Warren, D. R., A. G. Ernst, and B. P. Baldigo. 2009. Influence of spring floods on year-class strength of fall- and spring-spawning salmonids in Catskill Mountain streams. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 138(1):200-210.
Barry P Baldigo
Barry Baldigo has been a Research Biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey since 1990. He leads numerous collaborative studies that aim to improve our understanding of the health of aquatic ecosystems, impacts of environmental contaminants and hydrologic modification, important interrelations, and management options that help mitigate ecological disturbance and sustain valuable natural resources.
Biography
Education:
Utica College of Syracuse University B.S. Biology, 1978
SUNY, College of Environmental Sciences & Forestry M.S. Fisheries Biology, 1982
Professional Membership:
Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry
American Fisheries Society
New York State Chapter of the American Fisheries Society
Society for Freshwater Science (formerly North American Benthological Society)
Professional Experience:
Research Biologist (RGE); U.S. Geological Survey, Troy, NY; 1990-present: Principal investigator for cooperative water programs (with NGOs, and county, regional, and state agencies) evaluating interrelations among restoration, channel stability, habitat, and fish communities; tissue contaminants and toxicity of water and sediments in Areas of Concern across the Great Lakes; basin features, impoundments, and American eel sub-populations; municipal and industrial waste waters, estrogenicity, endocrine disruption, and fish biomarkers; regional bankfull hydraulic-geometry models and drainage areas; acid deposition, fish assemblages, trout survival, and biological response models; and flow-modification, temperatures, turbidity, and fish assemblages in Adirondack and Catskill Mountain rivers.
Senior Biologist; Adirondack Lakes Survey Corp, Raybrook, NY; 1988-1990: Field coordinator for the EPA’s Episodic Response Project assessing effects of episodic acidification on water quality, fish survival, and biologic communities in streams of the southwestern Adirondack Mountains, New York.
Senior Scientist; Lockheed Engineering and Sciences Co., Las Vegas, NV; 1984-1988: Lead investigator for several EPA technical-support projects in the Northwest and regional coordinator and instructor for EPA’s NSWS Eastern and Western Lakes-, Eastern Stream-, and Michigan Lakes Biology and Acidification Surveys.
Research Biologist; University of Nevada, Dept. of Biological Sciences, Las Vegas, NV; 1980-1984: Invertebrate taxonomist and technician; helped develop and assess new field guidelines for modifying EPA’s national site-specific water quality criteria (NPDES permitting program) and stream biological assessments.
Science and Products
Date published: September 3, 2020
Status: Active Documenting Biological Recovery in Acidified Adirondack Streams in Response to the 1990 Amendment to the Clean Air Act
BACKGROUND Chemistry data from a group of Adirondack lakes monitored since the mid-1990s indicate that chemical recovery is currently underway and can be attributed to declining deposition loads of sulfate and nitrate in direct response to the 1990 amendment to the Clean Air Act (CAA) and other regulations. Changes in the water quality of several western Adirondack streams suggest that...
Contacts: Barry P Baldigo
Attribution: New York Water Science Center
Date published: November 20, 2019
Status: Active Areas of Concern: New York Statewide Fish Collection - Contaminants in fish from the Buffalo River AOC
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) and Department of Health (NYSDOH), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) sampled fish from the Buffalo River AOC during summer 2017 to help determine if current fish-consumption advisories are appropriate and if residue data support or do not support removal of the “Restrictions on Fish and Wildlife Consumption” beneficial...
Contacts: Barry P Baldigo
Attribution: Great Lakes Restoration Initiative
Date published: November 12, 2019
Status: Active Areas of Concern: Niagara River
USGS scientists participated in several projects supporting work in the Niagara River Area of Concern including: 1) Evaluating toxicity in Benthos Sediment, 2) Tracking PCB Sources in the AOC, and Identifying Source Areas Contributing to Contaminants Found in Fish Tissue.
Attribution: Great Lakes Restoration Initiative
Date published: September 17, 2019
Status: Active Eighteenmile Creek Area of Concern Fish Community Assessment
Background: Eighteenmile Creek was designated as an Area of Concern (AOC) in 1985 because water quality and bed sediments were contaminated by past industrial and municipal discharges, waste disposal, and pesticide usage. Five Beneficial Use Impairments (BUIs) were identified in the Eighteenmile Creek AOC, including BUI #3 - the degradation of fish and wildlife populations. The remedial action...
Contacts: Scott George, Barry P Baldigo
Date published: September 5, 2019
Status: Active Status of American Eel populations in the Mohawk River Basin
Background: The waters of the Mohawk River basin are inhabited by one of the richest fish communities on the East Coast. The American Eel, Anguilla rostrata, is a unique member of this community, exhibiting a catadramous (maturing in fresh water and spawning in salt water) life history. Like many migratory fish, the American Eel has suffered a general decline across the East Coast largely...
