Sheila Murphy
Sheila Murphy is a Research Hydrologist for the USGS Water Resources Mission Area.
Sheila Murphy is a hydrologist who works on assessing and predicting how disturbances (such as wildfire and floods) affect water availability. In 2023 Sheila received a Superior Service Award from the Department of the Interior for making fundamental advancements in understanding the effects that wildfire can have on water supplies.
Science and Products
Filter Total Items: 58
Hysteretic response of suspended-sediment in wildfire affected watersheds of the Pacific Northwest and Southern Rocky Mountains
Wildfires can have a profound impact on hydrosedimentary interactions, or the relationship between sediment and runoff, in forested headwater streams. Quantification of sediment-runoff dynamics at the event scale is integral for understanding source areas and transport of suspended-sediment through a watershed following wildfire. Here we used high-frequency turbidity and stream discharge...
Authors
Gregory D. Clark, Sheila F. Murphy, Katherine Skalak, David W. Clow, Garrett Alexander Akie, Kurt D. Carpenter, Sean E. Payne, Brian A. Ebel
Relationship of atmospheric nitrogen deposition to soil nitrogen cycling along an elevation gradient in the Colorado Front Range
Microbial processing of atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition regulates the retention and mobilization of N in soils, with important implications for water quality. Understanding the links between N deposition, microbial communities, N transformations, and water quality is critical as N deposition shifts toward reduced N and remains persistently high in many regions. Here, we investigated...
Authors
Deborah A. Repert, Ruth C. Heindel, Sheila F. Murphy, Kaitlyn M. Jeanis
Stream discharge determinations using slug additions and specific conductance
Stream discharge is often determined by wading the stream and measuring the velocity at fixed widths and depths. However, there are conditions when wading measurements are not safe or the measurements are poor because of high turbulence, rocky streambeds, shallow or sheet flow, aquatic plants, or inaccessibility due to ice. Under these conditions, it is often preferable to determine...
Authors
R. Blaine McCleskey, Robert L. Runkel, Sheila F. Murphy, David A. Roth
An intercomparison of DOC estimated from fDOM sensors in wildfire affected streams of the western United States
Wildfires in the western United States (US) have been demonstrated to affect water quality, including dissolved organic carbon (DOC), in streams. Elevated post-wildfire DOC concentration poses a potential risk to drinking water treatment systems. In-stream measurements of fluorescent dissolved organic matter (fDOM), a proxy for DOC, have shown potential to detect dynamic changes in DOC...
Authors
Garrett Alexander Akie, David W. Clow, Sheila F. Murphy, Gregory D. Clark, Michael Meador, Brian A. Ebel
Intersection of wildfire and legacy mining poses risk to water quality
Mining and wildfires are both landscape disturbances that pose elevated and substantial hazards to water supplies and ecosystems due to increased erosion and transport of sediment, metals, and debris to downstream waters. The risk to water supplies may be amplified when these disturbances occur in the same watershed. This work describes mechanisms by which the intersection of mining and...
Authors
Sheila F. Murphy, Johanna Blake, Brian A. Ebel, Deborah A. Martin
Dynamic water-quality responses to wildfire in Colorado
In 2020, Colorado experienced the most severe wildfire season in recorded history, with wildfires burning 625 357 acres across the state. Two of the largest fires burned parts of Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP), and a study was initiated to address concerns about potential effects on drinking water quality from mobilization of ash and sediment. The study took advantage of a wealth of...
Authors
David W. Clow, Garrett Alexander Akie, Sheila F. Murphy, Evan John Gohring
Opportunities and challenges for precipitation forcing data in post-wildfire hydrologic modeling applications
The frequency and extent of wildfires have increased in recent decades with immediate and cascading effects on water availability in many regions of the world. Precipitation is used as primary input to hydrologic models and is a critical driver of post-wildfire hydrologic hazards including debris flows, flash floods, water-quality effects, and reservoir sedimentation. These models are...
