Judson W Harvey
Dr. Judson Harvey is a Senior Research Hydrologist for the USGS Water Resources Mission Area.
Dr. Jud Harvey investigates hydrologic transport at the interface between groundwater and surface water and effects on contaminants and aquatic ecosystems from the mountains to the sea. Jud has served on editorial boards for Water Resources Research and Wetlands, and on committees of the National Research Council, EPA’s Science Advisory Board, the National Science Foundation, the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, the state of California’s EPA, the Canadian Government’s Science Review Board, and standing committees of the American Geophysical Union and the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. Jud has lectured widely, and delivered plenary talks at meetings such as the IAH in Lisbon, the Sustainable Watersheds meeting in Beijing, and the Gordon Research Conference on Catchment Science in Plymouth, has taught “Groundwater-Surface Water Relationships” for twenty-five years, and has supervised numerous graduate theses and postdoctoral fellows. He recently led a major synthesis on “River Corridor Functions at a Continental Scale” at the John Wesley Powell Center in Fort Collins. Jud is author of over 120 peer-reviewed articles, including a paper reprinted in “Benchmark Papers in Hydrology: Groundwater”, the first chapter of the widely used textbook Streams and Ground Waters and its recent revision Streams in a Changing Environment, a National Academies book entitled Riparian Areas, and a popular USGS circular “Groundwater and Surface Water: A Single Resource” with 44,000 copies in print. For ground-breaking research Jud was elected as a Fellow of the Geological Society of America (2010) and the American Geophysical Union (2016).
Professional Experience
2017 - present
Senior Hydrology Team Leader, Earth System Processes Division, USGS, Reston2009 – 2017
Research Hydrology Team Leader, National Research Program, USGS, Reston2003 – 2009
Research Hydrologist and Advisor to Research Chief, USGS, Reston
Education and Certifications
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
Hydrology, Ph.D. 1990University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
Hydrology, M.S.&
Science and Products
Improved hydrologic forecasting through synthesis of critical storage components and timescales across watersheds worldwide
River Corridor hot spots for biogeochemical processing: a continental scale synthesis
Continental-scale overview of stream primary productivity, its links to water quality, and consequences for aquatic carbon biogeochemistry
Modeled transport components of daily chlorophyll-a in the Illinois River, 2018 through 2020 (version 1.1, April 2024)
Daily Estimates of Chlorophyll Concentration for 82 U.S. Rivers
Hydrologic analysis of flow and transport for the Everglades DPM experiments
Light model and GPP estimates for 173 U.S. rivers
RiverMET: Workflow and scripts for river metabolism estimation including Illinois River Basin application, 2005 - 2020
High-Flow Field Experiments to Inform Everglades Restoration: Experimental Data 2010 to 2022 (ver. 2.0, October 2023)
Biophysical Data for Simulating Overland Flow in the Everglades
Distribution, frequency, and global extent of hypoxia in rivers
High-Flow Field Experiments to Inform Everglades Restoration: Experimental Data 2010 to 2018
QUASHNET SPAWN HESS CHEMICAL DATA
Mean seasonal SPARROW model inputs and simulated nitrogen and phosphorus loads for the Northeastern United States 2002 base year
NHD-RC: Extension of NHDPlus Version 2.1 with high-resolution river corridor attributes
Knowledge gaps and opportunities in water-quality drivers of aquatic ecosystem health
River control points for algal productivity revealed by transport analysis
Prioritizing river basins for nutrient studies
Predicting daily river chlorophyll concentrations at a continental scale
Viewing river corridors through the lens of critical zone science
Extent, patterns, and drivers of hypoxia in the world's streams and rivers
River Metabolism Estimation Tools (RiverMET) with demo in the Illinois River Basin
Biophysical methods and data analysis for simulating overland flow in the Everglades
GW/SW-MST: A groundwater/surface-water method selection tool
Light and flow regimes regulate the metabolism of rivers
Seasonally dynamic nutrient modeling quantifies storage lags and time-varying reactivity across large river basins
Predicting light regime controls on primary productivity across CONUS river networks
Science and Products
- Science
