Matt Ely
Biography
Matt Ely is the Associate Director of Hydrologic Interpretive Programs for the New England Water Science Center. Matt manages a diverse team of over 75 scientists and technicians working on complex, interdisciplinary water resource issues across New England, the nation, and the world. Previously he served as the Geohydrology Studies Chief with the USGS New Mexico Water Science Center in Albuquerque and as a project hydrologist with the Washington Water Science Center in Tacoma. He received a B.S. in Marine Science from the University of South Carolina and an M.S. in Geoscience from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Matt developed numerous groundwater-flow and watershed models and served as project chief on regional water resource assessments. He has been with the USGS since 1998.
Science and Products
New England WSC Seminar series Simeone 20190424
Forest cover is predicted to decline in the western US in the next century, due in part to increased hydraulic stress associated with climate change. There has been a large body of work done on adult trees in natural settings, but a smaller amount has been done on more vulnerable seedlings outside of the greenhouse.
New England WSC seminar series Hackman 20190404
The abandonment of cranberry farmland in southeastern Massachusetts presents an opportunity for wide-scale protection and ecological restoration of coastal wetland systems. Potentially thousands of acres of Massachusetts’ historic wetlands are now in transition, and there is a state-level political focus on the plight of the cranberry industry.
New England WSC seminar series Rau 20181116
Demand for biomass bioenergy has been increasing due to consumer choices, and changes in public policy in response to global climate change. Currently, in the United States, unprocessed wood waste is the primary source of biomass for energy production.
New England WSC seminar series Benthem 20181026
USGS’s extensive stream gage network has greatly advanced our hydrologic understanding of watershed dynamics through the calculation of long-term streamflow measurements. Discharge, however, is not a direct measurement but rather derived from measurements of channel area, water height, and velocity.
New England WSC seminar series Austin 20180524
Climate change raises concern that risks of hydrological drought may be increasing. We estimate hydrological drought probabilities for rivers and streams in the United States (U.S.) using maximum likelihood logistic regression (MLLR).
Development of Flood Insurance Maps in New England
FEMA has requested USGS expertise in hydraulics, hydrology, and mapping to general Flood Insurance Maps for New England.
New England WSC seminar series Elskus 20180502
Known in Turners Falls as ‘The Fish Lab’, the USGS Conte lab’s mission is the conservation of migratory fish.
New England WSC seminar series Lamontagne 20180213
Author provided a technical summary of work in flood frequency analysis in the context of the new Bulletin 17C procedure.
New England WSC seminar series Pagsuyoin 20171012
This presentation discusses the visual and dynamic Adaptive Drought Vulnerability Index for Strategic Emergency Response (ADVISER) model, a decision support tool that enables the adaptive mapping of regional vulnerabilities to increasing drought severity.
New England WSC seminar series Cosgrove 20170515
NOAA's National Water Model (NWM) represents the next generation of river forecasting by NOAA. The NWM is based on the National Hydrography Dataset at a scale of 1:100,000 and is being developed to provide continuous modeled river flows for all 2 million plus river reaches in the model.
New England WSC seminar series Lawrence 20170509
A consistent decreasing trend in acidic deposition levels over the past several decades has led to partial chemical recovery of surface waters. However, depletion of soil Ca from acidic deposition has slowed surface water recovery and led to the impairment of both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.
New England WSC Seminar series Detenbeck 20170419
Watershed managers are challenged by the need for predictive temperature models with sufficient accuracy and geographic breadth for practical use. We described thermal regimes of New England rivers and streams based on a reduced set of metrics for the May–September growing season (July or August median temperature, diurnal rate of change, and magnitude and timing of growing season maximum)...
Groundwater development stress: Global-scale indices compared to regional modeling
The increased availability of global datasets and technologies such as global hydrologic models and the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites have resulted in a growing number of global-scale assessments of water availability using simple indices of water stress. Developed initially for surface water, such indices are...
Alley, William; Clark, Brian R.; Ely, Matt; Faunt, Claudia C.
Groundwater availability of the Columbia Plateau Regional Aquifer System, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho
The Columbia Plateau Regional Aquifer System (CPRAS) covers about 44,000 square miles of southeastern Washington, northeastern Oregon, and western Idaho. The area supports a $6-billion per year agricultural industry, leading the Nation in production of apples, hops, and eight other commodities. Groundwater pumpage and surface-water diversions...
Vaccaro, J.J.; Kahle, S.C.; Ely, D.M.; Burns, E.R.; Snyder, D.T.; Haynes, J.V.; Olsen, T.D.; Welch, W.B.; Morgan, D.S.
