Devin L Galloway is a Scientist Emeritus Research Hydrologist for the USGS Water Resources Mission Area.
During the mid-1970s the emerging movement in our culture and the sciences toward understanding human impacts on our environment piqued my interests in the environmental and earth sciences. In 1978 I began my career with the USGS in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, where I first became interested in hydrogeology and later studied hydrogeology at the University of Illinois. Since then I've worked on many hydrogeology projects while stationed in USGS offices in Colorado, California, and Indiana. Along the way I've been fortunate to work directly and indirectly on many interesting studies of national and international relevance related to groundwater availability and sustainability, and the role of groundwater in geologic processes.
My primary research interests have been in hydrogeologic processes involving 1) the compaction of susceptible aquifer systems and resulting land subsidence that accompanies groundwater depletion; 2) response of groundwater levels to stresses imposed on aquifer systems owing to volcanism, tectonics (earthquakes), earth tides and atmospheric loading; and 3) natural and human-induced perturbations in groundwater recharge and discharge. I have been engaged nationally and internationally in efforts to raise awareness and understanding of the inland and coastal subsidence caused by intense groundwater extraction. I am past Chair of the UNESCO Working Group on Land Subsidence and the ASCE Task Committee on Land Subsidence and have led many national and international workshops on monitoring, analyzing and modeling aquifer-system compaction and land subsidence.
Since retiring from the USGS (after 40+ years of service) at the end of 2018 as a Research Hydrologist with the Earth Science Processes Division, Water Mission Area, I volunteer with the USGS as Scientist Emeritus. I collaborate on hydrogeologic research with scientists internal and external to the USGS, and advise, collaborate with, and otherwise serve USGS Water Science Centers and other USGS Offices and Programs on hydrogeologic aspects of various earth-science projects and programs.
Education
- Master of Science Civil Engineering (MSCE, Hydrosystems-Hydrogeology), The Grainger College of Engineering, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois, 1987
- Master of Science Environmental Science (MSES, Water Resources), Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, 1978
- Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Biology, The College of Arts and Sciences, Indiana University, 1974
Science and Products
Atmospheric-loading frequency response functions and groundwater levels filtered for the effects of atmospheric loading and solid Earth tides for three USGS monitoring wells, southeastern Laramie County, Wyoming, 2014-2017
The data include atmospheric-loading frequency response functions (table 1) and filtered detrended and reconstructed (trends restored) groundwater levels (tables 2-4) computed for selected, parsed time series for three USGS monitoring wells [BR-1 (USGS site 410233104093203); LN-1 (USGS site 410233104093202); and FH-1 (USGS site 410233104093201)], and the associated hourly resampled water-level and
Filter Total Items: 70
Documenting the multiple facets of a subsiding landscape from coastal cities and wetlands to the continental shelf
Land subsidence is a settling, sinking, or collapse of the land surface. In the southeastern United States, subsidence is frequently observed as sinkhole collapse in karst environments, wetland degradation and loss in coastal and other low-lying areas, and inundation of coastal urban communities. Human activities such as fluid extraction, mining, and overburden alteration can cause or exacerbate s
Authors
James G. Flocks, Eileen McGraw, John Barras, Julie Bernier, Mike Bradley, Devin L. Galloway, James Landmeyer, W. Scott McBride, Christopher Smith, Kathryn Smith, Christopher Swarzenski, Lauren Toth
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Water Resources Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Caribbean-Florida Water Science Center (CFWSC), Lower Mississippi-Gulf Water Science Center, Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Water Science Center, South Atlantic Water Science Center (SAWSC), St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center, Gulf of Mexico
Documentation for the Skeletal Storage, Compaction, and Subsidence (CSUB) Package of MODFLOW 6
This report describes the skeletal storage, compaction and subsidence (CSUB) package of MODFLOW 6. The CSUB package simulates the vertical compaction of compressible sediments and land subsidence. The package simulates groundwater storage changes and elastic compaction in coarse-grained aquifer sediments. The CSUB package also simulates groundwater storage changes and elastic and inelastic compact
Authors
Joseph D. Hughes, Stanley A. Leake, Devin L. Galloway, Jeremy T. White