Improved hydrologic forecasting through synthesis of critical storage components and timescales across watersheds worldwide
Models that predict the flow of rivers and streams are critically important for planning flood control, hydropower, and reservoir operations, as well as for management of fish and wildlife populations. As temperatures and precipitation regimes change globally, the need to improve and develop these models for a wider spatial coverage and higher spatial fidelity becomes more imperative. Currently, oRiver Corridor hot spots for biogeochemical processing: a continental scale synthesis
Rivers are the veins of the landscape, providing environmental benefits that are disproportionately high relative to their aerial extent; shedding flood waters, hosting aquatic ecosystems, transporting solutes and energy-rich materials, and storing and transforming pollutants into less harmful forms. From uplands to the coasts, rivers facilitate key biogeochemical reactions that cumulatively influContinental-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 - Data
Filter Total Items: 15
Modeled transport components of daily chlorophyll-a in the Illinois River, 2018 through 2020 (version 1.1, April 2024)
TThis data release contains approximately three years of modeled chlorophyll-a—a proxy for planktonic algal biomass—transport through a 394-km portion of the Illinois River. Defined by four distinct reaches, model estimates include daily water balance, velocities, and algal biomass separated into its components of net growth, net loss, transported from upstream, and input from tributaries. FirstDaily Estimates of Chlorophyll Concentration for 82 U.S. Rivers
This data release contains modeled daily chlorophyll concentration for 82 streams and rivers across the conterminous United States. Estimates of daily chlorophyll concentration were generated using an extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) (Chen & Guestrin, 2016) machine learning model and various measures of water quality, reach characteristics, and meteorology. Child Items in this data release conHydrologic analysis of flow and transport for the Everglades DPM experiments
Flow and transport of sediment and phosphorus through the low-gradient wetlands of the Everglades, FL were characterized using hydrologic, biological, geomorphic, and biogeochemical data as inputs to several types of simulations. The data were collected in the DPM (Decompartmentalization Physical Model) experimental high-flow facility in the central Everglades, FL. The DPM includes wetlands, canalLight model and GPP estimates for 173 U.S. rivers
This data release contains products from Savoy & Harvey (2021) which modeled photosynthetically active radiation and gross primary productivity (GPP) for 173 streams and rivers across the continental United States. Estimates of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) were generated using a model that considers the contribution of light attenuation from riparian zones as well as within the waterRiverMET: Workflow and scripts for river metabolism estimation including Illinois River Basin application, 2005 - 2020
Ecosystem metabolism is a measure of energy flow in terrestrial and aquatic environments that quantifies a balance between the rate of biomass production by photosynthesizing plants and the rate of biomass oxidation by respiring plants and animals to maintain and build living biomass. It is therefore a fundamental measure of ecosystem function that quantifies the balance between the rate of producHigh-Flow Field Experiments to Inform Everglades Restoration: Experimental Data 2010 to 2022 (ver. 2.0, October 2023)
Data were collected between 2010 and 2022 in a research area of the Everglades known as the Decompartmentalization Physical Model (DPM), a wetland area in the central Everglades that includes canals and levees bordering Water Conservation Area 3A (WCA-3A) to the northwest and Water Conservation Area 3B (WCA-3B) to the southeast. During the twelve-year study period more than ten major controlled flBiophysical Data for Simulating Overland Flow in the Everglades
A biophysical approach to modeling overland flow in the Everglades can help predict future outcomes for ecological habitat, water storage during droughts, and water conveyance during floods. The data provided include measurements of vegetation stem architecture, microtopography, and landscape pattern metrics. Stem architecture measurements present the opportunity to estimate flow roughness of distDistribution, frequency, and global extent of hypoxia in rivers
