Publications

Sea-level rise threatens coastal salt-marshes and mangrove forests around the world, and a key determinant of coastal wetland vulnerability is whether its surface elevation can keep pace with rising sea level. Globally, a large data gap exists because wetland surface and shallow subsurface processes remain unaccounted for by traditional vulnerability assessments using tide gauges...

This report presents results for the summer 2012 sam-pling of muscle plugs from common carp (Cyprinus carpio), bonytail chub (Gila elegans), Colorado pikeminnow (Ptycho-cheilus lucius), and razorback suckers (Xyrauchen texanus) inhabiting critical habitat in the Gunnison River in western Colorado. Total selenium in fish muscle plugs was determinedby instrumental neutron activation...

This Data Series contains lidar-derived bare-earth (BE) topography, dune elevations, and mean-high-water shoreline position datasets for most sandy beaches for Fire Island, New York, and from Cape Henlopen, Delaware to Cape Lookout, North Carolina. The data were acquired post-Hurricane Sandy, which made landfall as an extratropical cyclone on October 29, 2012.

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’...

Accurate accounting of irrigation water use is an important part of the U.S. Geological Survey National Water-Use Information Program and the WaterSMART initiative to help maintain sustainable water resources in the Nation. Irrigation water use in the humid eastern United States is not well characterized because of inadequate reporting and wide variability associated with climate, soils...

Traditional surface-water surveys are being combined with autonomous technology to produce integrated surveys of bathymetry, water quality, and velocity in inland lakes and reservoirs. This new technology provides valuable, high-resolution, integrated data that allow a systems-based approach to understanding common environmental problems. This fact sheet presents several example...

The rational method for peak discharge (Qp) estimation was introduced in the 1880s. The runoff coefficient (C) is a key parameter for the rational method that has an implicit meaning of rate proportionality, and the C has been declared a function of the annual return period by various researchers. Rate-based runoff coefficients as a function of the return period, C(T), were determined...

Movement strategies of small forage fish (

Silent Spring was fulfilled in the United States with passage of environmental legislation such as the Clean Water Act, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, and the Toxic Substance Control Act in the 1970s. Carson's writings, television interviews, and testimony before Congress alerted a nation and the world to the unintended effects of persistent, bioaccumulative...

The Big River (BGR) drains much of the Old Lead Belt mining district (OLB) in southeastern Missouri, USA, which was historically among the largest producers of lead–zinc (Pb–Zn) ore in the world. We sampled benthic fish and crayfish in riffle habitats at eight sites in the BGR and conducted 56-day in situ exposures to the woodland crayfish (Orconectes hylas) and golden crayfish...

We assessed the quality of plant communities across a range of lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn) soil concentrations at a variety of sites associated with Pb mining in southeast Missouri, USA. In a novel application, two standard floristic quality measures, Mean Coefficient of Conservatism (Mean C) and Floristic Quality Index (FQI), were examined in relation to concentrations of Pb and Zn, soil...

We applied Hyperion sensor satellite data acquired by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite in conjunction with reconnaissance surveys to map the occurrences of the invasive Chinese tallow tree (Triadica sebifera) in the Toledo Bend Reservoir study area of northwestern Louisiana and northeastern Texas. The rationale for application of high...