Geologic and hydrogeologic characteristics of the White River Formation, Lance Formation, and Fox Hills Sandstone, northern greater Denver Basin, southeastern Laramie County, Wyoming
In cooperation with the Wyoming State Engineer’s Office, the U.S. Geological Survey studied the geologic and hydrogeologic characteristics of Cenozoic and Upper Cretaceous strata at a location in southeastern Laramie County within the Wyoming part of the Cheyenne Basin, the northern subbasin of the greater Denver Basin. The study aimed to improve understanding of the aquifers/aquifer systems in th
Authors
Timothy T. Bartos, Devin L. Galloway, Laura L. Hallberg, Marieke Dechesne, Sharon F. Diehl, Seth L. Davidson
Mapping the global threat of land subsidence
Subsidence, the lowering of Earth's land surface, is a potentially destructive hazard that can be caused by a wide range of natural or anthropogenic triggers but mainly results from solid or fluid mobilization underground. Subsidence due to groundwater depletion (1) is a slow and gradual process that develops on large time scales (months to years), producing progressive loss of land elevation (cen
Authors
Gerardo Herrera, Pablo Ezquerro, Roberto Tomás, Marta Béjar-Pizarro, Juan López-Vinielles, Mauro Rossi, Rosa M. Mateos, Dora Carreón-Freyre, John Lambert, Pietro Teatini, Enrique Cabral-Cano, Gilles Erkens, Devin Galloway, Wei-Chia Hung, Najeebullah Kakar, Michelle Sneed, Luigi Tosi, Hanmei Wang, Shujun Ye
Measuring, modelling and projecting coastal land subsidence
Coastal subsidence contributes to relative sea-level rise and exacerbates flooding hazards, with the at-risk population expected to triple by 2070. Natural processes of vertical land motion, such as tectonics, glacial isostatic adjustment and sediment compaction, as well as anthropogenic processes, such as fluid extraction, lead to globally variable subsidence rates. In this Review, we discuss the
Authors
Manoochehr Shirzaei, Jeffery T. Freymueller, Torbjörn E Törnqvist, Devin Galloway, Tina Dura, Philip S. J. Minderhoud
Land subsidence contributions to relative sea level rise at tide gauge Galveston Pier 21, Texas
Relative sea level rise at tide gauge Galveston Pier 21, Texas, is the combination of absolute sea level rise and land subsidence. We estimate subsidence rates of 3.53 mm/a during 1909–1937, 6.08 mm/a during 1937–1983, and 3.51 mm/a since 1983. Subsidence attributed to aquifer-system compaction accompanying groundwater extraction contributed as much as 85% of the 0.7 m relative sea level rise sinc
Authors
Yi Liu, Jiang Li, John Fasullo, Devin Galloway
A parametric numerical analysis of factors controlling ground ruptures caused by groundwater pumping
A modeling analysis is used to investigate the relative susceptibility of various hydrogeologic configurations to aseismic rupture generation due to deformation of aquifer systems accompanying groundwater pumping. An advanced numerical model (GEPS3D) is used to simulate rupture generation and propagation for three typical processes: (i) reactivation of a preexisting fault, (ii) differential compa
Authors
Matteo Frigo, Massimiliano Ferronato, Jun Yu, Shujun Ye, Devin Galloway, Dora Carreón-Freyre, Pietro Teatini
Hydraulic, geochemical, and thermal monitoring of an aquifer system in the vicinity of Mammoth Lakes, Mono County, California, 2015–17
Since 2014, the U.S. Geological Survey has been working in cooperation with the Bureau of Land Management, Mono County, Ormat Technologies, Inc., and the Mammoth Community Water District to design and implement a groundwater-monitoring program for the proposed Casa Diablo IV Geothermal Power Project in Long Valley Caldera, California, to characterize baseline groundwater-level, water-temperature,
Authors
James F. Howle, William C. Evans, Devin L. Galloway, Paul A. Hsieh, Shaul Hurwitz, Gregory A. Smith, Joseph Nawikas
Ground ruptures attributed to groundwater overexploitation damaging Jocotepec city in Jalisco, Mexico: 2016 field excursion of IGCP-641
IGCP Project 641 (Mechanisms, Monitoring and Modeling Earth
Fissure generation and Fault activation due to subsurface Fluid
exploitation – M3EF3) held its second international workshop from
November 2 to 6, 2016, in Puerto Vallarta and included a two-day
field trip to Guadalajara and Jocotepec in the Mexican state of Jalisco
(Fig. 1a). M3EF3 is aimed at i) understanding the mechanisms that
cause t
Authors
Pietro Teatini, Dora Carreón-Freyre, Gil Ochoa-González, Shujun Ye, Devin L. Galloway, Martin Hernández-Marin
Regional land subsidence caused by the compaction of susceptible aquifer systems accompanying groundwater extraction
Land subsidence includes both gentle downwarping and sudden sinking of
segments of the land surface. Major anthropogenic causes of land subsidence
are extraction of fluids including water, oil, and gas. Measurement and detec-
tion of land subsidence include both ground-based and remotely sensed air-
borne and space-based methods. Methods for measurement of subsidence at
