Publications

Managers of large river basins face conflicting needs for water resources such as wildlife habitat, water supply, wastewater assimilative capacity, flood control, hydroelectricity, and recreation. The Savannah River Basin for example, has experienced three major droughts since 2000 that resulted in record low water levels in its reservoirs, impacting local economies for years. The...

In cooperation with the North Plains Groundwater Conservation District (NPGCD), the U.S. Geological Survey collected and analyzed water-quality samples at 30 groundwater monitor wells in the NPGCD in the Texas Panhandle. All of the wells were completed in the Ogallala Formation of the central High Plains aquifer. Samples from each well were collected during February–March 2012 and in...

These remotely sensed, geographically referenced elevation measurements of lidar-derived submerged topography datasets were produced by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center, St. Petersburg, Florida. This project provides highly detailed and accurate datasets for part of Barnegat Bay, New Jersey, acquired post-Hurricane Sandy on November 1, 5...

Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center conducted a time-series collection of shallow sediment cores from the back-barrier environments along the Chandeleur Islands, Louisiana from March 2012 through July 2013. The sampling efforts were part of a larger USGS study to evaluate effects on the geomorphology of the Chandeleur Islands...

The Edisto River is the longest and largest river system completely contained in South Carolina and is one of the longest free flowing blackwater rivers in the United States. The Edisto River basin also has fish-tissue mercury concentrations that are some of the highest recorded in the United States. As part of an effort by the U.S. Geological Survey to expand the understanding of...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the South Carolina Department of Transportation, conducted a series of three field investigations of bridge scour in order to better understand regional trends of scour within South Carolina. The studies collected historic-scour data at approximately 200 riverine bridges including measurements of clear-water abutment, contraction, and pier...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in coopeation with nthe National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) is assessing the performance of several abutment-scour predcition equations developed in NCHRP Project 24-15(2) and NCHRP Project 24-20. To accomplish this assssment, 516 laboratory and 329 fiels measurements of abutment scor were complied from selected sources and applied tto the...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, investigated the use of acoustic backscatter to estimate concentrations of suspended sediment and total phosphorus at the Barton River near Coventry, Vermont. The hypothesis was that acoustic backscatter—the reflection of sound waves off objects back to the source from which they came...

Taylor's power law describes an empirical relationship between the mean and variance of population densities in field data, in which the variance varies as a power, b, of the mean. Most studies report values of b varying between 1 and 2. However, Cohen (2014a) showed recently that smooth changes in environmental conditions in a model can lead to an abrupt, infinite change in b. To...

Coral disease is one of the major causes of reef degradation. Dark Spot Syndrome (DSS) was described in the early 1990's as brown or purple amorphous areas of tissue on a coral and has since become one of the most prevalent diseases reported on Caribbean reefs. It has been identified in a number of coral species, but there is debate as to whether it is in fact the same disease in...

Aim To assess the usefulness of combining climate predictors with additional types of environmental predictors in species distribution models for range-restricted species, using common correlative species distribution modelling approaches. Location Florida, USA Methods We used five different algorithms to create distribution models for 14 vertebrate species, using seven different...

Surface-water supplies are important sources of drinking water for residents in the Triangle area of North Carolina, which is located within the upper Cape Fear and Neuse River Basins. Since 1988, the U.S. Geological Survey and a consortium of governments have tracked water-quality conditions and trends in several of the area’s water-supply lakes and streams. This report summarizes data...