Discovering Connections Across America's Lands and Waters
Iconic landscapes are U.S. treasures
They support fish, wildlife, and plants as well as thriving local and regional economies. At the USGS, we study some of America's most iconic landscapes, including the waters of the Great Lakes and the Everglades, ...
... the deserts and sagebrush steppes of the Southwest, ....
... the deep waters of the Gulf of America, ...
... the migration grounds of the Platte River, ...
... the twisting wetlands of the San Francisco Bay-Delta, ...
... the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, ...
... and so much more!
Through collaboration and coordination, USGS research helps preserve and restore America’s most iconic landscapes. We apply insights across ecosystems to understand how these systems function and change, helping natural resource managers protect our Nation’s natural heritage for generations to come.
The United States is home to some of the most breathtaking ecosystems in the world.
The Everglades, where kayakers paddle through mangrove trails. The desert Southwest, where saguaros stand like sentinels over a mosaic of habitats and ranchlands. The Great Lakes, where waves crash like the ocean above a $7 billion fishery.
These landscapes are the foundation of our natural heritage
They are home to iconic species, like salmon, alligators, and sequoias, and are centers of culture and recreation, agriculture, industry, and growth.
USGS scientists are working in iconic landscapes across our nation, providing science to support resource management, restoration, and species conservation.
Although each ecosystem is unique, many landscapes face similar challenges.
Environmental changes like droughts, invasive species spread, and water contamination occur across systems, and often have similar underlying causes. Many communities are losing their iconic species, and are concerned for the cascading consequences to the ecosystem services and economic revenues they rely on.
By identifying challenges and commonalities across these important landscapes, we can help develop creative, collaborative solutions to difficult problems.
The USGS applies lessons learned across systems to bring science to bear on these issues. Our work spans diverse geographies and disciplines, allowing us to translate scientific advances and insights across landscapes, and to provide natural resource decision-makers with science that directly supports ecosystem restoration and management.
Addressing Challenges Across Priority Landscapes
A landscape is an area that includes ecosystems (lands, waters, and coasts) and human systems (cities, industrial complexes, farms, roads, etc.) that experience common management concerns. Landscapes are not defined by the size of the area, but rather by the interacting elements that are relevant and meaningful in an ecological and social management context.
Preserving the Nation’s ecosystems, and the many goods and services they provide to society, requires sound science and dedicated resource managers to apply this knowledge to real-world scenarios. The USGS delivers timely, policy-neutral data and information to help our partners effectively address challenges and conserve our natural heritage for the benefit of current and future generations.
Below, explore how USGS works within and across different landscapes to address some of today’s most pressing environmental issues.
Cross-Cutting Challenges
Altered Hydrology
Coastal Change
Invasive Species
Landscape Change
Water Quality
Altered Hydrology
Ecosystems are largely defined by the availability of water. In dry deserts, it may only rain a few times a year, while tropical rainforests may experience plentiful rain. Water availability varies over the seasons – spring rains, snowy winters, etc. – but that variability is increasing and the timing is being altered by a changing climate and extreme events like major flooding and droughts.
The processes by which water enters and moves through ecosystems are collectively called hydrology. Changes in hydrology are one of the best predictors of ecosystem change. While local shifts in hydrology can be caused by surface water management, like damming rivers, broader regional and global shifts are occurring because of changes in Earth’s climate. These effects may manifest differently in different regions. In some areas, reduced precipitation, extreme heat, or changing seasonality creates more persistent and frequent droughts. In other regions, precipitation is increasing, causing more extreme flooding events.
Understanding these changes and their effects on ecosystems can help us understand potential consequences to human activities and conservation interests.
San Francisco Bay-Delta
Water from northern California is diverted to the much-drier southern half of the state to support agriculture and provide drinking water to 25 million people. USGS science informs how to balance diversions with the maintenance of sensitive ecosystems.
Platte River
Water levels in the Platte River are now much lower than historically due to dams, human use, and lack of precipitation. The USGS is evaluating the effects of management actions, including vegetation clearing, on the structure of Platte River channels.
Everglades
The Everglades are starved for water due to freshwater diversions from Lake Okeechobee. USGS scientists conduct sediment coring and modeling to estimate the historic freshwater inflows to the Everglades and Florida Bay to help set restoration targets.
Gulf of America
Flow alterations in Gulf Coast watersheds have led to recent shifts in freshwater inflow into estuaries. USGS scientists developed a flow accounting tool so that resource managers can assess future alteration on receiving ecosystems.
