Ecosystem

Coastal estuaries in southern New England and New York show the effects of excess nutrients and coastal eutrophication. These include excessive growth of macroalgae, excessive blooms of phytoplankton, oxygen depletion, hypoxia and deteriorated substrates. State and Federal regulators have responded to these nutrient-caused impairments by requiring more stringent permit limits for National...

PROBLEM Alley Creek, a tributary to Little Neck Bay (Queens County, New York; figure 1) has been designated as impaired by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYS DEC) for primary and secondary contact and included on the 303(d) Impaired Waterways for pathogens related to combined sewer overflow contributions. The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYC

The Pawcatuck River and the Pawcatuck River Estuary and Little Narragansett Bay form part of the boundary between the States of Connecticut and Rhode Island. Both states have identified water quality impairments within these waters related to nutrients (insufficient oxygen) and bacteria. Studies of the eutrophication potential of Long Island Sound embayments have identified that the Pawcatuck...

Estuarine processes, hazards, and ecosystems describes several interdisciplinary projects that aim to quantify and understand estuarine processes through observations and numerical modeling. Both the spatial and temporal scales of these mechanisms are important, and therefore require modern instrumentation and state-of-the-art hydrodynamic models. These projects are led from the U.S. Geological...

The 2,983 miles of streams in Connecticut support a range of uses, including drinking water, recreation, and fish and shellfish habitat. The State is required by the Clean Water Act to assess the health of these waters every two years.

The purpose of this work is to better understand the effects of dam removal on local hydraulics, fish passage, and flooding. This study is part of a larger effort to monitor ecological resilience changes at nine Hurricane Sandy coastal resiliency aquatic connectivity restoration projects. It will contribute crucial knowledge that will be used to improve aquatic connectivity system cost...

We are developing new routines within the COAWST model framework to represent coupled bio-physical processes in estuarine and coastal regions. These include routines for marsh vulnerability to waves, estuarine biogeochemistry, and feedbacks between aquatic vegetation and hydrodynamics.

Groundwater sustainability can be best defined as the development and use of groundwater in a manner that can be maintained for an indefinite time without causing unacceptable environmental or socioeconomic consequences. Informed management of the Long Island aquifer system can help ensure a regionally sustainable groundwater resource. The USGS and New York State Department of Environmental...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is a science organization that provides impartial information on the health of our ecosystems and environment, the natural hazards that threaten us, the natural resources we rely on, the impacts of climate and land-use change, and the core science systems that help us provide timely, relevant, and usable information.

Problem The discharge of freshwater and associated loading of nutrients and other dissolved constituents from the Long Island aquifer system to surrounding estuaries and their tributaries are increasingly recognized as critical factors in the health of these ecosystems. However, further work is needed to scientifically characterize these factors and present them to the public in an appropriate m