points include differential
Authors
Devin L. Galloway, Stanley A. Leake
Assessing groundwater depletion and dynamics using GRACE and InSAR: Potential and limitations
In the last decade, remote sensing of the temporal variation of ground level and gravity has improved our understanding of groundwater dynamics and storage. Mass changes are measured by GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellites, whereas ground deformation is measured by processing synthetic aperture radar satellites data using the InSAR (Interferometry of Synthetic Aperture Radar)
Authors
Pascal Castellazzi, Richard Martel, Devin L. Galloway, Laurent Longuevergne, Alfonso Rivera
Time-varying land subsidence detected by radar altimetry: California, Taiwan and north China
Contemporary applications of radar altimetry include sea-level rise, ocean circulation, marine gravity, and ice sheet elevation change. Unlike InSAR and GNSS, which are widely used to map surface deformation, altimetry is neither reliant on highly temporally-correlated ground features nor as limited by the available spatial coverage, and can provide long-term temporal subsidence monitoring capabil
Authors
Cheinway Hwang, Yuande Yang, Ricky Kao, Jiancheng Han, C.K. Shum, Devin L. Galloway, Michelle Sneed, Wei-Chia Hung, Yung-Sheng Cheng, Fei Li
Science and Products
- Data
Atmospheric-loading frequency response functions and groundwater levels filtered for the effects of atmospheric loading and solid Earth tides for three USGS monitoring wells, southeastern Laramie County, Wyoming, 2014-2017
The data include atmospheric-loading frequency response functions (table 1) and filtered detrended and reconstructed (trends restored) groundwater levels (tables 2-4) computed for selected, parsed time series for three USGS monitoring wells [BR-1 (USGS site 410233104093203); LN-1 (USGS site 410233104093202); and FH-1 (USGS site 410233104093201)], and the associated hourly resampled water-level and - Publications
Filter Total Items: 70
Documenting the multiple facets of a subsiding landscape from coastal cities and wetlands to the continental shelf
Land subsidence is a settling, sinking, or collapse of the land surface. In the southeastern United States, subsidence is frequently observed as sinkhole collapse in karst environments, wetland degradation and loss in coastal and other low-lying areas, and inundation of coastal urban communities. Human activities such as fluid extraction, mining, and overburden alteration can cause or exacerbate sAuthorsJames G. Flocks, Eileen McGraw, John Barras, Julie Bernier, Mike Bradley, Devin L. Galloway, James Landmeyer, W. Scott McBride, Christopher Smith, Kathryn Smith, Christopher Swarzenski, Lauren TothByNatural Hazards Mission Area, Water Resources Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Caribbean-Florida Water Science Center (CFWSC), Lower Mississippi-Gulf Water Science Center, Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Water Science Center, South Atlantic Water Science Center (SAWSC), St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center, Gulf of MexicoDocumentation for the Skeletal Storage, Compaction, and Subsidence (CSUB) Package of MODFLOW 6
This report describes the skeletal storage, compaction and subsidence (CSUB) package of MODFLOW 6. The CSUB package simulates the vertical compaction of compressible sediments and land subsidence. The package simulates groundwater storage changes and elastic compaction in coarse-grained aquifer sediments. The CSUB package also simulates groundwater storage changes and elastic and inelastic compactAuthorsJoseph D. Hughes, Stanley A. Leake, Devin L. Galloway, Jeremy T. WhiteGeologic and hydrogeologic characteristics of the White River Formation, Lance Formation, and Fox Hills Sandstone, northern greater Denver Basin, southeastern Laramie County, Wyoming
In cooperation with the Wyoming State Engineer’s Office, the U.S. Geological Survey studied the geologic and hydrogeologic characteristics of Cenozoic and Upper Cretaceous strata at a location in southeastern Laramie County within the Wyoming part of the Cheyenne Basin, the northern subbasin of the greater Denver Basin. The study aimed to improve understanding of the aquifers/aquifer systems in thAuthorsTimothy T. Bartos, Devin L. Galloway, Laura L. Hallberg, Marieke Dechesne, Sharon F. Diehl, Seth L. DavidsonMapping the global threat of land subsidence
Subsidence, the lowering of Earth's land surface, is a potentially destructive hazard that can be caused by a wide range of natural or anthropogenic triggers but mainly results from solid or fluid mobilization underground. Subsidence due to groundwater depletion (1) is a slow and gradual process that develops on large time scales (months to years), producing progressive loss of land elevation (cenAuthorsGerardo Herrera, Pablo Ezquerro, Roberto Tomás, Marta Béjar-Pizarro, Juan López-Vinielles, Mauro Rossi, Rosa M. Mateos, Dora Carreón-Freyre, John Lambert, Pietro Teatini, Enrique Cabral-Cano, Gilles Erkens, Devin Galloway, Wei-Chia Hung, Najeebullah Kakar, Michelle Sneed, Luigi Tosi, Hanmei Wang, Shujun YeMeasuring, modelling and projecting coastal land subsidence
