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Edward Stets

Edward (Ted) Stets is a Research Ecologist with the USGS in Mounds View, MN. He studies water quality and environmental change mostly in freshwater systems.  His expertise includes biogeochemistry, data analysis, statistical methods, trend analysis, and project management.  Ted is currently involved with projects nationally (NAWQA, IWP) and focused in the Upper Mississipi and Boulder Cr

B.S. - 1996, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, Biological Sciences / Environmental Sciences

M.S. - 2001, University of South Alabama, Dauphin Island, AL, Marine Sciences

Ph.D. - 2007, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, Ecology

2019-PresentResearch Ecologist, Water Mission AreaMounds View, MN

2017-2019Research Ecologist, Water Mission AreaBoulder, CO

2011-2017Research Ecologist, National Research ProgramBoulder, CO

2009-2011Ecologist, National Research ProgramBoulder, CO

2007-2009Post-doctoral Fellow, National Academy of SciencesBoulder, CO

 

 

Science and Products

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Trout Creek flowing through scrubby forest and grassland

Water Quality Across Regional Stream Networks: The Influence of Land Cover and Land Use, Climate, and Biogeochemical Processing on Spatiotemporal Variance

Land cover and land use (LC/LU), climate, and biogeochemical processing are significant drivers of water quality in streams and rivers over broad scales of space and time. As LC/LU and climate continue to change we can expect changes in water quality. This project seeks to understand the drivers of spatial and temporal variability in water quality across scales using new and existing data to...
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Climate Research and Development Program
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Water Quality Across Regional Stream Networks: The Influence of Land Cover and Land Use, Climate, and Biogeochemical Processing on Spatiotemporal Variance

Land cover and land use (LC/LU), climate, and biogeochemical processing are significant drivers of water quality in streams and rivers over broad scales of space and time. As LC/LU and climate continue to change we can expect changes in water quality. This project seeks to understand the drivers of spatial and temporal variability in water quality across scales using new and existing data to...
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Fast moving stream with rapids in upper, more mountainous part of Boulder Creek Watershed, Colorado

Connections between Forested and Urban Landscapes and Implications for Water Supply

Interactions between forested and urban landscapes can lead to reciprocal effects that have substantial impacts on water supply and ecology. Air pollution from urban and forested landscapes can be deposited on adjacent forests, while forest disturbance, such as wildfires and floods, can remobilize those contaminants. Additionally, pollutants from legacy land use (e.g., mining) can also be...
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Climate Research and Development Program
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Connections between Forested and Urban Landscapes and Implications for Water Supply

Interactions between forested and urban landscapes can lead to reciprocal effects that have substantial impacts on water supply and ecology. Air pollution from urban and forested landscapes can be deposited on adjacent forests, while forest disturbance, such as wildfires and floods, can remobilize those contaminants. Additionally, pollutants from legacy land use (e.g., mining) can also be...
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U.S. Rivers Show Few Signs of Improvement from Historic Nitrate Increases

A recent U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study provides a rare glimpse into how nitrate levels in 22 large rivers across the Nation have changed during the past 65 years. Despite the stabilization of nitrogen inputs in recent decades, there is no evidence of widespread decrease in nitrate levels in rivers.
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Ecosystems, Contaminant Biology, Environmental Health Program, Toxic Substances Hydrology
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U.S. Rivers Show Few Signs of Improvement from Historic Nitrate Increases

A recent U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study provides a rare glimpse into how nitrate levels in 22 large rivers across the Nation have changed during the past 65 years. Despite the stabilization of nitrogen inputs in recent decades, there is no evidence of widespread decrease in nitrate levels in rivers.
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USGS science for a changing world logo

Continental-scale overview of stream primary productivity, its links to water quality, and consequences for aquatic carbon biogeochemistry

Streams and rivers have a limited spatial extent, but are increasingly recognized as key components of regional biogeochemical cycles. The collective metabolic processing of organisms, known as ecosystem metabolism, is centrally important to nutrient cycling and carbon fluxes in these environments, but is poorly integrated into emerging biogeochemical concepts. This line of inquiry lags behind oth
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John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis
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Continental-scale overview of stream primary productivity, its links to water quality, and consequences for aquatic carbon biogeochemistry

