Peter C Van Metre
Peter Van Metre retired in 2020 from the Earth System Processes Division of the USGS Water Mission Area. He currently is a Scientist Emeritus focused on completing the Regional Stream Quality Assessment (RSQA) of the USGS National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) project.
Biography
I started with the USGS in 1980 as a Hydrologic Technician in Tampa, Florida, eventually becoming a Research Hydrologist with the NAWQA project. From 1993 to 2012, I led a small team of researchers investigating long-term contaminant trends using lake and reservoir sediment cores. In 2012, with the start of the third decadal cycle of NAWQA, I was chosen to help design and lead the Regional Stream Quality Assessment (RSQA) studies. The RSQA team included geochemists, biologists, data management specialists, and hydrologists, and was charged with assessing stream quality and ecological condition and determining the effects of multiple chemical and physical stressors on stream biota. From 2013 to 2017, five large regions of the country were assessed, and we continue to interpret the wealth of data produced and to publish those findings.
Science and Products
Coal-Tar-Based Pavement Sealcoat, PAHs, and Environmental Health
Sealcoat is the black, viscous liquid applied to many asphalt parking lots, driveways, and playgrounds in North America to protect and enhance the appearance of the underlying asphalt. Coal-tar-based pavement sealcoat is a potent source of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) contamination in urban and suburban areas and a potential concern for human health and aquatic life.
Water-Quality Trends From Lake Cores
Sediment cores let us look back in time at the contaminant history of a watershed. Learn about what lake and reservoir sediment cores tell us about trends in metals, organochlorine pesticides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and other sediment-related contaminants.
USGS Research: PAHs and Coal-Tar-Based Pavement Sealcoat
Coal-tar-based pavement sealant is a potent source of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), as documented by the USGS and other researchers.
Coal-tar-based sealcoat products typically are 20 to 35% coal tar or coal-tar pitch—these materials are...
Is there an urban pesticide signature? Urban streams in five U.S. regions share common dissolved-phase pesticides but differ in predicted aquatic toxicity
Pesticides occur in urban streams globally, but the relation of occurrence to urbanization can be obscured by regional differences. In studies of five regions of the United States, we investigated the effect of region and urbanization on the occurrence and potential toxicity of dissolved pesticide mixtures. We analyzed 225 pesticide compounds in...
Nowell, Lisa H.; Moran, Patrick W.; Bexfield, Laura M.; Mahler, Barbara; Van Metre, Peter C.; Bradley, Paul; Schmidt, Travis S.; Button, Daniel T.; Qi, Sharon L. Inclusion of pesticide transformation products is key to estimating pesticide exposures and effects in small U.S. streams
Improved analytical methods can quantify hundreds of pesticide transformation products (TPs), but understanding of TP occurrence and potential toxicity in aquatic ecosystems remains limited. We quantified 108 parent pesticides and 116 TPs in more than 3 700 samples from 442 small streams in mostly urban basins across five major regions of the...
Mahler, Barbara; Nowell, Lisa H.; Sandstrom, Mark W.; Bradley, Paul; Romanok, Kristin; Konrad, Christopher; Van Metre, Peter Multi-region assessment of chemical mixture exposures and predicted cumulative effects in USA wadeable urban/agriculture-gradient streams
Chemical-contaminant mixtures are widely reported in large stream reaches in urban/agriculture-developed watersheds, but mixture compositions and aggregate biological effects are less well understood in corresponding smaller headwaters, which comprise most of stream length, riparian connectivity, and spatial biodiversity. During 2014–2017,...
Bradley, Paul; Journey, Celeste A.; Romanok, Kristin; Breitmeyer, Sara; Button, Daniel T.; Carlisle, Daren; Huffman, Bradley; Mahler, Barbara; Nowell, Lisa H.; Qi, Sharon L.; Smalling, Kelly; Waite, Ian R.; Van Metre, Peter C. Prioritizing river basins for intensive monitoring and assessment by the US Geological Survey
The US Geological Survey (USGS) is currently (2020) integrating its water science programs to better address the nation’s greatest water resource challenges now and into the future. This integration will rely, in part, on data from 10 or more intensively monitored river basins from across the USA. A team of USGS scientists was convened to develop...
Van Metre, Peter C.; Qi, Sharon L.; Deacon, Jeffrey R.; Dieter, Cheryl A.; Driscoll, Jessica M.; Fienen, Michael N.; Kenney, Terry A.; Lambert, Patrick M.; Lesmes, David; Mason, Christopher Allen; Mueller-Solger, Anke; Musgrove, MaryLynn; Painter, Jaime A.; Rosenberry, Donald O.; Sprague, Lori A.; Tesoriero, Anthony J.; Windham-Myers, Lisamarie; Wolock, David M.
Design and methods of the California stream quality assessment (CSQA), 2017
During 2017, as part of the National Water-Quality Assessment Project, the U.S. Geological Survey conducted the California Stream Quality Assessment to investigate the quality of streams in the Central California Foothills and Coastal Mountains ecoregion, United States. The goal of the California Stream Quality Assessment study was to assess the...
