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Richard G Niswonger

Richard Niswonger is a Research Hydrologist with the USGS Water Resources Mission Area.

Our research aims to understand local and regional water resources to support water management decisions. We develop models that simulate natural hydrologic processes and human water use in eight major categories: thermoelectric power plants, irrigation, public supply, industry, mining, self-supplied domestic, livestock, and aquaculture. The USGS Water Use Program historically provided 5-year county and state-based water use estimates. Moving forward, the USGS Water Use Program will provide monthly water use estimates at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) 12-digit Watershed Boundary Dataset (HUC12) resolution on an annual basis.

My role as the national water use research manager is to support the development of nationally consistent models with three key features: automated data retrieval, monthly simulation at the USGS 12-digit Watershed Boundary Dataset (HUC12) resolution, and periodic updating for current and forecasted results. These models help identify data gaps, improve data collection, and enhance water use predictions. They enable frequent reporting, synthesis, and interpretation of data, transforming the USGS's water use compilation into a continuous information accumulation process.

The national water use model also supports other USGS programs, including the National Water Census, which is a research program focused on national water availability and use. It develops water accounting tools and assesses water availability at regional and national scales. The National Water Census is one of the six major science directions outlined in the USGS's 2007 Science Plan. It is mandated by the SECURE Water Act and implemented through the Department of the Interior WaterSMART initiative.

Science and Products

Filter Total Items: 51

Assessing potential effects of changes in water use in the middle Carson River Basin with a numerical groundwater-flow model, Eagle, Dayton, and Churchill Valleys, west-central Nevada

During the economic boom of the mid part of the first decade of the 2000s in northwestern Nevada, municipal and housing growth increased use of the water resources of this semi-arid region. In 2008, when the economy slowed, new housing development stopped, and immediate pressure on groundwater resources abated. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Bureau of Reclamation, began a hydr
Authors
Eric D. Morway, Susan G. Buto, Richard G. Niswonger, Justin L. Huntington
By
Water Resources Mission Area, Nevada Water Science Center

Can hydrological models benefit from using global soil moisture, evapotranspiration, and runoff products as calibration targets?

Hydrological models are usually calibrated to in-situ streamflow observations with reasonably long and uninterrupted records. This is challenging for poorly gage or ungaged basins where such information is not available. Even for gaged basins, the single-objective calibration to gaged streamflow cannot guarantee reliable forecasts because, as has been documented elsewhere, the inverse problem is m
Authors
Yiwen Mei, Juliane Mai, Hong Xuan Do, Andrew Gronewold, Howard W. Reeves, Sandra M. Eberts, Richard G. Niswonger, R. Steve Regan, Randall J. Hunt
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Water Resources Mission Area, Nevada Water Science Center, Upper Midwest Water Science Center

Integrated hydrologic model development and postprocessing for GSFLOW using pyGSFLOW

pyGSFLOW is a python package designed to create new GSFLOW integrated hydrologic models, read existing models, edit model input data, run GSFLOW models, process output, and visualize model data.
Authors
Joshua Larsen, Ayman H. Alzraiee, Richard G. Niswonger
By
Water Resources Mission Area, California Water Science Center

Integrated hydrology and operations modeling to evaluate climate change impacts in an agricultural valley irrigated with snowmelt runoff

Applying models to developed agricultural regions remains a difficult problem because there are no existing modeling codes that represent both the complex physics of the hydrology and anthropogenic manipulations to water distribution and consumption. We apply an integrated groundwater – surface water and hydrologic river operations model to an irrigated river valley in northwestern Nevada/northern
Authors
Wesley Kitlasten, Eric D. Morway, Richard G. Niswonger, Murphy Gardner, Jeremy T. White, Enrique Triana, David J. Selkowitz
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Water Resources Mission Area, Alaska Science Center, Nevada Water Science Center, Oklahoma-Texas Water Science Center

Baseflow age distributions and depth of active groundwater flow in a snow‐dominated mountain headwater basin

Deeper flows through bedrock in mountain watersheds could be important, but lack of data to characterize bedrock properties limits understanding. To address data scarcity, we combine a previously published integrated hydrologic model of a snow‐dominated, headwater basin of the Colorado River with a new method for dating baseflow age using dissolved gas tracers SF6, CFC‐113, N2, and Ar. The origina
Authors
Rosemary W.H. Carroll, Andrew H. Manning, Richard G. Niswonger, David W Marchetti, Kenneth H. Williams
By
Geology, Geophysics, and Geochemistry Science Center

An agricultural water use package for MODFLOW and GSFLOW

The Agricultural Water Use (AG) Package was developed for simulating demand-driven and supply-constrained agricultural water use in MODFLOW and GSFLOW models. The AG Package uses pre-existing hydrologic simulation provided by MODFLOW and GSFLOW. Three options are available for simulating water use for agriculture: (1) user-specified demands, (2) demands determined by a user-specified irrigation tr
Authors
Richard G. Niswonger
By
Water Resources Mission Area

Managed aquifer recharge in snow-fed river basins: What, why and how?