Chesapeake Bay
Changing precipitation and flow patterns across the Chesapeake Bay watershed are affecting habitats for living resources. The USGS is developing forecasting tools to identify, track, and inform protection of vulnerable habitats.
Desert Southwest
Small changes to water availability can have profound impacts on valuable desert ecosystems. USGS scientists are working with partners and stakeholders to better understand dryland vulnerability to altered hydrology.
Spotlight: Watershed Recovery within the Puget Sound
Before being dammed in the early 1900s, the Elwha River was a thriving salmon-bearing watershed that drained from the Olympic Mountains to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which connects the Pacific Ocean to the Puget Sound and other parts of the Salish Sea.
From 2011-2014, the USGS joined a team of federal, state, Tribal, academic, and community partners to undergo what was at the time the largest dam removal project in U.S. history. The Elwha River restoration effort in Washington State removed two large dams on the Elwha River that had blocked salmon and sediment passage for almost 100 years.
A decade after the last dam was removed, the USGS continues to monitor the recovering ecosystem. As salmon again spawn in pristine river habitats of the Olympic National Park, our scientists study rebounding bear and other wildlife populations. We also track new sediment paths as the region returns to its natural hydrology.
This unique look into a large watershed recovery provides insights for future landscape-level restoration projects, including lessons learned for coordinating across sectors.
Coastal Change
The combination of climate change, sea-level rise, and beach erosion are changing our nation’s coastlines, impacting coastal communities and infrastructure, coastal habitats and natural resources, and regional ecosystem recovery efforts. Coastal change can manifest in many ways, including increasing flooding risk, coastal habitat loss, changes in wildlife habitat, salt water-intrusion, impacts on coastal restoration sites, bluff and beach erosion, and changing water tables.
Coastal ecosystem recovery programs must anticipate, plan for, and adapt to these complex and evolving phenomena. Our science informs these efforts, contributing to the protection of communities, infrastructure, and natural resources.
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes have lost over 90% of their historic coastal wetlands. Future climate scenarios predict more extreme water levels (higher highs and lower lows) across the Lakes. USGS science is helping to inform coastal wetland restoration and protection.
San Francisco Bay-Delta
USGS scientists in the Bay-Delta are studying land subsidence and sea-level rise to help protect communities and important agricultural lands from flooding and to ensure the integrity of water-diversion systems.
Puget Sound and Columbia Basin
Sea-level rise and intensifying winter storms concern both flood and restoration planners. USGS is applying its Coastal Storm Modeling System to coastal Puget Sound, generating high-resolution future flood scenarios under a range of possible conditions.
Chesapeake Bay
USGS scientists are working with federal partners to better understand the effectiveness of coastal wetland management and restoration efforts. They are building prioritization tools to encourage efficient investments in restoration and land protection.
Everglades
Dramatic reductions in freshwater flow to the coastal Everglades, sea level rise, and inland migration of saltwater is causing peat collapse and reductions in coastal marsh elevation. USGS science documents these changes to inform restoration managers.
Gulf of America
Sea level rise is a major driver of wetland loss in Louisiana, where about 75 sq km of coastal wetlands are lost each year. USGS scientists support a large marsh creation project in Louisiana by mapping recovery of vegetation and elevation over time.
Spotlight: Coastal Wetlands and Changing Water Levels
Coastal wetlands provide many benefits. In addition to supplying habitat for fish and wildlife, wetlands offer storm protection, improve water quality, support seafood harvests, and provide recreational opportunities. USGS wetland scientists seek to generate robust scientific information for the diverse suite of wetlands managers and decision makers to help them be good stewards of their waters and resources in the face of climate change.
In response to critical science needs of stakeholders along the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific coasts, the USGS is undertaking a comprehensive assessment of coastal wetland responses to changing water levels. This project will compile knowledge from wetlands across the country, from the Everglades to the Puget Sound, to help us better understand how wetlands are responding to increased saltwater influxes, flooding, and water depths. The assessment will provide resource managers and policy makers with evidence to guide well-informed decisions related to preservation, restoration, and adaptation of coastal wetlands at local to National scales.
Invasive Species
Invasive species disturb the delicate dance of nature, and the consequences are far-reaching, affecting everything from wildlife to the plants we depend on. Imagine our natural ecosystems as a finely tuned orchestra, where each plant and animal species plays a crucial role in maintaining harmony. Now, picture an unwelcome intruder barging in, disrupting the melody and throwing the whole ensemble into chaos. That's what invasive species do to our landscapes; upsetting the natural balance by outcompeting native species, eating local plants and animals, and generally wreaking havoc. Their invasion can create domino-like disturbances that endangers the well-being of the entire ecosystem.
