Richard G Niswonger (Former Employee)

Percolation of precipitation through unsaturated zones is important for recharge of ground water. Rain and snowmelt at land surface are partitioned into different pathways including runoff, infiltration, evapotranspiration, unsaturated-zone storage, and recharge. A new package for MODFLOW-2005 called the Unsaturated-Zone Flow (UZF1) Package was developed to simulate water flow and...

No abstract available.

Low river flows are commonly controlled by river-aquifer exchange, the magnitude of which is governed by hydraulic properties of both aquifer and aquitard materials beneath the river. Low flows are often important ecologically. Numerical simulations were used to assess how textural heterogeneity of an alluvial system influences river seepage and low flows. The Cosumnes River in...

Seepage losses along numerous mountain front streams that discharge intermittently onto alluvial fans and piedmont alluvial plains are an important source of groundwater in the Basin and Range Province of the Western United States. Determining the distribution of seepage loss along mountain front streams is important when assessing groundwater resources of the region. Seepage loss along...

Many streams in the United States, especially those in semiarid regions, have reaches that are hydraulically disconnected from underlying aquifers. Ground-water withdrawals have decreased water levels in valley aquifers beneath streams, increasing the occurrence of disconnected streams and aquifers. The U.S. Geological Survey modular ground-water model (MODFLOW-2000) can be used to model...

Continuous estimates of streamflow are challenging in ephemeral channels. The extremely transient nature of ephemeral streamflows results in shifting channel geometry and degradation in the calibration of streamflow stations. Earlier work suggests that analysis of streambed temperature profiles is a promising technique for estimating streamflow patterns in ephemeral channels. The present...