Victoria G. Stengel
Victoria Stengel is a Geographer with the USGS Geology, Energy & Minerals (GEM) Science Center in Reston, VA.
Victoria leads geospatial and earth observation method development on interdisciplinary geoscience teams collaborating across USGS science centers, mission areas, and interagency efforts.
Education and Certifications
M.S. in Geography, Texas State University, May 2014. Victoria's graduate work focused in Geocomputation, LiDAR, multispectral remote sensing, and watershed scale surface hydrology modeling
B.S. in Geography-Geographic Information Science, with a minor in Business Administration, Texas State University, Cum laude, Gamma Theta Upsilon and Alpha Chi honor societies
Texas State University Certificate in Water Resource Policy
Science and Products
Remote Sensing Techniques for Characterizing Energy Resources in Waste
Funded by the USGS Energy Resource Program “Shark Tank” grant. The goal of this project is to develop a method to use remotely collected satellite and airborne data to ascertain the quantity and quality of waste at abandoned uranium mines to better estimate the resource potential, identify abandoned mines and explore potential applications to other energy resources. This is a collaborative effort...
Mapping Conservation Management Efforts to Increase Coordination in the Rio Grande Basin
The Rio Grande provides drinking water for more than six million people, irrigation water for two million acres of land in the United States and Mexico, and supports riparian ecosystems that are home to endangered species like the ocelot and Rio Grande silvery minnow. Climate variability and anthropogenic activities continue to stress this already limited water resource. This project was...
Sentinel-2 ACOLITE-DSF Aquatic Reflectance for the Conterminous United States
This dynamic data release presents an aquatic reflectance product with 20-meter spatial resolution derived from Sentinel-2 satellite imagery for the conterminous United States using the Atmospheric Correction for OLI “lite” (ACOLITE). Aquatic reflectance, noted Rhow in ACOLITE documentation, is defined here as unitless water-leaving radiance reflectance and represents the ratio of water...
Data associated with using lidar and earth observation temporal analysis to explore and characterize uranium mining on the south Texas landscape
Open pit uranium mining in Atascosa, Karnes, and Live Oak Counties in the Texas gulf coast region was active during the second half of the 20th century. Understanding the history of these mining operations is important for proper management and restoration. Although some mines have extensive records documenting the locations and extents of mining pits and mine waste-rock piles, and...
Visible and Near Infrared (VNIR) and Short Wavelength Infrared (SWIR) Spectra of Select Rock Cores and Waste Material from Nine Uranium Mine Sites in Karnes and Live Oak Counties, Texas
These data represent laboratory reflectance measurements conducted on a suite of sandstone, tuffaceous mudstone and claystone rocks and sediment, which are known host and source materials for roll front Uranium deposits mined throughout the South Texas Coastal Plains. Visible through Near Infrared through Shortwave Infrared (~0.4 - 2.5 microns) reflectance were measured using an...
Surface-water characteristics and phytoplankton taxonomy in selected north Texas reservoirs using biological, hyperspectral, and water-quality methods, 2019-2020
A study to develop an earth observation monitoring system to detect harmful algal bloom (HABs) presence within selected north Texas reservoirs using satellite imagery was conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). This data release provides the data collected for this study including site locations, water-quality, phytoplankton, and hyperspectral water surface reflectance data. Data...
Data Compiled on historical water use, spatial land disturbance, aquifer disturbance and uranium produced by In Situ Recovery of Uranium from Sandstone Hosted Uranium Deposits in the South Texas Coastal Plain, USA
This data release contains data on historical water use, spatial land disturbance, and spatial aquifer disturbances related to in situ recovery (ISR) uranium extraction per unit of uranium produced. These data were compiled from published and publicly available references including journal articles, government reports, industry reports and company reporting documents for regulatory...
Contributing zones of the San Antonio, Barton Springs, and Northern segments of the Edwards Aquifer
The Edwards aquifer is a karst aquifer system that is a primary water source for a large part of central Texas including the city of San Antonio, Texas. These vector geospatial data represent the geographic extent of the contributing zones for the Northern, Barton Springs, and San Antonio segments of the Edwards aquifer. The contributing zone is defined as the drainage area of the...