Coastal subsidence contributes to relative sea-level rise and exacerbates flooding hazards, with the at-risk population expected to triple by 2070. Natural processes of vertical land motion, such as tectonics, glacial isostatic adjustment and sediment compaction, as well as anthropogenic processes, such as fluid extraction, lead to globally variable subsidence rates. In this Review, we discuss theAuthorsManoochehr Shirzaei, Jeffery T. Freymueller, Torbjörn E Törnqvist, Devin Galloway, Tina Dura, Philip S. J. MinderhoudLand subsidence contributions to relative sea level rise at tide gauge Galveston Pier 21, Texas
Relative sea level rise at tide gauge Galveston Pier 21, Texas, is the combination of absolute sea level rise and land subsidence. We estimate subsidence rates of 3.53 mm/a during 1909–1937, 6.08 mm/a during 1937–1983, and 3.51 mm/a since 1983. Subsidence attributed to aquifer-system compaction accompanying groundwater extraction contributed as much as 85% of the 0.7 m relative sea level rise sincAuthorsYi Liu, Jiang Li, John Fasullo, Devin GallowayA parametric numerical analysis of factors controlling ground ruptures caused by groundwater pumping
A modeling analysis is used to investigate the relative susceptibility of various hydrogeologic configurations to aseismic rupture generation due to deformation of aquifer systems accompanying groundwater pumping. An advanced numerical model (GEPS3D) is used to simulate rupture generation and propagation for three typical processes: (i) reactivation of a preexisting fault, (ii) differential compaAuthorsMatteo Frigo, Massimiliano Ferronato, Jun Yu, Shujun Ye, Devin Galloway, Dora Carreón-Freyre, Pietro TeatiniHydraulic, geochemical, and thermal monitoring of an aquifer system in the vicinity of Mammoth Lakes, Mono County, California, 2015–17
Since 2014, the U.S. Geological Survey has been working in cooperation with the Bureau of Land Management, Mono County, Ormat Technologies, Inc., and the Mammoth Community Water District to design and implement a groundwater-monitoring program for the proposed Casa Diablo IV Geothermal Power Project in Long Valley Caldera, California, to characterize baseline groundwater-level, water-temperature,AuthorsJames F. Howle, William C. Evans, Devin L. Galloway, Paul A. Hsieh, Shaul Hurwitz, Gregory A. Smith, Joseph NawikasGround ruptures attributed to groundwater overexploitation damaging Jocotepec city in Jalisco, Mexico: 2016 field excursion of IGCP-641
IGCP Project 641 (Mechanisms, Monitoring and Modeling Earth Fissure generation and Fault activation due to subsurface Fluid exploitation – M3EF3) held its second international workshop from November 2 to 6, 2016, in Puerto Vallarta and included a two-day field trip to Guadalajara and Jocotepec in the Mexican state of Jalisco (Fig. 1a). M3EF3 is aimed at i) understanding the mechanisms that cause tAuthorsPietro Teatini, Dora Carreón-Freyre, Gil Ochoa-González, Shujun Ye, Devin L. Galloway, Martin Hernández-MarinRegional land subsidence caused by the compaction of susceptible aquifer systems accompanying groundwater extraction
Land subsidence includes both gentle downwarping and sudden sinking of segments of the land surface. Major anthropogenic causes of land subsidence are extraction of fluids including water, oil, and gas. Measurement and detec- tion of land subsidence include both ground-based and remotely sensed air- borne and space-based methods. Methods for measurement of subsidence at points include differentialAuthorsDevin L. Galloway, Stanley A. LeakeAssessing groundwater depletion and dynamics using GRACE and InSAR: Potential and limitations
In the last decade, remote sensing of the temporal variation of ground level and gravity has improved our understanding of groundwater dynamics and storage. Mass changes are measured by GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellites, whereas ground deformation is measured by processing synthetic aperture radar satellites data using the InSAR (Interferometry of Synthetic Aperture Radar)AuthorsPascal Castellazzi, Richard Martel, Devin L. Galloway, Laurent Longuevergne, Alfonso RiveraTime-varying land subsidence detected by radar altimetry: California, Taiwan and north China
Contemporary applications of radar altimetry include sea-level rise, ocean circulation, marine gravity, and ice sheet elevation change. Unlike InSAR and GNSS, which are widely used to map surface deformation, altimetry is neither reliant on highly temporally-correlated ground features nor as limited by the available spatial coverage, and can provide long-term temporal subsidence monitoring capabilAuthorsCheinway Hwang, Yuande Yang, Ricky Kao, Jiancheng Han, C.K. Shum, Devin L. Galloway, Michelle Sneed, Wei-Chia Hung, Yung-Sheng Cheng, Fei Li