Understanding how invasive species spread, and how we can control them, is critical to preserving our nation’s valuable ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.
San Francisco Bay-Delta
Water hyacinth grows rapidly in the warm, relatively still waters in the Delta, forming dense mats several feet thick and reaching shore to shore. USGS scientists study hyacinth and other invasive species that clog waterways and threaten levees.
Platte River
Phragmites established on the central Platte River during years of low flow and below-normal precipitation. The USGS determined that the invasion is primarily non-native plants and evaluated strategies for limiting reinvasion after restoration efforts.
Everglades
Burmese pythons have killed 90% of the small and medium-sized animals in the Everglades. USGS scientists are tracking python range expansion using eDNA and studying their life history by implanting tracking devices and determining their diet.
Chesapeake Bay
200+ invasive species inhabit the Chesapeake Bay, including blue catfish. To protect native species, the USGS is studying the life history and population dynamics of blue catfish to help managers understand potential impacts to ecosystem restoration.
Puget Sound and Columbia Basin
The USGS is working to increase the effectiveness of Washington’s green crab early detection and rapid response program to help prevent the damaging species from invading the highly valuable Puget Sound.
Great Lakes
Invasive carp (bighead, silver, black, and grass carps) in the Mississippi River are nearing striking distance of the Great Lakes. USGS science informs management decisions to prevent invasive carp from impacting the Great Lakes.
Spotlight: Invasive Annual Grasses in Drylands
Invasive annual grasses outcompete native dryland plants for water and nutrients, turning diverse desert and sagebrush ecosystems into dry monocultures. They also feed large, catastrophic wildfires that often take decades to recover from.
These impacts are especially visible in sagebrush ecosystems. Spanning over 175 million acres of private and public lands in the Western United States, the sagebrush biome is home to a broad range of biological, cultural, and economic resources. Yet these landscapes are being lost and degraded rapidly. Not only are they experiencing changing climate and prolonged drought, and but highly flammable invasive annual grasses are rapidly taking over and propagating large, severe, wildland fires which contribute to an average annual loss of 1.3 million acres over the last two decades.
USGS research explores the impacts of invasive grasses on dryland ecosystems across the western United States, identifying new threats from climate change and strategizing ways to restore native plant communities. As part of this research, USGS scientists provide managers with summarized data and maps, giving them access to spatially relevant and up-to-date resources when combatting the spread of invasive grasses into sagebrush ecosystems.
Landscape Change
Landscapes are dynamic, constantly shifting due to both natural processes and human activity – storms that blow through barrier islands, fires that clear underbrush, and development. While change is a natural part of the world, some landscape changes are accelerating and have long-term and far-reaching consequences. Natural processes, such as forest succession and wildfires, as well as activities like agriculture, forestry, and energy production, substantially change how the landscape is used and the conditions for fish, wildlife, and people.
Understanding how the land is currently used and how those conditions are changing over time is vital for informing restoration and conservation activities across these landscapes.
San Francisco Bay-Delta
Peat accumulation within historical Delta wetlands – now drained and leveed – created rich soils feeding a richly productive agricultural region. USGS is assessing the vulnerability of this system to seismic activity, flooding and changes in sea level.
Platte River
Riparian grasslands have decreased greatly from agricultural conversion and reduced river flows. The USGS explores linkages between river dynamics, groundwater systems, and ecosystems in the remaining wetlands and grasslands.
Gulf of America
Impacts of landscape shifts in Gulf States from rural to developed in recent years have led to coral habitat loss in coastal estuaries. USGS scientists lead an interagency collaboration to protect and enhance coral communities in the Gulf.
Desert Southwest
Southwest landscapes are changing due to population growth, energy development, a megadrought, etc. USGS scientists and partners are working to understand societal and ecosystem impacts of these changes, and to identify strategies to reduce impacts.
Everglades
Florida continues to experience rapid population growth with a net increase of more than 1,000 residents each day. More than one-half of the Everglades landscape has been irreversibly lost due to expanding agricultural and urban land use.
Sagebrush
Wildfires, invasive grasses, and drought are contributing to significant sagebrush losses. USGS scientists are working with managers to understand these declines and determine approaches for effective restoration that will increase sagebrush resiliency.
Land Use Mapping in the Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay is the Nation’s largest estuary. The watershed is home to more than 18 million people, produces about 500 million pounds of seafood each year, and provides an estimated $100 billion in annual economic revenue. Large centers of culture and economic activity, such as Washington D.C. and Baltimore, sit within the watershed.
With so many people, species, and industries within the same system, urban planners and natural resource managers alike must navigate an ever-changing mosaic of land use changes – from new housing developments to new restoration projects.