Combined Occurrence Frequency of Wind Speeds and Precipitation Amounts Conducive to Dust Dispersion from Disturbed Mine and Mill Sites in the United States, 2007?16
Dispersion of dust depends on many complex factors related to the nature of the disturbed materials, climate, dust control measures, and localized weather patterns. This dataset presents wind speed and rainfall as climate factors that influence dust dispersion. These two basic factors were identified as a subset of the many factors that can lead to dust dispersion. Arpacioglu and Er...
Conterminous U.S. Air Stagnation Index, Number of Days, 2007–2016
Using the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Air Stagnation Index (ASI), the total number of days during 2007–2016 with atmospheric conditions conducive for stagnant air conditions in the conterminous U.S. are documented in raster format geospatial data. These data provide the number of days that would allow the temporal buildup of atmospheric pollution (NOAA, 2017)...
2015 Irrigated acres feature class for the Upper Rio Grande Basin, New Mexico and Texas, United States and Chihuahua, Mexico
Consumptive use (CU) of water is an important factor for determining water availability and groundwater storage. Many regional stakeholders and water-supply managers in the Upper Rio Grande Basin have indicated CU is of primary concern in their water-management strategies, yet CU data is sparse for this area. This polygon feature class, which represents irrigated acres for 2015, is a...
Data Associated with Uranium Background Concentrations at Homestake Mining Company Superfund Site near Milan, New Mexico, July 2016 through October 2016
To help characterize the groundwater system at Homestake Mining Company Superfund Site near Milan, New Mexico, the U.S. Geological Survey collected borehole geophysical and groundwater-quality data in cooperation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during JulyOctober 2016. The following borehole geophysical data were collected from wells at or near the Homestake Mining Company...
Hyperspectral (VNIR-SWIR) analysis of roll front uranium host rocks and industrial minerals from Karnes and Live Oak Counties, Texas Coastal Plain
VNIR-SWIR (400–2500 nm) reflectance measurements were made on the surfaces of various cores, cuttings and sample splits of sedimentary rocks from the Tertiary Jackson Group, and Catahoula, Oakville and Goliad Formations. These rocks vary in composition and texture from mudstone and claystone to sandstone and are known host rocks for roll front uranium occurrences in Karnes and Live Oak...
Authors
Bernard E. Hubbard, Tanya J. Gallegos, Victoria G. Stengel, Todd M. Hoefen, Raymond F. Kokaly, Brent Elliott
Mapping abandoned uranium mine features using Worldview-3 imagery in portions of Karnes, Atascosa and Live Oak Counties, Texas
Worldview-3 (WV3) 16-band multispectral data were used to map exposed bedrock and mine waste piles associated with legacy open-pit mining of sandstone-hosted roll-front uranium deposits along the South Texas Coastal Plain. We used the “spectral hourglass” approach to extract spectral endmembers representative of these features from the image. This approach first requires calibrating the...
Authors
Bernard E. Hubbard, Tanya J. Gallegos, Victoria G. Stengel
Mapping the probability of freshwater algal blooms with various spectral indices and sources of training data
Algal blooms are pervasive in many freshwater environments and can pose risks to the health and safety of humans and other organisms. However, monitoring and tracking of potentially harmful blooms often relies on in-person observations by the public. Remote sensing has proven useful in augmenting in situ observations of algal concentration, but many hurdles hinder efficient application...
Authors
Tyler Victor King, Stephen Hundt, Konrad Hafen, Victoria G. Stengel, Scott D. Ducar
Spectral mixture analysis for surveillance of harmful algal blooms (SMASH): A field-, laboratory-, and satellite-based approach to identifying cyanobacteria genera from remotely sensed data
Algal blooms around the world are increasing in frequency and severity, often with the possibility of adverse effects on human and ecosystem health. The health and economic impacts associated with harmful algal blooms, or HABs, provide compelling rationale for developing new methods for monitoring these events via remote sensing. Although concentrations of chlorophyll-a and key pigments...
Authors
Carl J. Legleiter, Tyler Victor King, Kurt D. Carpenter, Natalie Celeste Hall, Adam Mumford, E. Terrence Slonecker, Jennifer L. Graham, Victoria G. Stengel, Nancy Simon, Barry H. Rosen
A novel method for conducting a geoenvironmental assessment of undiscovered ISR-amenable uranium Resources: Proof-of-concept in the Texas Coastal Plain
A geoenvironmental assessment methodology was developed to estimate waste quantities and disturbances that could be associated with the extraction of undiscovered uranium resources and identify areas on the landscape where uranium and other constituents of potential concern (COPCs) that may co-occur with uranium deposits in this region are likely to persist, if introduced into the...