Contacts: Scott George, Barry P Baldigo
Date published: August 8, 2019
Status: Active Track down survey of PCBs in three tributaries to the Niagara River Area of Concern (AOC)
Background Industrial discharges of toxic and bio-accumulating compounds to the Niagara River and its tributaries have occurred over many decades. High concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have been found in samples of fish tissue from many locations, including three tributaries to the Niagara River: Tonawanda Creek, Two mile Creek, and Rattlesnake Creek (study reaches listed in...
Contacts: Barry P Baldigo, David Alvarez, Ph.D., Mark Filipski
Date published: April 26, 2019
Status: Active Contaminants in fish tissues from AOCs in New York State: The Niagara River AOC
DEC collaborators collect fish from a Niagara River tributary using an electrofishing boat The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) and Department of Health (NYSDOH), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) are gathering data on chemical contaminants in fish from multiple Areas of Concern (AOCs) in New York State and plan to use this information to evaluate fish cons...
Contacts: Scott George, Barry P Baldigo
Date published: September 4, 2018
Status: Active Niagara River AOC-wide Benthos BUI Assessment
A USGS biologist prepares to collect a sediment sample using a petit ponar dredge. Background:The Niagara River forms the boundary between the United States and Canada and was designated as a binational Area of Concern (AOC) in 1987 because past industrial discharges and hazardous waste sites had caused extensive degradation of aquatic habitats. Within the United States (eastern) portion of...
Contacts: Scott George, Barry P Baldigo, Brian Duffy
Date published: August 30, 2018
Status: Active Quantitative Fish Surveys of Mohawk River Tributaries
Background Fish communities of the mainstem Mohawk River and Barge Canal have been well-documented (Carlson, 2015; George et al., 2016) but comparatively less information is available regarding the current status of fish communities in tributaries to the Mohawk River. This information gap is problematic because long-term shifts in species distributions or abundances due to climate change,...
Contacts: Scott George, Barry P Baldigo
Date published: May 4, 2018
Status: Active Long-term trends in Rainbow Trout growth and naturalized populations in the Ashokan Basin
Background: Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) have thrived in the Esopus Creek since their introduction in the 1880s. The construction of the Ashokan Reservoir in 1915 changed the fishery by providing a stable lentic environment where adult trout could grow large and find refuge during periods when stream conditions become stressful. Although many adult Rainbow Trout spend time in the...
Contacts: Scott George, Barry P Baldigo
Date published: October 31, 2017
Status: Active Monitoring the Status and Expansion of Round Goby Populations in the Mohawk River/Barge Canal System
Background: The waters of the Mohawk River and its tributaries are inhabited by some of the most diverse fish communities in the Northeast. The construction of the Erie Canal in 1825, and later the Barge Canal in 1918, enabled the westward expansion of fishes from the Hudson River drainage as well as the eastward expansion of fishes indigenous to the Great Lakes drainage. Today, almost half of...
Contacts: Barry P Baldigo, Scott George, Christopher Rees
Date published: October 27, 2017
Status: Active Contaminants in fish tissues from AOCs in New York State: The Buffalo River AOC 2-year post remediation
Background The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) and Department of Health (NYSDOH), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) plan to obtain data on chemical contaminants in fish from multiple Areas of Concern (AOCs) in New York State and use this information to evaluate fish consumption advisories, which are a critical component of most removal criteria for “...
Contacts: Barry P Baldigo, Scott George
Year Published: 2021
Biological and chemical recovery of acidified Catskill Mountain streams in response to the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990
Decades of acidic deposition have adversely affected aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems in acid-sensitive watersheds in parts of the eastern United States. The national Acid Rain Program (Title IV of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments - CAAA) helped reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) and resulted in sharp decreases...
Baldigo, Barry P.; George, Scott D.; Winterhalter, Dylan R; McHale, MichaelAttribution: New York Water Science Center, Water Resources
Year Published: 2020
Quantifying and addressing the prevalence and bias of study designs in the environmental and social sciences
Building trust in science and evidence-based decision-making depends heavily on the credibility of studies and their findings. Researchers employ many different study designs that vary in their risk of bias to evaluate the true effect of interventions or impacts. Here, we empirically quantify, on a large scale, the prevalence of different study...