To help these communities better plan urban and conservation efforts, the USGS teamed up with the Chesapeake Conservancy and the University of Vermont Spatial Analysis Lab to produce high-resolution land cover and land use datasets for the watershed. These maps boast 900 times more detail than previous data sets, and provide over 50 unique categories of land use, such as impervious buildings, croplands, and tidal wetlands, to help inform fine-scale planning.
These data, paired with land-change models, help inform local-scale planning and natural resource management decisions. They can also help the communities document changes in vital habitat (such as forests and wetlands), model water-quality conditions, and assess the effects of development on people and ecosystems.
Water Quality
More than 70 percent of Earth’s surface is covered in water, yet lack of access to clean water is one of the most pressing challenges of our time. Today, more than two million Americans do not have access to clean drinking water at home, and nearly a quarter of U.S. households on private wells have contaminants in their water, like arsenic or E. coli. Poor water quality also has detrimental effects on both freshwater and marine ecosystems; too many nutrients in the water can cause excess growth of algae (called Harmful Algal Booms, or HABs), and other pollutants such as pesticides can harm fish and other aquatic species.
Understanding and mitigating drivers of poor water quality are vital for maintaining healthy communities and ecosystems across the Nation.
Platte River
Hundreds of thousands of sandhill cranes use the Platte River as a stopover during their spring migration. The USGS studied potential water-quality impacts of these birds and found that a range of pathogens were present where sandhill cranes use the river
Everglades
The Everglades evolved under very low nutrient concentrations, particularly phosphorus. Excess phosphorus pollution can cause dramatic changes in the ecosystem, changing from the native and biologically diverse sawgrass habitat to a cattail monoculture.
Puget Sound and Columbia Basin
Tire particle pollution directly impacts Coho salmon mortality. USGS is providing important interdisciplinary science to support regional stormwater monitoring and treatment strategies for partners on the front line of dealing with the problem.
Desert Southwest
The USGS, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and others compiled a 58-year water quality dataset for Lake Powell, the longest known published water quality record for any human-made reservoir system. This informs the management of the Colorado River Basin.
Chesapeake Bay
The USGS leads water-quality monitoring efforts and data analyses to determine nutrient and sediment loads in the Chesapeake Bay, and explores trends in water quality to determine where conditions are improving or degrading over time.
San Francisco Bay-Delta
The USGS monitors flow, water quality, and other dynamics in the Bay-Delta system to support decisions about land management and water diversion to agriculture and municipal uses.
Great Lakes
To inform efforts to reduce harmful algal blooms across the Great Lakes, the USGS is evaluating best management practices, monitoring nutrient inputs, and increasing the overall scientific understanding of the link between nutrients and HABs.
Gulf of America
The USGS measures localized shifts in water salinity, or “saltiness”, in the Gulf to understand impacts to fishery and shellfish industries.
Spotlight: Harmful Algal Blooms
The “dead zone” in the Gulf of America, an area of low oxygen where marine life cannot survive, stretches from the Mississippi River delta in Louisiana to the Texas coastline. This area measured approximately 6,705 square miles in 2024, roughly the size of New Jersey, and costs an estimated $82 million a year to the U.S. seafood and tourism industries.
The Gulf is just one of many aquatic ecosystems experiencing dramatic harmful algal blooms, or HABs. During these events, algae and bacteria multiply so fast that they cover water bodies and waterways, starving aquatic species for light and oxygen and making the water toxic for people and livestock. HABs are often caused by nutrient pollution from agricultural, urban, and industrial runoff. They can occur in bodies of water of any size, from the green slime that covers small drainage ponds to the red tides that wash up along ocean coastlines.
The USGS is studying the causes, consequences, and prevention of harmful algal blooms in landscapes across the Nation, including in the San Francisco Bay-Delta, the Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes, the Everglades, and the Gulf of America. These efforts include water quality monitoring and nutrient cycle modeling. Projects build upon one another, helping to refine data collection methods and modeling approaches to provide stakeholders with the best information possible to help reduce HAB impacts to people and aquatic communities.
About Us
The USGS conducts research to improve the effectiveness of land management and to inform restoration of priority ecosystems on millions of acres, including public lands such as national parks, refuges, and other critical landscapes that support diverse fish, wildlife, and plant species, as well as thriving economies.
We bring together diverse disciplines, including biologists, social scientists, and engineers, to address some of today’s greatest environmental challenges. Our science is unbiased and relevant, allowing managers and policy makers to better understand how to protect these systems for future generations. Many projects are large-scale, crossing organizational and state boundaries.