Authors
Tanya J. Gallegos, Victoria G. Stengel, Katherine Walton-Day, Johanna Blake, Andrew Teeple, Delbert G Humberson, Steven M. Cahan, Douglas Yager, Kent D Becher
A methodology to assess the historical environmental footprint of in-situ recovery (ISR) of uranium: A demonstration in the Goliad Sand in the Texas Coastal Plain, USA
In-situ recovery (ISR) has been the only technique used to extract uranium from sandstone-hosted uranium deposits in the Pliocene Goliad Sand in the Texas Coastal Plain. Water plays a crucial role throughout the ISR lifecycle of production and groundwater restoration yet neither the water use nor other environmental footprints have been well documented. The goal of this study is to...
Authors
Tanya J. Gallegos, Annie Scott, Victoria G. Stengel, Andrew Teeple
Characterization of peak streamflows and flood inundation of selected areas in southeastern Texas and southwestern Louisiana from the August and September 2017 flood resulting from Hurricane Harvey
Hurricane Harvey made landfall near Rockport, Texas, on August 25, 2017, as a Category 4 hurricane with wind gusts exceeding 150 miles per hour. As Harvey moved inland, the forward motion of the storm slowed down and produced tremendous rainfall amounts over southeastern Texas, with 8-day rainfall amounts exceeding 60 inches in some locations, which is about 15 inches more than average...
Authors
Kara M. Watson, Glenn R. Harwell, David S. Wallace, Toby L. Welborn, Victoria G. Stengel, Jeremy S. McDowell
The importance of parameterization when simulating the hydrologic response of vegetative land-cover change
Computer models of hydrologic systems are frequently used to investigate the hydrologic response of land-cover change. If the modeling results are used to inform resource-management decisions, then providing robust estimates of uncertainty in the simulated response is an important consideration. Here we examine the importance of parameterization, a necessarily subjective process, on...
Authors
Jeremy T. White, Victoria G. Stengel, Samuel H. Rendon, John Banta
Simulation of streamflow and the effects of brush management on water yields in the Double Mountain Fork Brazos River watershed, western Texas 1994–2013
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the City of Lubbock and the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board, developed and calibrated a Soil and Water Assessment Tool watershed model of the Double Mountain Fork Brazos River watershed in western Texas to simulate monthly mean streamflow and to evaluate the effects of brush management on water yields in the watershed...
Authors
Glenn R. Harwell, Victoria G. Stengel, Johnathan R. Bumgarner
Science and Products
Remote Sensing Techniques for Characterizing Energy Resources in Waste
Funded by the USGS Energy Resource Program “Shark Tank” grant. The goal of this project is to develop a method to use remotely collected satellite and airborne data to ascertain the quantity and quality of waste at abandoned uranium mines to better estimate the resource potential, identify abandoned mines and explore potential applications to other energy resources. This is a collaborative effort...
Mapping Conservation Management Efforts to Increase Coordination in the Rio Grande Basin
The Rio Grande provides drinking water for more than six million people, irrigation water for two million acres of land in the United States and Mexico, and supports riparian ecosystems that are home to endangered species like the ocelot and Rio Grande silvery minnow. Climate variability and anthropogenic activities continue to stress this already limited water resource. This project was...
Sentinel-2 ACOLITE-DSF Aquatic Reflectance for the Conterminous United States
This dynamic data release presents an aquatic reflectance product with 20-meter spatial resolution derived from Sentinel-2 satellite imagery for the conterminous United States using the Atmospheric Correction for OLI “lite” (ACOLITE). Aquatic reflectance, noted Rhow in ACOLITE documentation, is defined here as unitless water-leaving radiance reflectance and represents the ratio of water...
Data associated with using lidar and earth observation temporal analysis to explore and characterize uranium mining on the south Texas landscape
Open pit uranium mining in Atascosa, Karnes, and Live Oak Counties in the Texas gulf coast region was active during the second half of the 20th century. Understanding the history of these mining operations is important for proper management and restoration. Although some mines have extensive records documenting the locations and extents of mining pits and mine waste-rock piles, and...