What does climate change mean for snow-fed river basins?Climate change poses unique challenges in snow-fed river basins across the western United States because the majority of water supply originates as snow (Dettinger, Udall, & Georgakakos, 2015). In the Sierra Nevada, recent observations include changes in snow accumulation and snowmelt, and shifts in peak streamflow timing (Barnhart et al., 20
Authors
Kelley Sterle, Wesley Kitlasten, Eric D. Morway, Richard G. Niswonger, Loretta Singletary
By
Water Resources Mission Area, Nevada Water Science Center

Linkages between hydrology and seasonal variations of nutrients and periphyton in a large oligotrophic subalpine lake

Periphyton is important to lake ecosystems, contributing to primary production, nutrient cycling, and benthic metabolism. Increases in periphyton growth in lakes can be indicative of changes in water quality, shifts in ecosystem structure, and increases in nutrient fluxes. In oligotrophic lakes, conservationists are interested in characterizing the influence of hydrological drivers on excessive pe
Authors
Ramon C. Naranjo, Richard G. Niswonger, David Smith, Donald O. Rosenberry, Sudeep Chandra
By
Water Resources Mission Area, Nevada Water Science Center

GSFLOW-GRASS v1.0.0: GIS-enabled hydrologic modeling of coupled groundwater–surface-water systems

The importance of water moving between the atmosphere and aquifers has led to efforts to develop and maintain coupled models of surface water and groundwater. However, developing inputs to these models is usually time-consuming and requires extensive knowledge of software engineering, often prohibiting their use by many researchers and water managers, thus reducing these models' potential to promo
Authors
G.-H. Crystal Ng, Andrew D. Wickert, Lauren D. Somers, Leila Saberi, Collin Cronkite-Ratcliff, Richard G. Niswonger, Jeffrey M. McKenzie
By
National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program, Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center

Input data processing tools for the integrated hydrologic model GSFLOW

Integrated hydrologic modeling (IHM) encompasses a vast number of processes and specifications, variable in time and space, and development of models can be arduous. Model input construction techniques have not been formalized or made easily reproducible. Creating the input files for integrated hydrologic models requires complex GIS processing of raster and vector datasets from various sources. De
Authors
Murphy A. Gardner, Charles G. Morton, Justin L. Huntington, Richard G. Niswonger, Wesley R. Henson
By
Water Resources Mission Area, Nevada Water Science Center

Documentation for the MODFLOW 6 Groundwater Flow Model

This report documents the Groundwater Flow (GWF) Model for a new version of MODFLOW called MODFLOW 6. The GWF Model for MODFLOW 6 is based on a generalized control-volume finite-difference approach in which a cell can be hydraulically connected to any number of surrounding cells. Users can define the model grid using one of three discretization packages, including (1) a structured discretization pac
Authors
Christian D. Langevin, Joseph D. Hughes, Edward R. Banta, Richard G. Niswonger, Sorab Panday, Alden M. Provost
By
Water Resources Mission Area, Groundwater and Streamflow Information Program

Managed aquifer recharge through off-season irrigation in agricultural regions

Options for increasing reservoir storage in developed regions are limited and prohibitively expensive. Projected increases in demand call for new long-term water storage to help sustain agriculture, municipalities, industry, and ecological services. Managed aquifer recharge (MAR) is becoming an integral component of water resources around the world. However, MAR faces challenges, including infrast
Authors
Richard G. Niswonger, Eric D. Morway, Enrique Triana, Justin L. Huntington
By
Water Resources Mission Area
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View downstream, Carson River, Nevada

Water for the Seasons

Water for the Seasons (WftS) is a four year study funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. WtfS uses the Truckee-Carson River System (TCRS) as a pilot study to learn how to best link science with decision-making in snow-fed arid-land river systems. By working collaboratively with stakeholders, WftS aims to create a model for improving community climate...
By
Nevada Water Science Center
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Water for the Seasons

Water for the Seasons (WftS) is a four year study funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. WtfS uses the Truckee-Carson River System (TCRS) as a pilot study to learn how to best link science with decision-making in snow-fed arid-land river systems. By working collaboratively with stakeholders, WftS aims to create a model for improving community climate...
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USGS

Water Resources Discipline Research Seminar Series

The Water Resources Discipline (predecessor of the Water Mission Area) Research Seminar Series hosted a wide range of speakers on a diverse array of water research topics.  Archived videos of many seminars are available for viewing.

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Water Resources Discipline Research Seminar Series

The Water Resources Discipline (predecessor of the Water Mission Area) Research Seminar Series hosted a wide range of speakers on a diverse array of water research topics.  Archived videos of many seminars are available for viewing.