Streams and rivers have a limited spatial extent, but are increasingly recognized as key components of regional biogeochemical cycles. The collective metabolic processing of organisms, known as ecosystem metabolism, is centrally important to nutrient cycling and carbon fluxes in these environments, but is poorly integrated into emerging biogeochemical concepts. This line of inquiry lags behind oth
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Diel and synoptic sampling data from Boulder Creek and South Boulder Creek, near Boulder, Colorado, September–October 2019

Multiple sampling campaigns were conducted near Boulder, Colorado, to quantify constituent concentrations and loads in Boulder Creek and its tributary, South Boulder Creek. Diel sampling was initiated at approximately 1100 hours on September 17, 2019, and continued until approximately 2300 hours on September 18, 2019. During this time period, samples were collected at two locations on Boulder Cree
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Colorado Water Science Center

Metabolism estimates for 356 U.S. rivers (2007-2017)

This data release provides modeled estimates of gross primary productivity, ecosystem respiration, and gas exchange coefficients for 356 streams and rivers across the United States. The release also includes the model input data and alternative input data, model fit and diagnostic information, spatial data for the modeled sites (catchment boundaries and site point locations), and potential predict
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Water Resources

Water-quality and streamflow datasets used in the Weighted Regressions on Time, Discharge, and Season (WRTDS) models to determine trends in the Nations rivers and streams, 1972-2012

In 1991, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) began a study of more than 50 major river basins across the Nation as part of the National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) project of the National Water-Quality Program. One of the major goals of the NAWQA project is to determine how water-quality conditions change over time. To support that goal, long-term consistent and comparable monitoring has been c
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Water Resources

Water-quality and streamflow datasets used in Seasonal Kendall trend tests for the Nations rivers and streams, 1972-2012

In 1991, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) began a study of more than 50 major river basins across the Nation as part of the National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) project of the National Water-Quality Program. One of the major goals of the NAWQA project is to determine how water-quality conditions change over time. To support that goal, long-term consistent and comparable monitoring has been c
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Water Resources
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Bioavailability of dissolved organic matter varies with anthropogenic landcover in the Upper Mississippi River Basin

Anthropogenic conversion of forests and wetlands to agricultural and urban landcovers impacts dissolved organic matter (DOM) within streams draining these catchments. Research on how landcover conversion impacts DOM molecular level composition and bioavailability, however, is lacking. In the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB), water from low-order streams and rivers draining one of three dominan
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Water Resources

Anthropogenic landcover impacts fluvial dissolved organic matter composition in the Upper Mississippi River Basin

Landcover changes have altered the natural carbon cycle; however, most landcover studies focus on either forest conversion to agriculture or urban, rarely both. We present differences in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations and dissolved organic matter (DOM) molecular composition within Upper Mississippi River Basin low order streams and rivers draining one of three dominant landcovers (f
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Water Resources, Climate Research and Development Program, Land Change Science Program

Aquatic-terrestrial linkages control metabolism and carbon dynamics in a mid-sized, urban stream influenced by snowmelt

Freshwater streams can exchange nutrients and carbon with the surrounding terrestrial environment through various mechanisms including physical erosion, flooding, leaf drop, and snowmelt. These aquatic-terrestrial interactions are crucial in carbon mobilization, transformation, ecosystem productivity, and have important implications for the role of freshwater ecosystems in the global carbon budget
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Water Resources

Nitrate in streams during winter low‐flow conditions as an indicator of legacy nitrate

Winter low‐flow (LF) conditions in streams provide a potential opportunity to evaluate the importance of legacy nitrate in catchments due to the dominance of slow‐flow transport pathways and lowered biotic activity. In this study, the concentration, flux, and trend of nitrate in streams during winter low‐flow conditions were analyzed at 320 sites in the conterminous United States. LF flow‐normaliz
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Water Resources, Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Water Science Center, Oregon Water Science Center