Check out the work we are doing across these landscapes and learn more about each ecosystem in the map below.
Everglades
Chesapeake Bay
Gulf of America
Puget Sound and Columbia Basin
San Francisco Bay-Delta
Desert Southwest
Platte River
Great Lakes
Sagebrush
Title
Click on each region to explore some of the many iconic landscapes the USGS studies.
Through collaboration and coordination, USGS research helps preserve and restore America’s most iconic landscapes. We apply insights across ecosystems to understand how these systems function and change, helping natural resource managers protect our Nation’s natural heritage for generations to come.
The United States is home to some of the most breathtaking ecosystems in the world.
The Everglades, where kayakers paddle through mangrove trails. The desert Southwest, where saguaros stand like sentinels over a mosaic of habitats and ranchlands. The Great Lakes, where waves crash like the ocean above a $7 billion fishery.
These landscapes are the foundation of our natural heritage
They are home to iconic species, like salmon, alligators, and sequoias, and are centers of culture and recreation, agriculture, industry, and growth.
USGS scientists are working in iconic landscapes across our nation, providing science to support resource management, restoration, and species conservation.
Although each ecosystem is unique, many landscapes face similar challenges.
Environmental changes like droughts, invasive species spread, and water contamination occur across systems, and often have similar underlying causes. Many communities are losing their iconic species, and are concerned for the cascading consequences to the ecosystem services and economic revenues they rely on.
By identifying challenges and commonalities across these important landscapes, we can help develop creative, collaborative solutions to difficult problems.
The USGS applies lessons learned across systems to bring science to bear on these issues. Our work spans diverse geographies and disciplines, allowing us to translate scientific advances and insights across landscapes, and to provide natural resource decision-makers with science that directly supports ecosystem restoration and management.
Addressing Challenges Across Priority Landscapes
A landscape is an area that includes ecosystems (lands, waters, and coasts) and human systems (cities, industrial complexes, farms, roads, etc.) that experience common management concerns. Landscapes are not defined by the size of the area, but rather by the interacting elements that are relevant and meaningful in an ecological and social management context.
Preserving the Nation’s ecosystems, and the many goods and services they provide to society, requires sound science and dedicated resource managers to apply this knowledge to real-world scenarios. The USGS delivers timely, policy-neutral data and information to help our partners effectively address challenges and conserve our natural heritage for the benefit of current and future generations.
Below, explore how USGS works within and across different landscapes to address some of today’s most pressing environmental issues.
Cross-Cutting Challenges
Altered Hydrology
Coastal Change
Invasive Species
Landscape Change
Water Quality
Altered Hydrology
Ecosystems are largely defined by the availability of water. In dry deserts, it may only rain a few times a year, while tropical rainforests may experience plentiful rain. Water availability varies over the seasons – spring rains, snowy winters, etc. – but that variability is increasing and the timing is being altered by a changing climate and extreme events like major flooding and droughts.
The processes by which water enters and moves through ecosystems are collectively called hydrology. Changes in hydrology are one of the best predictors of ecosystem change. While local shifts in hydrology can be caused by surface water management, like damming rivers, broader regional and global shifts are occurring because of changes in Earth’s climate. These effects may manifest differently in different regions. In some areas, reduced precipitation, extreme heat, or changing seasonality creates more persistent and frequent droughts. In other regions, precipitation is increasing, causing more extreme flooding events.
Understanding these changes and their effects on ecosystems can help us understand potential consequences to human activities and conservation interests.
San Francisco Bay-Delta
Water from northern California is diverted to the much-drier southern half of the state to support agriculture and provide drinking water to 25 million people. USGS science informs how to balance diversions with the maintenance of sensitive ecosystems.
Platte River
Water levels in the Platte River are now much lower than historically due to dams, human use, and lack of precipitation. The USGS is evaluating the effects of management actions, including vegetation clearing, on the structure of Platte River channels.
Everglades
The Everglades are starved for water due to freshwater diversions from Lake Okeechobee. USGS scientists conduct sediment coring and modeling to estimate the historic freshwater inflows to the Everglades and Florida Bay to help set restoration targets.
Gulf of America
Flow alterations in Gulf Coast watersheds have led to recent shifts in freshwater inflow into estuaries. USGS scientists developed a flow accounting tool so that resource managers can assess future alteration on receiving ecosystems.
Chesapeake Bay
Changing precipitation and flow patterns across the Chesapeake Bay watershed are affecting habitats for living resources. The USGS is developing forecasting tools to identify, track, and inform protection of vulnerable habitats.