Christie, Alec P.; Abecasis, David; Adjeroud, Mehdi; Alonso, Juan C.; Amano, Tatsuya; Anton, Alvaro; Baldigo, Barry P.; Barrientos, Rafael; Bicknell, Jake E.; Buhl, Deborah A.; Cebrian, Just; Ceia, Ricardo S.; Cibils-Martina, Luciana; Clarke, Sarah; Claudet, Joachim; Craig, Michael D.; Davoult, Dominique; De Backer, Annelies; Donovan, Mary K.; Eddy, Tyler D.; França, Filipe M.; Gardner, Jonathan P.A.; Harris, Bradley P.; Huusko, Ari; Jones, Ian L.; Kelaher, Brendan P.; Kotiaho, Janne S.; López-Baucells, Adrià; Major, Heather L.; Mäki-Petäys, Aki; Martínez-López, Beatriz; Martín, Carlos A.; Martin, Philip A.; Mateos-Molina, Daniel; McConnaughey, Robert A.; Meroni, Michele; Meyer, Christoph F.J.; Mills, Kade; Montefalcone, Monica; Noreika, Norbertas; Palacín, Carlos; Pande, Anjali; Pitcher, C. Roland; Ponce, Carlos; Rinella, Matthew J.; Rocha, Ricardo; Ruiz-Delgado, María C.; Schmitter-Soto, Juan J.; Shaffer, Jill; Sharma, Shailesh; Sher, Anna A.; Stagnol, Doriane; Stanley, Thomas; Stokesbury, Kevin D.E.; Torres, Aurora; Tully, Oliver; Vehanen, Teppo; Watts, Corinne; Zhao, Qingyuan; Sutherland, William J.Attribution: Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, Ecosystems
Year Published: 2020
The response of stream ecosystems in the Adirondack region of New York to historical and future changes in atmospheric deposition of sulfur and nitrogen
The present-day acid-base chemistry of surface waters can be directly linked to contemporary observations of acid deposition; however, pre-industrial conditions are key to predicting the potential future recovery of stream ecosystems under decreasing loads of atmospheric sulfur (S) and nitrogen (N) deposition. The integrated biogeochemical model...
Shao, Shuai; Driscoll, Charles T.; Sullivan, Timothy J.; Burns, Douglas A.; Baldigo, Barry P.; Lawrence, Gregory B.; McDonnell, Todd C.Attribution: New York Water Science Center, Water Resources
Year Published: 2020
Predictive relations between acid-base chemistry and fish assemblages in streams of the Adirondack Mountains
Surface waters across much of New York State’s Adirondack Mountains were acidified in the late 20th century but began to recover following the 1990 Title IV Amendments to the Clean Air Act. Previous assessments of acidification recovery in the Adirondacks have generally been based on surface water chemistry data and inferred relationships to fish...
Bertok, Diane; Baldigo, Barry P.; George, Scott D.Attribution: New York Water Science Center, Water Resources
Year Published: 2020
Declining aluminum toxicity and the role of exposure duration on brook trout mortality in acidified streams of the Adirondack Mountains, New York, USA
Mortality of brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis and water chemistry were characterized in 6 headwater streams in the western Adirondacks of New York during spring 2015, 2016, and 2017 and compared with results from analogous tests done between 1980 and 2003 in many of the same streams, to assess temporal changes in toxicity and inorganic...
Baldigo, Barry P.; George, Scott; Lawrence, Gregory B.; Eric A. PaulAttribution: New York Water Science Center, Water Resources
Year Published: 2019
Response of water chemistry and young-of-year brook trout to channel and watershed liming in streams showing lagging recovery from acidic deposition
Reductions in sulfur emissions have initiated chemical recovery of surface waters impacted by acidic deposition in the Adirondack region of New York State. However, acidified streams remain common in the region, which limits recovery of brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) populations. To investigate liming as a method to accelerate recovery of...
Josephson, Daniel C; Lawrence, Gregory B.; George, Scott D.; Siemion, Jason; Baldigo, Barry P.; Kraft, Clifford E.Attribution: New York Water Science Center, Water Resources
Year Published: 2019
Resilience of benthic macroinvertebrates to extreme floods in a Catskill Mountain river, New York, USA: Implications for water quality monitoring and assessment
Changes in the timing, magnitude, frequency, and duration of extreme hydrologic events are becoming apparent and could disrupt species assemblages and stream ecosystems across the Northeastern United States. Between August 28 and 29 of 2011, an average of 31 cm of rain from Tropical Storm Irene fell across Eastern New York State in less than 24 h...
Smith, Alexander J.; Baldigo, Barry P.; Duffy, Brian T; George, Scott D.; Dresser, BrianAttribution: New York Water Science Center, Water Resources
Year Published: 2019
Spatial and temporal variability of fish assemblages in acidified streams: Implications for long-term monitoring
Numerous studies have established strong linkages between acid deposition, soil and surface-water acidification, and toxicity to aquatic biota. Little is known however, about the effects of acidification on fish assemblages in headwater streams because they are highly variable, and pre-acidification data are often lacking. The primary purpose of...