To assess the distribution, frequency, and global extent of riverine hypoxia, we compiled 118 million paired dissolved oxygen (DO) and water temperature measurements from 125,158 unique locations in rivers in 93 countries and territories across the globe. The dataset also includes site characteristics derived from StreamCat, the National Hydrography and HydroAtlas datasets and proximal land coverHigh-Flow Field Experiments to Inform Everglades Restoration: Experimental Data 2010 to 2018
Data Release from the High-Flow Field Experiments to Inform Everglades Restoration: Experimental Data 2010 to 2018. Data were obtained from field sites located in the Everglades between two canals (L-67A and L-67C) from 2010 to 2018. During this time, five major controlled flow releases occurred by opening the culvert S152 on canal L-67A. Data consist of water velocity (continuous and discrete), wQUASHNET SPAWN HESS CHEMICAL DATA
This data set includes dissolved oxygen (DO) and specific conductivity (SpC) data collected in both the surface water and shallow streambed at the Quashnet River, Mashpee, USA from 2014-16. This data was collected to better understand groundwater discharge to the river and associated brook trout habitat. DO was typically near saturation in surface water and some groundwater, but is reduced in streMean seasonal SPARROW model inputs and simulated nitrogen and phosphorus loads for the Northeastern United States 2002 base year
This U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) data release includes input and output tabular files associated with mean seasonal 2002 simulations of total nitrogen and total phosphorus loads of the northeastern United States. The mean seasonal (MS) simulations are performed using a dynamic configuration of the USGS's Spatially Referenced Regression On Watershed attributes (dynamicSPARROW-MS) model, nonlinearNHD-RC: Extension of NHDPlus Version 2.1 with high-resolution river corridor attributes
This hybrid medium-resolution national hydrography dataset with river corridor attributes (NHD-RC) for the conterminous United States (CONUS) was created by merging lentic and lotic attributes from the high-resolution NHDPlus (U.S. Geological Survey, 2020) into the medium-resolution NHDPlus Version 2.1 (U.S. Geological Survey, 2016). NHD-RC includes attributes from an additional 5.4 million small - Publications
Filter Total Items: 114
Knowledge gaps and opportunities in water-quality drivers of aquatic ecosystem health
This report identifies key scientific gaps that limit our ability to predict water quality effects on health of aquatic ecosystems and proposes approaches to address those gaps. Topics considered include (1) coupled nutrient-carbon cycle processes and related ecological-flow-regime drivers of ecosystem health, (2) anthropogenic and geogenic toxin bioexposure, (3) fine sediment drivers of aquatic eRiver control points for algal productivity revealed by transport analysis
Measurement of planktonic chlorophyll-a—a proxy for algal biomass—in rivers may represent local production or algae transported from upstream, confounding understanding of algal bloom development in flowing waters. We modeled 3 years of chlorophyll-a transport through a 394-km portion of the Illinois River and found that although algal biomass is longitudinally widespread, most net production occuAuthorsNoah Schmadel, Judson Harvey, Jay Choi, Sarah M. Stackpoole, Jennifer L. Graham, Jennifer C. MurphyPrioritizing river basins for nutrient studies
Increases in fluxes of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) in the environment have led to negative impacts affecting drinking water, eutrophication, harmful algal blooms, climate change, and biodiversity loss. Because of the importance, scale, and complexity of these issues, it may be useful to consider methods for prioritizing nutrient research in representative drainage basins within a regional or nAuthorsAnthony J. Tesoriero, Dale M. Robertson, Christopher Green, John K. Böhlke, Judson Harvey, Sharon L. QiPredicting daily river chlorophyll concentrations at a continental scale
Eutrophication is one of the largest threats to aquatic ecosystems and chlorophyll a measurements are relevant indicators of trophic state and algal abundance. Many studies have modeled chlorophyll a in rivers but model development and testing has largely occurred at individual sites which hampers creating generalized models capable of making broad-scale predictions. To address this gap, we compilAuthorsPhilip R. Savoy, Judson HarveyViewing river corridors through the lens of critical zone science
