Images

Ducks swim in the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC on a sunny autumn day.

Ducks swim in a pool at Memorial Gardens at the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. on a sunny autumn day.

Lisa Shender (National Park Service) swabs fresh duck feces at Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Washington DC.

Landsat 9 image showing Washington D.C. on April 9, 2023. The image is shown using the Red, Green and Blue bands (Bands 4,3,2), combining these three bands produces a natural color view of the area. The image was then sharpened using the panchromatic band (Band 8) which has a higher resolution than the other bands (15 meters compared to 30 meters).

Location Map Showing the Hickey Run Sediment Fingerprinting Project: Through its sediment fingerprinting project with the D.C. Department of Energy and Environment, the USGS is looking into the sources of the excess sediments that are found in Hickey Run and the National Arboretum.

Heading banner for On The Road Web Series, USGS MD-DE-DC Water Science Center. 

Connowingo Site: Part of the On The Road series of videos for the MD-DE-DC Water Science Center

Bladensburg Site as part of landing page for the MD-DE-DC USGS On The Road web-series

Ashley Ryan, Nick Giro. Photo by David FIsher

Langdon Park Site as part of landing page for the MD-DE-DC USGS On The Road web-series

Leah Staub, Zach Clifton

Serene Lake Site as part of landing page for the MD-DE-DC USGS On The Road web-series

Photo Credit: David Fisher

Nassawango Creek site as part of landing page for the MD-DE-DC USGS On The Road web-series

Hickey Run site shown here as part of landing page for the MD-DE-DC USGS On The Road web-series

Working at Serene Lake: HIVIS-ability at Serene Lake. Image taken as part of the "On The Road" web series

The Chesapeake Bay watershed, or draingage basin, encompasses six states - New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. A drainage basin is a giant system of creeks, streams, and rivers that all flow into a common outlet, which in this case is the Chesapeake Bay.

USGS Baltimore Office

Fisseha Mengistu, USGS hydrologic technician, uses a device that lowers a water sampler into the creek below to collect samples used for water quality testing. Experts will be able to use this data to track how Tropical Storm Isaias impacted water quality in the area. This work was done on Rock Creek in Washington, D.C.

This is a graphic from the USGS National Oil and Gas Assessment Explorer application, which allows user to drill into 70 oil and gas assessment provinces throughout the United States.

This Indian Space Research Organization LISS-3 image of the Delaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay region, acquired on January 25, 2017, shows the landscape along the densely populated U.S. East coast. Ecosystems and sea-level rise are among the regional landscape changes that satellite imagery helps to monitor. 

A lidar point cloud of the National Mall, Washington, D.C. Photograph Credit: Jason Stoker, USGS

Washington Monument in DC, with the cherry blossoms in bloom.

Anna Ormiston and Jesi Hessong, student contractors with the USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative, or ARMI, display several discarded mylar balloon collected by field teams working in and around the Capital Region National Parks in the summer of 2015. They collected a total of 71 balloons.