Visible and Near Infrared (VNIR) and Short Wavelength Infrared (SWIR) Spectra of Select Rock Cores and Waste Material from Nine Uranium Mine Sites in Karnes and Live Oak Counties, Texas
These data represent laboratory reflectance measurements conducted on a suite of sandstone, tuffaceous mudstone and claystone rocks and sediment, which are known host and source materials for roll front Uranium deposits mined throughout the South Texas Coastal Plains. Visible through Near Infrared through Shortwave Infrared (~0.4 - 2.5 microns) reflectance were measured using an...
Surface-water characteristics and phytoplankton taxonomy in selected north Texas reservoirs using biological, hyperspectral, and water-quality methods, 2019-2020
A study to develop an earth observation monitoring system to detect harmful algal bloom (HABs) presence within selected north Texas reservoirs using satellite imagery was conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). This data release provides the data collected for this study including site locations, water-quality, phytoplankton, and hyperspectral water surface reflectance data. Data...
Data Compiled on historical water use, spatial land disturbance, aquifer disturbance and uranium produced by In Situ Recovery of Uranium from Sandstone Hosted Uranium Deposits in the South Texas Coastal Plain, USA
This data release contains data on historical water use, spatial land disturbance, and spatial aquifer disturbances related to in situ recovery (ISR) uranium extraction per unit of uranium produced. These data were compiled from published and publicly available references including journal articles, government reports, industry reports and company reporting documents for regulatory...
Contributing zones of the San Antonio, Barton Springs, and Northern segments of the Edwards Aquifer
The Edwards aquifer is a karst aquifer system that is a primary water source for a large part of central Texas including the city of San Antonio, Texas. These vector geospatial data represent the geographic extent of the contributing zones for the Northern, Barton Springs, and San Antonio segments of the Edwards aquifer. The contributing zone is defined as the drainage area of the...
Combined Occurrence Frequency of Wind Speeds and Precipitation Amounts Conducive to Dust Dispersion from Disturbed Mine and Mill Sites in the United States, 2007?16
Dispersion of dust depends on many complex factors related to the nature of the disturbed materials, climate, dust control measures, and localized weather patterns. This dataset presents wind speed and rainfall as climate factors that influence dust dispersion. These two basic factors were identified as a subset of the many factors that can lead to dust dispersion. Arpacioglu and Er...
Conterminous U.S. Air Stagnation Index, Number of Days, 2007–2016
Using the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Air Stagnation Index (ASI), the total number of days during 2007–2016 with atmospheric conditions conducive for stagnant air conditions in the conterminous U.S. are documented in raster format geospatial data. These data provide the number of days that would allow the temporal buildup of atmospheric pollution (NOAA, 2017)...
2015 Irrigated acres feature class for the Upper Rio Grande Basin, New Mexico and Texas, United States and Chihuahua, Mexico
Consumptive use (CU) of water is an important factor for determining water availability and groundwater storage. Many regional stakeholders and water-supply managers in the Upper Rio Grande Basin have indicated CU is of primary concern in their water-management strategies, yet CU data is sparse for this area. This polygon feature class, which represents irrigated acres for 2015, is a...
Data Associated with Uranium Background Concentrations at Homestake Mining Company Superfund Site near Milan, New Mexico, July 2016 through October 2016
To help characterize the groundwater system at Homestake Mining Company Superfund Site near Milan, New Mexico, the U.S. Geological Survey collected borehole geophysical and groundwater-quality data in cooperation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during JulyOctober 2016. The following borehole geophysical data were collected from wells at or near the Homestake Mining Company...
Hyperspectral (VNIR-SWIR) analysis of roll front uranium host rocks and industrial minerals from Karnes and Live Oak Counties, Texas Coastal Plain
VNIR-SWIR (400–2500 nm) reflectance measurements were made on the surfaces of various cores, cuttings and sample splits of sedimentary rocks from the Tertiary Jackson Group, and Catahoula, Oakville and Goliad Formations. These rocks vary in composition and texture from mudstone and claystone to sandstone and are known host rocks for roll front uranium occurrences in Karnes and Live Oak...
Authors
Bernard E. Hubbard, Tanya J. Gallegos, Victoria G. Stengel, Todd M. Hoefen, Raymond F. Kokaly, Brent Elliott
Mapping abandoned uranium mine features using Worldview-3 imagery in portions of Karnes, Atascosa and Live Oak Counties, Texas
Worldview-3 (WV3) 16-band multispectral data were used to map exposed bedrock and mine waste piles associated with legacy open-pit mining of sandstone-hosted roll-front uranium deposits along the South Texas Coastal Plain. We used the “spectral hourglass” approach to extract spectral endmembers representative of these features from the image. This approach first requires calibrating the...