Authors
Trevor Fuess Partridge, Zachary Johnson, Rachel Sleeter, Sharon L. Qi, Michelle A. Walvoord, Sheila F. Murphy, Cara L. Peterman-Phipps, Brian A. Ebel
Urbanization and water management control stream water quality along a mountain to plains transition
Urbanization can have substantial effects on water quality due to altered hydrology and introduction of constituents to water bodies. In arid and semi-arid environments, streams are further stressed by dewatering as a result of diversions. We conducted a high-resolution synoptic survey of two streams in Colorado, USA that transition abruptly from granitic/metamorphic forested mountains...
Authors
Sheila F. Murphy, Robert L. Runkel, Edward G. Stets, Alex J Nolan, Deborah A. Repert
Prolonged drought in a northern California coastal region suppresses wildfire impacts on hydrology
Wildfires naturally occur in many landscapes, however they are undergoing rapid regime shifts. Despite the emphasis in the literature on the most severe hydrological responses to wildfire, there remains a knowledge gap on the thresholds of wildfire (i.e. burned area/drainage area ratio, BAR) required to initiate hydrological responses. We investigated hydrological changes in the Russian...
Authors
Michelle E. Newcomer, Jennifer C. Underwood, Sheila F. Murphy, Craig Ulrich, Todd Schram, Stephen R. Maples, Jasquelin Peña, Erica R. Siirila-Woodburn, Marcus Trotta, Jay Jasperse, Donald Seymour, Susan S. Hubbard
Chemical characteristics of wildfire ash across the globe and their environmental and socio-economic implications
The mobilisation of potentially harmful chemical constituents in wildfire ash can be a major consequence of wildfires, posing widespread societal risks. Knowledge of wildfire ash chemical composition is crucial to anticipate and mitigate these risks.Here we present a comprehensive dataset on the chemical characteristics of a wide range of wildfire ashes (42 types and a total of 148...
Authors
Carmen Sanchez-Garcia, Cristina Santín, Jonay Neris, Gabriel Sigmund, Xose Lois Otero, Joella Manley, Gil González-Rodríguez, Claire Belcher, Artemi Cerdá, Abbey L Marcotte, Sheila F. Murphy, Charles Rhoades, Gary J. Sheridan, Tercia Strydom, Peter R. Robichaud, Stefan H. Doerr
Prevailing impacts of river management on microplastic transport in contrasting US streams: Rethinking global microplastic flux estimations
While microplastic inputs into rivers are assumed to be correlated with anthropogenic activities and to accumulate towards the sea, the impacts of water management on downstream microplastic transport are largely unexplored. A comparative study of microplastic abundance in Boulder Creek (BC), and its less urbanized tributary South Boulder Creek (SBC), (Colorado USA), characterized the...
Authors
Anna Kukkola, Robert L. Runkel, Uwe Schneidewind, Sheila F. Murphy, Liam Kelleher, Greg Sambrook Smith, Holly Astrid Nel, Iseult Lynch, Stefan Krause
A call for strategic water-quality monitoring to advance assessment and prediction of wildfire impacts on water supplies
Wildfires pose a risk to water supplies in the western U.S. and many other parts of the world, due to the potential for degradation of water quality. However, a lack of adequate data hinders prediction and assessment of post-wildfire impacts and recovery. The dearth of such data is related to lack of funding for monitoring extreme events and the challenge of measuring the outsized...
Authors
Sheila F. Murphy, Charles N. Alpers, Chauncey W. Anderson, John R. Banta, Johanna Blake, Kurt D. Carpenter, Gregory D. Clark, David W. Clow, Laura A. Hempel, Deborah A. Martin, Michael Meador, Gregory Mendez, Anke Mueller-Solger, Marc A. Stewart, Sean E. Payne, Cara L. Peterman-Phipps, Brian A. Ebel
Water Quality After Wildfire
Wildfires pose a substantial risk to water supplies because they can lead to severe flooding, erosion, and delivery of sediment, nutrients, and metals to rivers, lakes, and reservoirs. The USGS works with federal and state land managers and local water providers to monitor and assess water quality after wildfires in order to help protect our Nation’s water resources.