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MODFLOW-NWT model used to simulate Potential Effects of Changes in Water Use in the Middle Carson River Basin for Eagle, Dayton, and Churchill Valleys, West-Central, Nevada

A three-dimensional MODFLOW-NWT groundwater flow model was developed to evaluate the impacts of alternative water management scenarios on the groundwater resources of Eagle, Dayton, and Churchill Valleys, Nevada. In addition, the resulting impact on flows in the Carson River and Lahontan Reservoir are also evaluated. During the economic boom that occurred from 2004-2006 in northwestern Nevada, mun
By
Nevada Water Science Center

GSFLOW and MODSIM-GSFLOW model used to evaluate the potential effects of increased temperature on the Carson Valley watershed and agricultural system in eastern California and western Nevada

The USGS developed an integrated river operations-groundwater model using GSFLOW and MODSIM GSFLOW to simulate streamflow derived from snowmelt, the distribution of surface water based on the existing prior appropriations water doctrine, supplemental pumping in response to surface water shortfalls, and the resulting surface water-groundwater interactions in the Carson Valley in California and Neva
By
Nevada Water Science Center

Version 2.3.0 of Coupled Ground-Water and Surface-Water Flow Model Based on the Integration of the Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS) and the Modular Ground-Water Flow Model

GSFLOW is a coupled Groundwater and Surface-Water Flow model based on the integration of the U.S. Geological Survey Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS; Markstrom and others, 2015) and the U.S. Geological Survey Modular Groundwater Flow Model (MODFLOW-2005, Harbaugh, 2005; MODFLOW-NWT, Niswonger and others, 2011). In addition to the basic PRMS and MODFLOW simulation methods, several additio
By
Water Resources Mission Area

GSFLOW: Coupled Groundwater and Surface-Water Flow Model

Groundwater and Surface-water FLOW (GSFLOW) was developed to simulate coupled groundwater and surface-water resources. The model is based on the integration of the U.S. Geological Survey Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS) and the U.S. Geological Survey Modular Groundwater Flow Model (MODFLOW).

By
Water Resources Mission Area

MODFLOW-NWT: A Newton Formulation for MODFLOW-2005

MODFLOW-NWT is a Newton-Raphson formulation for MODFLOW-2005 to improve solution of unconfined groundwater-flow problems. MODFLOW-NWT is a standalone program that is intended for solving problems involving drying and rewetting nonlinearities of the unconfined groundwater-flow equation.

By
Water Resources Mission Area

GSFLOW: Coupled Groundwater and Surface-Water Flow Model, version 2.2.1

GSFLOW is a coupled Groundwater and Surface-Water Flow model based on the integration of the U.S. Geological Survey Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS; Markstrom and others, 2015) and the U.S. Geological Survey Modular Groundwater Flow Model (MODFLOW-2005, Harbaugh, 2005; MODFLOW-NWT, Niswonger and others, 2011). In addition to the basic PRMS and MODFLOW simulation methods, several additio
By
Water Resources Mission Area

GSFLOW: Coupled Groundwater and Surface-Water Flow Model, version 2.2.0

GSFLOW is a coupled Groundwater and Surface-Water Flow model based on the integration of the U.S. Geological Survey Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS; Markstrom and others, 2015) and the U.S. Geological Survey Modular Groundwater Flow Model (MODFLOW-2005, Harbaugh, 2005; MODFLOW-NWT, Niswonger and others, 2011). In addition to the basic PRMS and MODFLOW simulation methods, several additio
By
Water Resources Mission Area

pyGSFLOW v1.0.0

Python package software release for pyGSFLOW. pyGSFLOW is a python package to create, read, write, edit, and visualize GSFLOW models. Source code, examples, installation instructions, and documentation can be found at https://github.com/pygsflow/pygsflow
By
California Water Science Center

GSFLOW: Coupled Groundwater and Surface-Water Flow Model, version 2.1.0

GSFLOW is a coupled Groundwater and Surface-water FLOW model based on the integration of the USGS Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS-V) and the USGS Modular Groundwater Flow Model (MODFLOW-2005 and MODFLOW-NWT). GSFLOW was developed to simulate coupled groundwater/surface-water flow in one or more watersheds by simultaneously simulating flow across the land surface, within subsurface satur
By
Water Resources Mission Area

CRT: Cascade Routing Tool to Define and Visualize Flow Paths for Grid-Based Watershed Models

The U.S. Geological Survey Cascade Routing Tool (CRT) is a computer application for watershed models that include the coupled Groundwater and Surface-water FLOW model GSFLOW and the Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS). CRT generates output to define cascading surface and shallow subsurface flow paths for grid-based model domains. 

By
California Water Science Center

Science and Products