River corridors integrate the active channels, geomorphic floodplain and riparian areas, and hyporheic zone while receiving inputs from the uplands and groundwater and exchanging mass and energy with the atmosphere. Here, we trace the development of the contemporary understanding of river corridors from the perspectives of geomorphology, hydrology, ecology, and biogeochemistry. We then summarize cAuthorsAdam Wymore, Adam Ward, Ellen Wohl, Judson HarveyExtent, patterns, and drivers of hypoxia in the world's streams and rivers
Hypoxia in coastal waters and lakes is widely recognized as a detrimental environmental issue, yet we lack a comparable understanding of hypoxia in rivers. We investigated controls on hypoxia using 118 million paired observations of dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration and water temperature in over 125,000 locations in rivers from 93 countries. We found hypoxia (DO < 2 mg L−1) in 12.6% of all riverAuthorsJoanna R Blaszczak, Lauren E Koenig, Francine H. Mejia, Alice M. Carter, Lluis Gómez-Gener, Christoper L Dutton, Nancy B. Grimm, Judson Harvey, Ashley M. Helton, Matthew J. CohenRiver Metabolism Estimation Tools (RiverMET) with demo in the Illinois River Basin
Ecosystem metabolism quantifies the rate of production, maintenance, and decay of organic matter in terrestrial and aquatic systems. It is a fundamental measure of energy flow associated with biomass production by photosynthesizing organisms and biomass oxidation by respiring plants, animals, algae, and bacteria (Bernhardt et al., 2022) . Ecosystem metabolism also provides an understanding of enerAuthorsJay Choi, Katherine Michelle Bernabe Quion, Ariel Reed, Judson HarveyBiophysical methods and data analysis for simulating overland flow in the Everglades
The Everglades in south Florida supply fresh drinking water for more than 7 million people, host a National Park, and are classified as a Ramsar wetland of international distinction. Predicting trajectories of water flow and water storage changes in the future is important to managing the Congressionally authorized restoration of the Everglades. Here we describe the needed data sources and analysiAuthorsJudson Harvey, Jay ChoiGW/SW-MST: A groundwater/surface-water method selection tool
Groundwater/surface-water (GW/SW) exchange and hyporheic processes are topics receiving increasing attention from the hydrologic community. Hydraulic, chemical, temperature, geophysical, and remote sensing methods are used to achieve various goals (e.g., inference of GW/SW exchange, mapping of bed materials, etc.), but the application of these methods is constrained by site conditions such as wateAuthorsSteven Hammett, Frederick Day-Lewis, Brett Russell Trottier, Paul M. Barlow, Martin A. Briggs, Geoffrey N. Delin, Judson Harvey, Carole D. Johnson, John W. Lane, D. O. Rosenberry, Dale D. WerkemaLight and flow regimes regulate the metabolism of rivers
Mean annual temperature and mean annual precipitation drive much of the variation in productivity across Earth's terrestrial ecosystems but do not explain variation in gross primary productivity (GPP) or ecosystem respiration (ER) in flowing waters. We document substantial variation in the magnitude and seasonality of GPP and ER across 222 US rivers. In contrast to their terrestrial counterparts,AuthorsEmily. S Bernhardt, Philip R. Savoy, Michael J Vlah, Alison Paige Appling, Lauren E Koenig, Robert O Hall Jr., Maite Arroita, Joanna Blaszczak, Alice M. Carter, Matthew J. Cohen, Judson Harvey, James B. Heffernan, Ashley M. Helton, J.D. Hosen, Lily Kirk, William H. McDowell, Emily H. Stanley, Charles Yackulic, Nancy B. GrimmSeasonally dynamic nutrient modeling quantifies storage lags and time-varying reactivity across large river basins
Nutrients that have gradually accumulated in soils, groundwaters, and river sediments in the United States over the past century can remobilize and increase current downstream loading, obscuring effects of conservation practices aimed at protecting water resources. Drivers of storage accumulation and release of nutrients are poorly understood at the spatial scale of basins to watersheds. PredictinAuthorsNoah Schmadel, Judson Harvey, Gregory E. SchwarzPredicting light regime controls on primary productivity across CONUS river networks
Solar radiation is a fundamental driver of ecosystem productivity, but widespread estimates of light available for primary producers in rivers are lacking. We developed a model to predict light available for river primary producers and used it to estimate river primary production across the contiguous United States (CONUS). Successively accounting for riparian and water column processes improved pAuthorsPhilip R. Savoy, Judson Harvey