Authors
Bernard E. Hubbard, Tanya J. Gallegos, Victoria G. Stengel
Mapping the probability of freshwater algal blooms with various spectral indices and sources of training data
Algal blooms are pervasive in many freshwater environments and can pose risks to the health and safety of humans and other organisms. However, monitoring and tracking of potentially harmful blooms often relies on in-person observations by the public. Remote sensing has proven useful in augmenting in situ observations of algal concentration, but many hurdles hinder efficient application...
Authors
Tyler Victor King, Stephen Hundt, Konrad Hafen, Victoria G. Stengel, Scott D. Ducar
Spectral mixture analysis for surveillance of harmful algal blooms (SMASH): A field-, laboratory-, and satellite-based approach to identifying cyanobacteria genera from remotely sensed data
Algal blooms around the world are increasing in frequency and severity, often with the possibility of adverse effects on human and ecosystem health. The health and economic impacts associated with harmful algal blooms, or HABs, provide compelling rationale for developing new methods for monitoring these events via remote sensing. Although concentrations of chlorophyll-a and key pigments...
Authors
Carl J. Legleiter, Tyler Victor King, Kurt D. Carpenter, Natalie Celeste Hall, Adam Mumford, E. Terrence Slonecker, Jennifer L. Graham, Victoria G. Stengel, Nancy Simon, Barry H. Rosen
A novel method for conducting a geoenvironmental assessment of undiscovered ISR-amenable uranium Resources: Proof-of-concept in the Texas Coastal Plain
A geoenvironmental assessment methodology was developed to estimate waste quantities and disturbances that could be associated with the extraction of undiscovered uranium resources and identify areas on the landscape where uranium and other constituents of potential concern (COPCs) that may co-occur with uranium deposits in this region are likely to persist, if introduced into the...
Authors
Tanya J. Gallegos, Victoria G. Stengel, Katherine Walton-Day, Johanna Blake, Andrew Teeple, Delbert G Humberson, Steven M. Cahan, Douglas Yager, Kent D Becher
A methodology to assess the historical environmental footprint of in-situ recovery (ISR) of uranium: A demonstration in the Goliad Sand in the Texas Coastal Plain, USA
In-situ recovery (ISR) has been the only technique used to extract uranium from sandstone-hosted uranium deposits in the Pliocene Goliad Sand in the Texas Coastal Plain. Water plays a crucial role throughout the ISR lifecycle of production and groundwater restoration yet neither the water use nor other environmental footprints have been well documented. The goal of this study is to...
Authors
Tanya J. Gallegos, Annie Scott, Victoria G. Stengel, Andrew Teeple
Characterization of peak streamflows and flood inundation of selected areas in southeastern Texas and southwestern Louisiana from the August and September 2017 flood resulting from Hurricane Harvey
Hurricane Harvey made landfall near Rockport, Texas, on August 25, 2017, as a Category 4 hurricane with wind gusts exceeding 150 miles per hour. As Harvey moved inland, the forward motion of the storm slowed down and produced tremendous rainfall amounts over southeastern Texas, with 8-day rainfall amounts exceeding 60 inches in some locations, which is about 15 inches more than average...
Authors
Kara M. Watson, Glenn R. Harwell, David S. Wallace, Toby L. Welborn, Victoria G. Stengel, Jeremy S. McDowell
The importance of parameterization when simulating the hydrologic response of vegetative land-cover change
Computer models of hydrologic systems are frequently used to investigate the hydrologic response of land-cover change. If the modeling results are used to inform resource-management decisions, then providing robust estimates of uncertainty in the simulated response is an important consideration. Here we examine the importance of parameterization, a necessarily subjective process, on...
Authors
Jeremy T. White, Victoria G. Stengel, Samuel H. Rendon, John Banta
Simulation of streamflow and the effects of brush management on water yields in the Double Mountain Fork Brazos River watershed, western Texas 1994–2013
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the City of Lubbock and the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board, developed and calibrated a Soil and Water Assessment Tool watershed model of the Double Mountain Fork Brazos River watershed in western Texas to simulate monthly mean streamflow and to evaluate the effects of brush management on water yields in the watershed...
Authors
Glenn R. Harwell, Victoria G. Stengel, Johnathan R. Bumgarner