Connections between Forested and Urban Landscapes and Implications for Water Supply
Interactions between forested and urban landscapes can lead to reciprocal effects that have substantial impacts on water supply and ecology. Air pollution from urban and forested landscapes can be deposited on adjacent forests, while forest disturbance, such as wildfires and floods, can remobilize those contaminants. Additionally, pollutants from legacy land use (e.g., mining) can also be...
Biogeochemical Data from Field Samples and Laboratory Experiments, Boulder Creek Watershed, Colorado (2019-2023)
Biogeochemical processes are key drivers of chemical solubility and mobilization. Understanding these processes will lead to improved predictive capabilities and may aid with watershed management decisions. This data release presents results from the Boulder Creek, Colorado watershed, including analyses of water and sediment. From April to August 2019, water samples were collected weekly...
Specific conductance data collected during slug additions
Slug additions are often the most accurate method for determining discharge when traditional current meter or acoustic measurements are unreliable because of high turbulence, rocky streambed, shallow or sheet flow, or the stream is physically inaccessible (e.g., under ice or canyon walls) or unsafe to wade (Zellweger et al., 1989, Kilpatrick and Cobb 1984, Ferranti 2015). The slug...
Biological N-cycling data from soils collected along an elevation gradient in the CO Front Range (2018-2019) (ver. 2.0, November 2024)
Atmospheric deposition of reactive nitrogen (Nr) can impact the soil microbial community structure and function and thus ecosystem processing and export of nutrients. Ecosystem response to atmospheric inputs of nitrogen depends on several factors, including elevational climate conditions (freeze/thaw cycles, precipitation), geology, soil and vegetation type, N speciation and microbial...
Seasonal Atmospheric Nitrate and Ammonium Deposition along an Elevation Gradient in the Colorado Front Range using Ion Exchange Resin Columns (2018-2019)
Atmospheric deposition of reactive nitrogen (Nr) due to human activities can have measurable effects on ecosystem processing and export of nutrients, groundwater and surface-water quality. Rates of Nr deposition to lower-elevation forests immediately adjacent to the Denver/Boulder urban area, however, have only recently been measured. The focus of this study was to determine the extent...
Diel and synoptic sampling data from Boulder Creek and South Boulder Creek, near Boulder, Colorado, September–October 2019
Multiple sampling campaigns were conducted near Boulder, Colorado, to quantify constituent concentrations and loads in Boulder Creek and its tributary, South Boulder Creek. Diel sampling was initiated at approximately 1100 hours on September 17, 2019, and continued until approximately 2300 hours on September 18, 2019. During this time period, samples were collected at two locations on...
Temperature, relative humidity and cloud immersion data for Luquillo Mountains, eastern Puerto Rico, 2014-2019
Supplementary data for studies conducted in the Luquillo Experimental Forest (LEF), eastern Puerto Rico include measurements of temperature, relative humidity and cloud immersion at 30-minute resolution. Temperature and relative humidity were measured at five sites; two primary sites have records from March 2014 to June 2019; other sites have shorter records within that period. From...
Chemistry of water, stream sediment, wildfire ash, soil, dust, and mine waste for Fourmile Creek Watershed, Colorado, 2010-2019
In response to the 2010 Fourmile Canyon fire near Boulder, Colorado, the U.S. Geological Survey collected data to support investigations into the magnitude and critical drivers of water-quality impairment after wildfire. We analyzed chemistry of stream water, sediment, wildfire ash, soil, dust, and mine waste for metals and other parameters in order to evaluate the effects of legacy...
Geospatial data for Luquillo Mountains, Puerto Rico: Mean annual precipitation, elevation, watershed outlines, and rain gage locations
These geospatial data sets were developed as part of a new analysis of all known current and historical rain gages in the Luquillo Mountains, Puerto Rico published in the journal article Murphy, S.F., Stallard, R.F., Scholl, M.A., Gonzalez, G., and Torres-Sanchez, A.J., 2017, Reassessing rainfall in the Luquillo Mountains, Puerto Rico: Local and global ecohydrological implications: PLOS...