Numerical simulation of groundwater flow in the Columbia Plateau Regional Aquifer System, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington
A three-dimensional numerical model of groundwater flow was constructed for the Columbia Plateau Regional Aquifer System (CPRAS), Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, to evaluate and test the conceptual model of the system and to evaluate groundwater availability. The model described in this report can be used as a tool by water-resource managers and...
Ely, D. Matthew; Burns, Erick R.; Morgan, David S.; Vaccaro, John J.
Hydrogeologic framework and groundwater/surface-water interactions of the upper Yakima River Basin, Kittitas County, central Washington
The hydrogeology, hydrology, and geochemistry of groundwater and surface water in the upper (western) 860 square miles of the Yakima River Basin in Kittitas County, Washington, were studied to evaluate the groundwater-flow system, occurrence and availability of groundwater, and the extent of groundwater/surface-water interactions. The study area...
Gendaszek, Andrew S.; Ely, D. Matthew; Hinkle, Stephen R.; Kahle, Sue C.; Welch, Wendy B.
Chemical and isotopic data collected from groundwater, surface-water, and atmospheric precipitation sites in Upper Kittitas County, Washington, 2010-12
As part of a multidisciplinary U.S. Geological Survey study of water resources in Upper Kittitas County, Washington, chemical and isotopic data were collected from groundwater, surface-water, and atmospheric precipitation sites from 2010 to 2012. These data are documented here so that interested parties can quickly and easily find those chemical...
Hinkle, Stephen R.; Ely, D. Matthew
Simulation of groundwater and surface-water resources and evaluation of water-management alternatives for the Chamokane Creek basin, Stevens County, Washington
A three-dimensional, transient numerical model of groundwater and surface-water flow was constructed for Chamokane Creek basin to better understand the groundwater-flow system and its relation to surface-water resources. The model described in this report can be used as a tool by water-management agencies and other stakeholders to quantitatively...
Ely, D. Matthew; Kahle, Sue C.
Numerical simulation of groundwater flow for the Yakima River basin aquifer system, Washington
A regional, three-dimensional, transient numerical model of groundwater flow was constructed for the Yakima River basin aquifer system to better understand the groundwater-flow system and its relation to surface-water resources. The model described in this report can be used as a tool by water-management agencies and other stakeholders to...
Ely, D.M.; Bachmann, M.P.; Vaccaro, J.J.
Hydrogeologic Framework of the Yakima River Basin Aquifer System, Washington
The Yakima River basin aquifer system underlies about 6,200 square miles in south-central Washington. The aquifer system consists of basin-fill deposits occurring in six structural-sedimentary basins, the Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG), and generally older bedrock. The basin-fill deposits were divided into 19 hydrogeologic units, the CRBG was...
Vaccaro, J.J.; Jones, M.A.; Ely, D.M.; Keys, M.E.; Olsen, T.D.; Welch, W.B.; Cox, S.E.
Seepage Investigation for Selected River Reaches in the Chehalis River Basin, Washington
A study was completed in September 2007 in the Chehalis River basin to determine gain or loss of streamflow by measuring discharge at selected intervals within various reaches along the Chehalis River and its tributaries. Discharge was measured at 68 new and existing streamflow sites, where gains and losses were determined for 36 stream reaches....
Ely, D. Matthew; Frasl, Kenneth E.; Marshall, Cameron A.; Reed, Fred OPR-PPR, a Computer Program for Assessing Data Importance to Model Predictions Using Linear Statistics
The OPR-PPR program calculates the Observation-Prediction (OPR) and Parameter-Prediction (PPR) statistics that can be used to evaluate the relative importance of various kinds of data to simulated predictions. The data considered fall into three categories: (1) existing observations, (2) potential observations, and (3) potential information about...
Tonkin, Matthew J.; Tiedeman, Claire; Ely, D. Matthew; Hill, Mary C. Analysis of sensitivity of simulated recharge to selected parameters for seven watersheds modeled using the precipitation-runoff modeling system
Recharge is a vital component of the ground-water budget and methods for estimating it range from extremely complex to relatively simple. The most commonly used techniques, however, are limited by the scale of application. One method that can be used to estimate ground-water recharge includes process-based models that compute distributed water...
Ely, D. Matthew Conceptual model and numerical simulation of the ground-water-flow system in the unconsolidated deposits of the Colville River Watershed, Stevens County, Washington
Increased use of ground- and surface-water supplies in watersheds of Washington State in recent years has created concern that insufficient instream flows remain for fish and other uses. Issuance of new ground-water rights in the Colville River Watershed was halted by the Washington Department of Ecology due to possible hydraulic continuity of the...
Ely, D. Matthew; Kahle, Sue C.