Desert Southwest
Small changes to water availability can have profound impacts on valuable desert ecosystems. USGS scientists are working with partners and stakeholders to better understand dryland vulnerability to altered hydrology.
Spotlight: Watershed Recovery within the Puget Sound
Before being dammed in the early 1900s, the Elwha River was a thriving salmon-bearing watershed that drained from the Olympic Mountains to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which connects the Pacific Ocean to the Puget Sound and other parts of the Salish Sea.
From 2011-2014, the USGS joined a team of federal, state, Tribal, academic, and community partners to undergo what was at the time the largest dam removal project in U.S. history. The Elwha River restoration effort in Washington State removed two large dams on the Elwha River that had blocked salmon and sediment passage for almost 100 years.
A decade after the last dam was removed, the USGS continues to monitor the recovering ecosystem. As salmon again spawn in pristine river habitats of the Olympic National Park, our scientists study rebounding bear and other wildlife populations. We also track new sediment paths as the region returns to its natural hydrology.
This unique look into a large watershed recovery provides insights for future landscape-level restoration projects, including lessons learned for coordinating across sectors.
Coastal Change
The combination of climate change, sea-level rise, and beach erosion are changing our nation’s coastlines, impacting coastal communities and infrastructure, coastal habitats and natural resources, and regional ecosystem recovery efforts. Coastal change can manifest in many ways, including increasing flooding risk, coastal habitat loss, changes in wildlife habitat, salt water-intrusion, impacts on coastal restoration sites, bluff and beach erosion, and changing water tables.
Coastal ecosystem recovery programs must anticipate, plan for, and adapt to these complex and evolving phenomena. Our science informs these efforts, contributing to the protection of communities, infrastructure, and natural resources.
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes have lost over 90% of their historic coastal wetlands. Future climate scenarios predict more extreme water levels (higher highs and lower lows) across the Lakes. USGS science is helping to inform coastal wetland restoration and protection.
San Francisco Bay-Delta
USGS scientists in the Bay-Delta are studying land subsidence and sea-level rise to help protect communities and important agricultural lands from flooding and to ensure the integrity of water-diversion systems.
Puget Sound and Columbia Basin
Sea-level rise and intensifying winter storms concern both flood and restoration planners. USGS is applying its Coastal Storm Modeling System to coastal Puget Sound, generating high-resolution future flood scenarios under a range of possible conditions.
Chesapeake Bay
USGS scientists are working with federal partners to better understand the effectiveness of coastal wetland management and restoration efforts. They are building prioritization tools to encourage efficient investments in restoration and land protection.
Everglades
Dramatic reductions in freshwater flow to the coastal Everglades, sea level rise, and inland migration of saltwater is causing peat collapse and reductions in coastal marsh elevation. USGS science documents these changes to inform restoration managers.
Gulf of America
Sea level rise is a major driver of wetland loss in Louisiana, where about 75 sq km of coastal wetlands are lost each year. USGS scientists support a large marsh creation project in Louisiana by mapping recovery of vegetation and elevation over time.
Spotlight: Coastal Wetlands and Changing Water Levels
Coastal wetlands provide many benefits. In addition to supplying habitat for fish and wildlife, wetlands offer storm protection, improve water quality, support seafood harvests, and provide recreational opportunities. USGS wetland scientists seek to generate robust scientific information for the diverse suite of wetlands managers and decision makers to help them be good stewards of their waters and resources in the face of climate change.
In response to critical science needs of stakeholders along the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific coasts, the USGS is undertaking a comprehensive assessment of coastal wetland responses to changing water levels. This project will compile knowledge from wetlands across the country, from the Everglades to the Puget Sound, to help us better understand how wetlands are responding to increased saltwater influxes, flooding, and water depths. The assessment will provide resource managers and policy makers with evidence to guide well-informed decisions related to preservation, restoration, and adaptation of coastal wetlands at local to National scales.
Invasive Species
Invasive species disturb the delicate dance of nature, and the consequences are far-reaching, affecting everything from wildlife to the plants we depend on. Imagine our natural ecosystems as a finely tuned orchestra, where each plant and animal species plays a crucial role in maintaining harmony. Now, picture an unwelcome intruder barging in, disrupting the melody and throwing the whole ensemble into chaos. That's what invasive species do to our landscapes; upsetting the natural balance by outcompeting native species, eating local plants and animals, and generally wreaking havoc. Their invasion can create domino-like disturbances that endangers the well-being of the entire ecosystem.
Understanding how invasive species spread, and how we can control them, is critical to preserving our nation’s valuable ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.