Science and Products
Filter Total Items: 58
Hysteretic response of suspended-sediment in wildfire affected watersheds of the Pacific Northwest and Southern Rocky Mountains
Wildfires can have a profound impact on hydrosedimentary interactions, or the relationship between sediment and runoff, in forested headwater streams. Quantification of sediment-runoff dynamics at the event scale is integral for understanding source areas and transport of suspended-sediment through a watershed following wildfire. Here we used high-frequency turbidity and stream discharge...
Authors
Gregory D. Clark, Sheila F. Murphy, Katherine Skalak, David W. Clow, Garrett Alexander Akie, Kurt D. Carpenter, Sean E. Payne, Brian A. Ebel
Relationship of atmospheric nitrogen deposition to soil nitrogen cycling along an elevation gradient in the Colorado Front Range
Microbial processing of atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition regulates the retention and mobilization of N in soils, with important implications for water quality. Understanding the links between N deposition, microbial communities, N transformations, and water quality is critical as N deposition shifts toward reduced N and remains persistently high in many regions. Here, we investigated...
Authors
Deborah A. Repert, Ruth C. Heindel, Sheila F. Murphy, Kaitlyn M. Jeanis
Stream discharge determinations using slug additions and specific conductance
Stream discharge is often determined by wading the stream and measuring the velocity at fixed widths and depths. However, there are conditions when wading measurements are not safe or the measurements are poor because of high turbulence, rocky streambeds, shallow or sheet flow, aquatic plants, or inaccessibility due to ice. Under these conditions, it is often preferable to determine...
Authors
R. Blaine McCleskey, Robert L. Runkel, Sheila F. Murphy, David A. Roth
An intercomparison of DOC estimated from fDOM sensors in wildfire affected streams of the western United States
Wildfires in the western United States (US) have been demonstrated to affect water quality, including dissolved organic carbon (DOC), in streams. Elevated post-wildfire DOC concentration poses a potential risk to drinking water treatment systems. In-stream measurements of fluorescent dissolved organic matter (fDOM), a proxy for DOC, have shown potential to detect dynamic changes in DOC...
Authors
Garrett Alexander Akie, David W. Clow, Sheila F. Murphy, Gregory D. Clark, Michael Meador, Brian A. Ebel
Intersection of wildfire and legacy mining poses risk to water quality
Mining and wildfires are both landscape disturbances that pose elevated and substantial hazards to water supplies and ecosystems due to increased erosion and transport of sediment, metals, and debris to downstream waters. The risk to water supplies may be amplified when these disturbances occur in the same watershed. This work describes mechanisms by which the intersection of mining and...
Authors
Sheila F. Murphy, Johanna Blake, Brian A. Ebel, Deborah A. Martin
Dynamic water-quality responses to wildfire in Colorado
In 2020, Colorado experienced the most severe wildfire season in recorded history, with wildfires burning 625 357 acres across the state. Two of the largest fires burned parts of Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP), and a study was initiated to address concerns about potential effects on drinking water quality from mobilization of ash and sediment. The study took advantage of a wealth of...
Authors
David W. Clow, Garrett Alexander Akie, Sheila F. Murphy, Evan John Gohring
Opportunities and challenges for precipitation forcing data in post-wildfire hydrologic modeling applications
The frequency and extent of wildfires have increased in recent decades with immediate and cascading effects on water availability in many regions of the world. Precipitation is used as primary input to hydrologic models and is a critical driver of post-wildfire hydrologic hazards including debris flows, flash floods, water-quality effects, and reservoir sedimentation. These models are...