Challenges in quantifying air-water carbon dioxide flux using estuarine water quality data: Case study for Chesapeake Bay

Estuaries play an uncertain but potentially important role in the global carbon cycle via CO2 outgassing. The uncertainty mainly stems from the paucity of studies that document the full spatial and temporal variability of estuarine surface water partial pressure of carbon dioxide ( pCO2). Here, we explore the potential of utilizing the abundance of pH data from historical water quality monitoring
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Water Resources

Landscape drivers of dynamic change in water quality of US rivers

Water security is a top concern for social well-being and dramatic changes in the availability of freshwater have occurred as a result of human uses and landscape management. Elevated nutrient loading and perturbations to major ion composition have resulted from human activities and have degraded freshwater resources. This study addresses the emerging nature of stream water quality in the 21st ce
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Water Resources, New Jersey Water Science Center

Influence of land use and region on glyphosate and aminomethylphosphonic acid in streams in the USA

Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the United States for agricultural and non-agricultural weed control. Many studies demonstrate possible effects of glyphosate and its degradate AMPA on human and ecological health. Although glyphosate is thought to have limited mobility in soil, it is found year-round in many rivers and streams throughout the world in both agricultural and developed
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Water Resources

Calcite precipitation in Lake Powell reduces alkalinity and total salt loading to the Lower Colorado River Basin

Reservoirs can retain and transform carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and silica, but less is known about their effects on other biogeochemically relevant solutes. The salinization of freshwater ecosystems is a growing concern in many regions, and the role of reservoirs in salinity transport is an important research frontier. Here, we examine how a large desert southwest reservoir, Lake Powell, has al
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Ecosystems, Water Resources, Southwest Biological Science Center

Network controls on mean and variance of nitrate loads from the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico

Excessive nitrate loading to the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) has caused widespread hypoxia over many decades. Despite recent reductions in nitrate loads observed at local scales, decreases in nitrate loading from the MRB to the GoM have been small (1.58 % during 2002-2012) with a low level of analytical confidence in this trend. This work seeks to determine the reasons why local-scale improvements have n
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Water Resources

Alkalinity in tidal tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay

Despite the important role of alkalinity in estuarine carbon cycling, the seasonal and decadal variability of alkalinity, particularly within multiple tidal tributaries of the same estuary, is poorly understood. Here we analyze more than 26,000 alkalinity measurements, mostly from the 1980s and 1990s, in the major tidal tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay, a large, coastal-plain estuary of eastern N
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Water Resources

Variable impacts of contemporary versus legacy agricultural phosphorus on US river water quality

Phosphorus (P) fertilizer has contributed to the eutrophication of freshwater ecosystems. Watershed-based conservation programs aiming to reduce external P loading to surface waters have not resulted in significant water-quality improvements. One factor that can help explain the lack of water-quality response is remobilization of accumulated legacy (historical) P within the terrestrial-aquatic con
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Water Resources

Metabolic rhythms in flowing waters: An approach for classifying river productivity regimes

Although seasonal patterns of ecosystem productivity have been extensively described and analyzed with respect to their primary forcings in terrestrial and marine systems, comparatively little is known about these same processes in rivers. However, it is now possible to perform a large‐scale synthesis on the patterns and drivers of river productivity regimes because of the recent sensor advances a
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John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis
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Water quality of rivers has changed dramatically in human-dominated landscapes of the United States

Human activities have markedly changed the water quality of rivers in the past few decades according to a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey...

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Nitrate loads entering the Gulf of Mexico have not changed despite reductions at local scales

Reducing delivery of nitrate to the Gulf of Mexico is critical to decreasing the size of the “dead zone”—an area of hypoxia, or low dissolved oxygen...

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USGS Release: Large Rivers in U.S. are Becoming Less Acidic

Several large rivers in the U.S. are less acidic now, due to decreasing acidic inputs, such as industrial waste, acid mine drainage, and atmospheric...

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