San Francisco Bay-Delta
Water hyacinth grows rapidly in the warm, relatively still waters in the Delta, forming dense mats several feet thick and reaching shore to shore. USGS scientists study hyacinth and other invasive species that clog waterways and threaten levees.
Platte River
Phragmites established on the central Platte River during years of low flow and below-normal precipitation. The USGS determined that the invasion is primarily non-native plants and evaluated strategies for limiting reinvasion after restoration efforts.
Everglades
Burmese pythons have killed 90% of the small and medium-sized animals in the Everglades. USGS scientists are tracking python range expansion using eDNA and studying their life history by implanting tracking devices and determining their diet.
Chesapeake Bay
200+ invasive species inhabit the Chesapeake Bay, including blue catfish. To protect native species, the USGS is studying the life history and population dynamics of blue catfish to help managers understand potential impacts to ecosystem restoration.
Puget Sound and Columbia Basin
The USGS is working to increase the effectiveness of Washington’s green crab early detection and rapid response program to help prevent the damaging species from invading the highly valuable Puget Sound.
Great Lakes
Invasive carp (bighead, silver, black, and grass carps) in the Mississippi River are nearing striking distance of the Great Lakes. USGS science informs management decisions to prevent invasive carp from impacting the Great Lakes.
Spotlight: Invasive Annual Grasses in Drylands
Invasive annual grasses outcompete native dryland plants for water and nutrients, turning diverse desert and sagebrush ecosystems into dry monocultures. They also feed large, catastrophic wildfires that often take decades to recover from.
These impacts are especially visible in sagebrush ecosystems. Spanning over 175 million acres of private and public lands in the Western United States, the sagebrush biome is home to a broad range of biological, cultural, and economic resources. Yet these landscapes are being lost and degraded rapidly. Not only are they experiencing changing climate and prolonged drought, and but highly flammable invasive annual grasses are rapidly taking over and propagating large, severe, wildland fires which contribute to an average annual loss of 1.3 million acres over the last two decades.
USGS research explores the impacts of invasive grasses on dryland ecosystems across the western United States, identifying new threats from climate change and strategizing ways to restore native plant communities. As part of this research, USGS scientists provide managers with summarized data and maps, giving them access to spatially relevant and up-to-date resources when combatting the spread of invasive grasses into sagebrush ecosystems.
Landscape Change
Landscapes are dynamic, constantly shifting due to both natural processes and human activity – storms that blow through barrier islands, fires that clear underbrush, and development. While change is a natural part of the world, some landscape changes are accelerating and have long-term and far-reaching consequences. Natural processes, such as forest succession and wildfires, as well as activities like agriculture, forestry, and energy production, substantially change how the landscape is used and the conditions for fish, wildlife, and people.
Understanding how the land is currently used and how those conditions are changing over time is vital for informing restoration and conservation activities across these landscapes.
San Francisco Bay-Delta
Peat accumulation within historical Delta wetlands – now drained and leveed – created rich soils feeding a richly productive agricultural region. USGS is assessing the vulnerability of this system to seismic activity, flooding and changes in sea level.
Platte River
Riparian grasslands have decreased greatly from agricultural conversion and reduced river flows. The USGS explores linkages between river dynamics, groundwater systems, and ecosystems in the remaining wetlands and grasslands.
Gulf of America
Impacts of landscape shifts in Gulf States from rural to developed in recent years have led to coral habitat loss in coastal estuaries. USGS scientists lead an interagency collaboration to protect and enhance coral communities in the Gulf.
Desert Southwest
Southwest landscapes are changing due to population growth, energy development, a megadrought, etc. USGS scientists and partners are working to understand societal and ecosystem impacts of these changes, and to identify strategies to reduce impacts.
Everglades
Florida continues to experience rapid population growth with a net increase of more than 1,000 residents each day. More than one-half of the Everglades landscape has been irreversibly lost due to expanding agricultural and urban land use.
Sagebrush
Wildfires, invasive grasses, and drought are contributing to significant sagebrush losses. USGS scientists are working with managers to understand these declines and determine approaches for effective restoration that will increase sagebrush resiliency.
Land Use Mapping in the Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay is the Nation’s largest estuary. The watershed is home to more than 18 million people, produces about 500 million pounds of seafood each year, and provides an estimated $100 billion in annual economic revenue. Large centers of culture and economic activity, such as Washington D.C. and Baltimore, sit within the watershed.
With so many people, species, and industries within the same system, urban planners and natural resource managers alike must navigate an ever-changing mosaic of land use changes – from new housing developments to new restoration projects.