George, Scott D.; Baldigo, Barry P.; Lawrence, Gregory B.Attribution: New York Water Science Center, Water Resources
View Citation
New York State Energy and Research Development Authority (NYSERDA). 2019. “Spatial and Temporal Variability of Fish Assemblages in Acidified Streams: Implications for Long-Term Monitoring” NYSERDA Report Number 19-29. Prepared by the U.S. Geological Society, Troy, NY. nyserda.ny.gov/publications
Year Published: 2019
Temporal variability in stream fish assemblage metrics and implications for long-term monitoring
High natural variability in the condition of fish communities in headwater streams complicates detection of long-term responses to changes in water quality. As a result, little is known about the impacts and recovery of fishes from acid deposition in streams of New York. Twenty-one fish metrics from annual electrofishing surveys at 13 streams...
George, Scott D.; Baldigo, Barry P.; Stich, Daniel S.Attribution: New York Water Science Center, Water Resources
Year Published: 2019
Probabilistic relationships between acid-base chemistry and fish assemblages in streams of the western Adirondack Mountains, New York, USA
Surface waters across much of the Adirondacks of New York were acidified in the late 20th century but began to recover after the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act. Little data, however, were available to characterize biological impacts and predict recovery of fish assemblages in regional streams. Quantitative fish and chemistry surveys were...
Baldigo, Barry; George, Scott; Sullivan, Timothy J.; Driscoll, Charles T.; Burns, Douglas A.; Shoa, Shuai; Lawrence, Gregory B.Attribution: New York Water Science Center, Water Resources
Year Published: 2019
Acidification impacts and goals for gauging recovery of Brook Trout populations and fish communities in streams of the Western Adirondack Mountains, New York, USA
Results from several long‐term monitoring programs in the western Adirondack Mountains, New York, indicate that acid–base chemistry of headwater streams has remained unchanged or improved only marginally since the 1990s. A paucity of quantitative fishery data, however, limits our understanding of the pre‐acidified communities as well as present‐...
Baldigo, Barry; George, Scott; Lawrence, Gregory; Paul, EricAttribution: New York Water Science Center, Water Resources
Year Published: 2018
Changes in growth of Rainbow Trout in a Catskill Mountain Reservoir following Alewife and White Perch Introductions
Rainbow Trout Oncorhynchus mykiss were introduced to the Esopus Creek watershed in the Catskill Mountains of New York in the early 1880s. This introduction created a renowned naturalized fishery that remains important to the local economy today. The objective of this study was to determine whether the growth and condition of Rainbow...
George, Scott D.; Baldigo, Barry P.; Flaherty, Michael J.; Randall, Eileen A.Attribution: New York Water Science Center, Water Resources
View Citation
Changes in Growth of Rainbow Trout in a Catskill Mountain Reservoir Following Alewife and White Perch Introductions. (2018). North American Journal of Fisheries Management., 38(5), 1027–1038. https://doi.org/10.1002/nafm.10203
Pre-USGS Publications
Baldigo, B. P., and T. P. Baudanza. 2001. Avoidance response and mortality of juvenile brown trout (Salmo trutta) in tests with copper sulfate-treated waters from West Branch Reservoir, Putnam County, New York. U. S. Geological Survey, WRI 99-4237, Troy, NY.
Baldigo, B. P., K. R. Riva-Murray, and G. E. Schuler. 2004. Effects of environmental and spatial features on mussel populations and communities in a North American river. Walkerana 14(31):1-32.
Baldigo, B. P., D. R. Warren, A. S. Gallagher-Ernst, S. J. Miller, D. Davis, W.Keller, T. P. Baudanza, D. DeKoskie, and J. R. Buchanan, 2008. Restoring geomorphic stability and biodiversity in streams of the Catskill Mountains, New York, USA. Pages 1777-1790 in J. L. Nielsen, and coeditors, editors. Proceedings of the Fourth World Fisheries Congress: Reconciling fisheries with conservation, Symposium 49. American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, Maryland.
Smith, A. J., B. T. Duffy, D. L. Heitzman, J. Lojpersberger, L. E. Abele, B. P. Baldigo, M. R. McHale, S. G. George, J. Siemion, and M. A. Novak. 2013. Upper Esopus Creek: Biological Assessment, 2009-2010 Survey. NYSDEC SOP 208·09, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Troy, NY., 30 pp.
Date published: February 25, 2021
Field Photo Friday Winner for February 2021
Ken Planty and Brian McDonald (USGS NYWSC Potsdam office) observing the ice pile up on the pier at USGS 04249071 LK ONTARIO (SELKIRK SHORES) NR DAYSVILLE CORNER NY. (Credit: Isabella Lucia, USGS NY WSC. Public domain.)