Authors
Trevor Fuess Partridge, Zachary Johnson, Rachel Sleeter, Sharon L. Qi, Michelle A. Walvoord, Sheila F. Murphy, Cara L. Peterman-Phipps, Brian A. Ebel
Urbanization and water management control stream water quality along a mountain to plains transition
Urbanization can have substantial effects on water quality due to altered hydrology and introduction of constituents to water bodies. In arid and semi-arid environments, streams are further stressed by dewatering as a result of diversions. We conducted a high-resolution synoptic survey of two streams in Colorado, USA that transition abruptly from granitic/metamorphic forested mountains...
Authors
Sheila F. Murphy, Robert L. Runkel, Edward G. Stets, Alex J Nolan, Deborah A. Repert
Prolonged drought in a northern California coastal region suppresses wildfire impacts on hydrology
Wildfires naturally occur in many landscapes, however they are undergoing rapid regime shifts. Despite the emphasis in the literature on the most severe hydrological responses to wildfire, there remains a knowledge gap on the thresholds of wildfire (i.e. burned area/drainage area ratio, BAR) required to initiate hydrological responses. We investigated hydrological changes in the Russian...
Authors
Michelle E. Newcomer, Jennifer C. Underwood, Sheila F. Murphy, Craig Ulrich, Todd Schram, Stephen R. Maples, Jasquelin Peña, Erica R. Siirila-Woodburn, Marcus Trotta, Jay Jasperse, Donald Seymour, Susan S. Hubbard
Chemical characteristics of wildfire ash across the globe and their environmental and socio-economic implications
The mobilisation of potentially harmful chemical constituents in wildfire ash can be a major consequence of wildfires, posing widespread societal risks. Knowledge of wildfire ash chemical composition is crucial to anticipate and mitigate these risks.Here we present a comprehensive dataset on the chemical characteristics of a wide range of wildfire ashes (42 types and a total of 148...
Authors
Carmen Sanchez-Garcia, Cristina Santín, Jonay Neris, Gabriel Sigmund, Xose Lois Otero, Joella Manley, Gil González-Rodríguez, Claire Belcher, Artemi Cerdá, Abbey L Marcotte, Sheila F. Murphy, Charles Rhoades, Gary J. Sheridan, Tercia Strydom, Peter R. Robichaud, Stefan H. Doerr
Prevailing impacts of river management on microplastic transport in contrasting US streams: Rethinking global microplastic flux estimations
While microplastic inputs into rivers are assumed to be correlated with anthropogenic activities and to accumulate towards the sea, the impacts of water management on downstream microplastic transport are largely unexplored. A comparative study of microplastic abundance in Boulder Creek (BC), and its less urbanized tributary South Boulder Creek (SBC), (Colorado USA), characterized the...
Authors
Anna Kukkola, Robert L. Runkel, Uwe Schneidewind, Sheila F. Murphy, Liam Kelleher, Greg Sambrook Smith, Holly Astrid Nel, Iseult Lynch, Stefan Krause
A call for strategic water-quality monitoring to advance assessment and prediction of wildfire impacts on water supplies
Wildfires pose a risk to water supplies in the western U.S. and many other parts of the world, due to the potential for degradation of water quality. However, a lack of adequate data hinders prediction and assessment of post-wildfire impacts and recovery. The dearth of such data is related to lack of funding for monitoring extreme events and the challenge of measuring the outsized...
Authors
Sheila F. Murphy, Charles N. Alpers, Chauncey W. Anderson, John R. Banta, Johanna Blake, Kurt D. Carpenter, Gregory D. Clark, David W. Clow, Laura A. Hempel, Deborah A. Martin, Michael Meador, Gregory Mendez, Anke Mueller-Solger, Marc A. Stewart, Sean E. Payne, Cara L. Peterman-Phipps, Brian A. Ebel
Water Quality After Wildfire
Wildfires pose a substantial risk to water supplies because they can lead to severe flooding, erosion, and delivery of sediment, nutrients, and metals to rivers, lakes, and reservoirs. The USGS works with federal and state land managers and local water providers to monitor and assess water quality after wildfires in order to help protect our Nation’s water resources.