To help these communities better plan urban and conservation efforts, the USGS teamed up with the Chesapeake Conservancy and the University of Vermont Spatial Analysis Lab to produce high-resolution land cover and land use datasets for the watershed. These maps boast 900 times more detail than previous data sets, and provide over 50 unique categories of land use, such as impervious buildings, croplands, and tidal wetlands, to help inform fine-scale planning.
These data, paired with land-change models, help inform local-scale planning and natural resource management decisions. They can also help the communities document changes in vital habitat (such as forests and wetlands), model water-quality conditions, and assess the effects of development on people and ecosystems.
Water Quality
More than 70 percent of Earth’s surface is covered in water, yet lack of access to clean water is one of the most pressing challenges of our time. Today, more than two million Americans do not have access to clean drinking water at home, and nearly a quarter of U.S. households on private wells have contaminants in their water, like arsenic or E. coli. Poor water quality also has detrimental effects on both freshwater and marine ecosystems; too many nutrients in the water can cause excess growth of algae (called Harmful Algal Booms, or HABs), and other pollutants such as pesticides can harm fish and other aquatic species.
Understanding and mitigating drivers of poor water quality are vital for maintaining healthy communities and ecosystems across the Nation.
Platte River
Hundreds of thousands of sandhill cranes use the Platte River as a stopover during their spring migration. The USGS studied potential water-quality impacts of these birds and found that a range of pathogens were present where sandhill cranes use the river
Everglades
The Everglades evolved under very low nutrient concentrations, particularly phosphorus. Excess phosphorus pollution can cause dramatic changes in the ecosystem, changing from the native and biologically diverse sawgrass habitat to a cattail monoculture.
Puget Sound and Columbia Basin
Tire particle pollution directly impacts Coho salmon mortality. USGS is providing important interdisciplinary science to support regional stormwater monitoring and treatment strategies for partners on the front line of dealing with the problem.
Desert Southwest
The USGS, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and others compiled a 58-year water quality dataset for Lake Powell, the longest known published water quality record for any human-made reservoir system. This informs the management of the Colorado River Basin.
Chesapeake Bay
The USGS leads water-quality monitoring efforts and data analyses to determine nutrient and sediment loads in the Chesapeake Bay, and explores trends in water quality to determine where conditions are improving or degrading over time.
San Francisco Bay-Delta
The USGS monitors flow, water quality, and other dynamics in the Bay-Delta system to support decisions about land management and water diversion to agriculture and municipal uses.
Great Lakes
To inform efforts to reduce harmful algal blooms across the Great Lakes, the USGS is evaluating best management practices, monitoring nutrient inputs, and increasing the overall scientific understanding of the link between nutrients and HABs.
Gulf of America
The USGS measures localized shifts in water salinity, or “saltiness”, in the Gulf to understand impacts to fishery and shellfish industries.
Spotlight: Harmful Algal Blooms
The “dead zone” in the Gulf of America, an area of low oxygen where marine life cannot survive, stretches from the Mississippi River delta in Louisiana to the Texas coastline. This area measured approximately 6,705 square miles in 2024, roughly the size of New Jersey, and costs an estimated $82 million a year to the U.S. seafood and tourism industries.
The Gulf is just one of many aquatic ecosystems experiencing dramatic harmful algal blooms, or HABs. During these events, algae and bacteria multiply so fast that they cover water bodies and waterways, starving aquatic species for light and oxygen and making the water toxic for people and livestock. HABs are often caused by nutrient pollution from agricultural, urban, and industrial runoff. They can occur in bodies of water of any size, from the green slime that covers small drainage ponds to the red tides that wash up along ocean coastlines.
The USGS is studying the causes, consequences, and prevention of harmful algal blooms in landscapes across the Nation, including in the San Francisco Bay-Delta, the Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes, the Everglades, and the Gulf of America. These efforts include water quality monitoring and nutrient cycle modeling. Projects build upon one another, helping to refine data collection methods and modeling approaches to provide stakeholders with the best information possible to help reduce HAB impacts to people and aquatic communities.
About Us
The USGS conducts research to improve the effectiveness of land management and to inform restoration of priority ecosystems on millions of acres, including public lands such as national parks, refuges, and other critical landscapes that support diverse fish, wildlife, and plant species, as well as thriving economies.
We bring together diverse disciplines, including biologists, social scientists, and engineers, to address some of today’s greatest environmental challenges. Our science is unbiased and relevant, allowing managers and policy makers to better understand how to protect these systems for future generations. Many projects are large-scale, crossing organizational and state boundaries.
Check out the work we are doing across these landscapes and learn more about each ecosystem in the map below.