During periods of drought, cloud-water interception, or fog drip (the process by which water droplets accumulate on the leaves and branches of plants and then drip to the ground) in Hawai‘i’s rain forests may play...

The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) spreads over 29 atolls and has a population of over 50,000 people; over 27,000 of those people live on the Majuro Atoll, RMI’s capital. Sea level rise threatens the very existence of RMI as high-end projections of sea level rise by the end of the century exceed the average elevation of these low atoll reef islands. Already, waves wash over...

Resource managers must balance the impacts of competing management decisions on multiple, interacting natural systems. Hydrologic and ecological processes, such as groundwater fluctuations and riparian evapotranspiration, can be tightly coupled. Ideally, managers would have tools and models that include all processes to better understand how each management action would propagate through...

As the impacts of climate change amplify, understanding the consequences for wetlands will be critical for their sustainable management and conservation, particularly in arid regions such as the Columbia Plateau. The depressional wetlands in this region (wetlands located in topographic depressions where water can accumulate) are an important source of surface water during the summer...

On Hawai‘i’s mountains, cloud droplets, propelled by strong winds, are deposited on plants, where they accumulate and drip to the ground, adding water over and above that supplied by rainfall. Prior studies show that the amount of intercepted cloud water is substantial, and variable from place to place. Estimates of the spatial patterns of cloud water interception (CWI), the fog-related...

Water is a key ecosystem service that provides life to vegetation, animals, and human communities. The distribution and flow of water on a landscape influences many ecological functions, such as the distribution and health of vegetation and soil development and function. However, the future of many important water resources remains uncertain. Reduced snowfall and snowpack, earlier spring...

This project links climate, hydrological, and ecological changes over the next 30 years in a Great Basin watershed. In recent years, climate variability on annual and decadal time scales has been recognized as greater than commonly perceived with increasing impacts on ecosystems and available water resources. Changes in vegetation distribution, composition and productivity resulting from...

Hawaiʻi’s native forests supply the state with freshwater, support cultural practices, and are home to more than 10,000 plants and animals found nowhere else in the world. However, they are also threatened by the spread of invasive species and may be vulnerable to shifting temperature and rainfall patterns brought about by climate change. Through this project, scientists sought to better

Karst aquifers—formed when the movement of water dissolves bedrock—are critical groundwater resources in North America. Water moving through these aquifers carves out magnificent caves, sinkholes, and other formations. These formations are home to high concentrations of rare and endangered species, but the hydrological conditions that support these species can change rapidly. Managing...