Sandra Eberts is the Program Science Coordinator for the USGS Water Resources Mission Area, Office of Planning and Programming (OPP). One of her primary responsibilities is to engage regional and national-level stakeholders to cultivate opportunity for USGS science to meet their needs and to create excitement for USGS products long before their planned release. Sandy is the USGS representative to the Source Water Collaborative—29 national organizations united to protect America's sources of drinking water. She is a member of the American Water Works Association Groundwater Committee, the International Joint Commission Science Advisory Board - Research Coordination Committee, and the Great Lakes Coordinating Committee Executive Support Group. Sandy serves as the USGS point-of-contact for the Urban Waters Federal Partnership.
Sandy is a Professional Hydrogeologist. She holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Geology from The Ohio State University and a Certificate in Legislative Studies from Georgetown University. She has been with the USGS for more than 35 years.
The USGS Groundwater and Streamflow Information Program supports the collection and (or) delivery of both streamflow and water-level information at approximately 8,500 sites and water-level information alone for more than 1,700 additional sites. The data are served online—most in near realtime—to meet many diverse needs.
Groundwater plays a critical role in the water balance, however the groundwater component of the hydrologic cycle is frequently overlooked at basin scales because it is difficult to observe and quantify. We address this problem through a novel framework that combines existing hydrological models and data sets with groundwater flux estimates across Earth's largest system of lakes; the...
The Urban Waters Federal Partnership (UWFP) reconnects urban communities—particularly those that are overburdened or economically distressed—with their waterways by improving coordination among federal agencies.
Our surface water, groundwater, and aquatic ecosystems are priceless resources, used by people across the Nation for drinking, irrigation, industry, and recreation. The National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Project is a leading source of scientific data and knowledge for development of science-based policies and management strategies to improve and protect our water resources.
Get the facts and figures about the USGS Streamgaging Network, one of the largest streamgaging enterprises in the world!
More than 100 million people in the United States—about 35 percent of the population—receive their drinking water from public-supply wells. These systems can be vulnerable to contamination from naturally occurring constituents, such as radon, uranium and arsenic, and from commonly used manmade chemicals, such as fertilizers, pesticides, solvents, and gasoline hydrocarbons. Learn about the...
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists studying the vulnerability of public-supply wells to contamination have identified ways in which the seasonal operation of public-supply wells can affect the quality of water that they produce. By incorporating historical water-quality data into models of fluid flow, USGS scientists were able to estimate the amount of contaminated groundwater reaching a...
The United States faces growing challenges to its water supply, infrastructure, and aquatic ecosystems because of population growth, climate change, floods and droughts, and aging water delivery systems. To help address these challenges, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Water Resources Mission Area has established new strategic priorities that...
Miller, Mark P.; Clark, Brian R.; Eberts, Sandra M.; Lambert, Patrick M.; Toccalino, Patricia
The challenges of providing safe and sustainable water supplies for human and ecological uses and protecting lives and property during water emergencies are well recognized. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) plays an essential role in meeting these challenges through its observational networks and renowned water science and research activities (...
Eberts, Sandra M.; Wagner, Chad R.; Woodside, Michael D.
In the late 1800s, John Wesley Powell, second Director of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), proposed gaging the flow of rivers and streams in the Western United States to evaluate the potential for irrigation. Around the same time, several cities in the Eastern United States established primitive streamgages to help design water-supply systems....
Eberts, Sandra M.; Woodside, Michael D.; Landers, Mark N.; Wagner, Chad R.
Intense demand for water in the Central Valley of California and related increases in groundwater nitrate concentration threaten the sustainability of the groundwater resource. To assess contamination risk in the region, we developed a hybrid, non-linear, machine learning model within a statistical learning framework to predict nitrate...
Ransom, Katherine M.; Nolan, Bernard T.; Traum, Jonathan A.; Faunt, Claudia C.; Bell, Andrew M.; Gronberg, Jo Ann M.; Wheeler, David C.; Zamora, Celia; Jurgens, Bryant C.; Schwarz, Gregory E.; Belitz, Kenneth; Eberts, Sandra M.; Kourakos, George; Harter, Thomas No abstract available.
Muenich, Rebecca Logsdon; Johnson, Laura; Bratton, John F.; Fussell, Kristin DeVanna; Kane, Doug; Kalcic, Margaret; Robertson, Dale M.; Eberts, Sandra M.; Evans, Mary Anne; Gibbons, Kenneth J.
Cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (CyanoHABs) are increasingly a global concern because CyanoHABs pose a threat to human and aquatic ecosystem health and cause economic damages. Despite advances in scientific understanding of cyanobacteria and associated compounds, many unanswered questions remain about occurrence, environmental triggers for...
Graham, Jennifer L.; Dubrovsky, Neil M.; Eberts, Sandra M. The age distribution of water from a public-supply well in a deep alluvial aquifer was estimated and used to help explain arsenic variability in the water. The age distribution was computed using a ternary mixing model that combines three lumped parameter models of advection-dispersion transport of environmental tracers, which represent relatively...
Jurgens, Bryant C.; Bexfield, Laura M.; Eberts, Sandra M. No abstract available.
Böhlke, John Karl; Jurgens, Bryant C.; Uselmann, David J.; Eberts, Sandra M. No abstract available.
Eberts, Sandra M. Aquifer vulnerability models were developed to map groundwater nitrate concentration at domestic and public-supply well depths in the Central Valley, California. We compared three modeling methods for ability to predict nitrate concentration >4 mg/L: logistic regression (LR), random forest classification (RFC), and random forest regression (RFR...
Nolan, Bernard T.; Gronberg, JoAnn M.; Faunt, Claudia C.; Eberts, Sandra M.; Belitz, Ken
As part of the U.S. Geological Survey National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program, a study was conducted from 2001 to 2011 to shed light on factors that affect the vulnerability of water from public-supply wells to contamination (referred to hereafter as “public-supply-well vulnerability”). The study was designed as a follow-up to earlier...
Eberts, Sandra M.; Thomas, Mary Ann; Jagucki, Martha L.
This fact sheet highlights findings from the vulnerability study of a public-supply well in Albuquerque, New Mexico (hereafter referred to as “the study well”). The study well produces about 3,000 gallons of water per minute from the Rio Grande aquifer system. Water samples were collected at the study well, at two other nearby public-supply wells...
Jagucki, Martha L.; Bexfield, Laura M.; Heywood, Charles E.; Eberts, Sandra M.
The USGS Groundwater Age Mixtures and Contaminant Trends Tool (GAMACTT) can be used to explore the effects of basic aquifer properties and well configurations on groundwater age mixtures in groundwater discharge and on contaminant trends from varying nonpoint-source contaminant input scenarios.