Connections between Forested and Urban Landscapes and Implications for Water Supply
Interactions between forested and urban landscapes can lead to reciprocal effects that have substantial impacts on water supply and ecology. Air pollution from urban and forested landscapes can be deposited on adjacent forests, while forest disturbance, such as wildfires and floods, can remobilize those contaminants. Additionally, pollutants from legacy land use (e.g., mining) can also be...
Biogeochemical Data from Field Samples and Laboratory Experiments, Boulder Creek Watershed, Colorado (2019-2023)
Biogeochemical processes are key drivers of chemical solubility and mobilization. Understanding these processes will lead to improved predictive capabilities and may aid with watershed management decisions. This data release presents results from the Boulder Creek, Colorado watershed, including analyses of water and sediment. From April to August 2019, water samples were collected weekly...
Specific conductance data collected during slug additions
Slug additions are often the most accurate method for determining discharge when traditional current meter or acoustic measurements are unreliable because of high turbulence, rocky streambed, shallow or sheet flow, or the stream is physically inaccessible (e.g., under ice or canyon walls) or unsafe to wade (Zellweger et al., 1989, Kilpatrick and Cobb 1984, Ferranti 2015). The slug...
Biological N-cycling data from soils collected along an elevation gradient in the CO Front Range (2018-2019) (ver. 2.0, November 2024)
Atmospheric deposition of reactive nitrogen (Nr) can impact the soil microbial community structure and function and thus ecosystem processing and export of nutrients. Ecosystem response to atmospheric inputs of nitrogen depends on several factors, including elevational climate conditions (freeze/thaw cycles, precipitation), geology, soil and vegetation type, N speciation and microbial...
Seasonal Atmospheric Nitrate and Ammonium Deposition along an Elevation Gradient in the Colorado Front Range using Ion Exchange Resin Columns (2018-2019)
Atmospheric deposition of reactive nitrogen (Nr) due to human activities can have measurable effects on ecosystem processing and export of nutrients, groundwater and surface-water quality. Rates of Nr deposition to lower-elevation forests immediately adjacent to the Denver/Boulder urban area, however, have only recently been measured. The focus of this study was to determine the extent...
Diel and synoptic sampling data from Boulder Creek and South Boulder Creek, near Boulder, Colorado, September–October 2019
Multiple sampling campaigns were conducted near Boulder, Colorado, to quantify constituent concentrations and loads in Boulder Creek and its tributary, South Boulder Creek. Diel sampling was initiated at approximately 1100 hours on September 17, 2019, and continued until approximately 2300 hours on September 18, 2019. During this time period, samples were collected at two locations on...
Temperature, relative humidity and cloud immersion data for Luquillo Mountains, eastern Puerto Rico, 2014-2019
Supplementary data for studies conducted in the Luquillo Experimental Forest (LEF), eastern Puerto Rico include measurements of temperature, relative humidity and cloud immersion at 30-minute resolution. Temperature and relative humidity were measured at five sites; two primary sites have records from March 2014 to June 2019; other sites have shorter records within that period. From...
Chemistry of water, stream sediment, wildfire ash, soil, dust, and mine waste for Fourmile Creek Watershed, Colorado, 2010-2019
In response to the 2010 Fourmile Canyon fire near Boulder, Colorado, the U.S. Geological Survey collected data to support investigations into the magnitude and critical drivers of water-quality impairment after wildfire. We analyzed chemistry of stream water, sediment, wildfire ash, soil, dust, and mine waste for metals and other parameters in order to evaluate the effects of legacy...
Geospatial data for Luquillo Mountains, Puerto Rico: Mean annual precipitation, elevation, watershed outlines, and rain gage locations
These geospatial data sets were developed as part of a new analysis of all known current and historical rain gages in the Luquillo Mountains, Puerto Rico published in the journal article Murphy, S.F., Stallard, R.F., Scholl, M.A., Gonzalez, G., and Torres-Sanchez, A.J., 2017, Reassessing rainfall in the Luquillo Mountains, Puerto Rico: Local and global ecohydrological implications: PLOS...