May, Jason T.; Nowell, Lisa H.; Coles, James F.; Button, Daniel T.; Bell, Amanda H.; Qi, Sharon L.; Van Metre, Peter C. Biofilms provide new insight into pesticide occurrence in streams and links to aquatic ecological communities
Streambed sediment is commonly analyzed to assess occurrence of hydrophobic pesticides and risks to aquatic communities. However, stream biofilms also have the potential to accumulate pesticides and may be consumed by aquatic organisms. To better characterize risks to aquatic life, the U.S. Geological Survey Regional Stream Quality Assessment...
Mahler, Barbara; Schmidt, Travis S.; Nowell, Lisa H.; Qi, Sharon L.; Van Metre, Peter C.; Hladik, Michelle; Carlisle, Daren; Munn, Mark D.; May, Jason Pavement alters delivery of sediment and fallout radionuclides to urbanstreams
Sediment from urban impervious surfaces has the potential to be an important vector for contaminants, particularly where stormwater culverts and other buried channels draining large impervious areas exit from underground pipes into open channels. To better understand urban sediment sources and their relation to fallout radionuclides, we collected...
Gellis, Allen; Fuller, Christopher C.; Van Metre, Peter C.; Mahler, Barbara; Welty, C.; Miller, Andrew; Nibert, Lucas A; Clifton, Zachary; Malen, Jeremy; Kemper, J.T. Legacy and current‐use contaminants in sediments alter macroinvertebrate communities in southeastern US Streams
Sediment contamination of freshwater streams in urban areas is a recognized and growing concern. As a part of a comprehensive regional stream‐quality assessment, stream‐bed sediment was sampled from streams spanning a gradient of urban intensity in the Piedmont ecoregion of the southeastern United States. We evaluated relations between a broad...
Moran, Patrick W.; Kemble, Nile E.; Waite, Ian R.; Mahler, Barbara; Nowell, Lisa H.; Van Metre, Peter C. Multi-region assessment of pharmaceutical exposures and predicted effects in USA wadeable urban-gradient streams
Human-use pharmaceuticals in urban streams link aquatic-ecosystem health to human health. Pharmaceutical mixtures have been widely reported in larger streams due to historical emphasis on wastewater-treatment plant (WWTP) sources, with limited investigation of pharmaceutical exposures and potential effects in smaller headwater streams. In 2014–...
Bradley, Paul; Journey, Celeste A.; Button, Daniel T.; Carlisle, Daren; Huffman, B. J.; Qi, Sharon L.; Romanok, Kristin; Van Metre, Peter C.
Daily stream samples reveal highly complex pesticide occurrence and potential toxicity to aquatic life
Transient, acutely toxic concentrations of pesticides in streams can go undetected by fixed-interval sampling programs. Here we compare temporal patterns in occurrence of current-use pesticides in daily composite samples to those in weekly composite and weekly discrete samples of surface water from 14 small stream sites. Samples were collected...
Norman, Julia E.; Mahler, Barbara; Nowell, Lisa H.; Van Metre, Peter C.; Sandstrom, Mark W.; Corbin, Mark A.; Qian, Yaorong; Pankow, James F.; Luo, Wentai; Fitzgerald, Nicholas B.; Asher, William E.; McWhirter, Kevin J. Combining sediment fingerprinting with age-dating sediment using fallout radionuclides for an agricultural stream, Walnut Creek, Iowa, USA
PurposeThe main purpose of this study was to demonstrate the utility of the sediment fingerprinting approach to apportion surface-derived sediment, and then age date that portion using short-lived fallout radionuclides. In systems where a large mass of mobile sediment is in channel storage, age dating provides an understanding of the transfer of...
Gellis, Allen; Fuller, Christopher C.; Van Metre, Peter C.; Filstrup, Christopher T.; Cole, Kevin; Sabitov, Timur Projected urban growth in the Southeastern USA puts small streams at risk
Future land-use development has the potential to profoundly affect the health of aquatic ecosystems in the coming decades. We developed regression models predicting the loss of sensitive fish (R2=0.39) and macroinvertebrate (R2=0.64) taxa as a function of urban and agricultural land uses and applied them to projected urbanization of the rapidly...
Van Metre, Peter C.; Waite, Ian R.; Qi, Sharon L.; Mahler, Barbara; Terando, Adam; Wieczorek, Michael; Meador, Michael R.; Bradley, Paul M.; Journey, Celeste A.; Schmidt, Travis S.; Carlisle, Daren
Urban growth in the southeastern U.S. potentially threatens health of small streams
Projected impacts include widespread loss of fish and invertebrate species in the region
Aquatic Critters Can Tell Us a Lot About How to Improve Stream Health
A trio of recently released studies shows how fish, macroinvertebrates, and algae are affected by chemical and physical stressors
Rainfall Following Drought Linked to Historic Nitrate Levels in Some Midwest Streams in 2013
Highest concentrations found in Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois.