Unified Interior Regions
Region 2: South Atlantic-Gulf (Includes Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands)
Regions L2 Landing Page Tabs
Decision Analysis to Help Improve the Effectiveness of Invasive Plants Management
Melaleuca is an invasive tree that is highly problematic in the Everglades, threatening native wildlife and habitat. USGS is helping to improve management strategies for the invasive plant.
Fish Slam November 2018
In November 2018, USGS researchers joined partners in South Florida where they sampled freshwater bodies for non-native fishes. The bi-annual Fish Slam event helps monitor new introductions and document range expansion of known non-native fishes.
Quantifying Restoration Benefits to Native Stream Fishes
This project is a collaboration of scientists from the USGS and University of Georgia to collect and analyze data describing how small-stream fishes use habitats created through stream restoration activities. The USFWS Region 4 requested this Science Support Partnership (SSP) project as a means to evaluate the effectiveness of stream restoration (primarily in north Georgia, and potentially in...
South Carolina Flood Frequency Q&A
In 2015, Dr. Robert Holmes, USGS National Flood Hazard Coordinator, took time to discuss some issues related to the flooding in South Carolina following the Appalachian Floods and Hurricane Joaquin.
2015 Appalachian Floods and Hurricane Joaquin
Learn more about USGS flood activities related to the 2015 Appalachian Floods and Hurrican Joaquin. An upper atmospheric low-pressure system over the Southeast combined with moisture from Hurricane Joaquin off the Atlantic coast to create historic rainfall in early October, 2015, across South Carolina.
Effects of Native and Non-native Fishes on Native Apple Snail Population Dynamics
The Florida apple snail is a critical component of the state's wetland food webs. USGS scientists assess the effects of native and non-native fishes on the native snail populations.
Development of a Quantitative Risk Assessment Tool to Predict Invasiveness of Non-native Freshwater Fishes in Everglades National Park
The introduction of non-native fishes is a problem across the United States, particularly in Florida. USGS scientists are developing a decision support tool to help natural resourece managers prioritize which species to focus prevention, detection, rapid response, and control efforts.
Habitat Modeling for the Endangered Everglades Snail Kite and Its Prey
Joint Ecosystem Modeling (JEM) provides real-time habitat suitability models for species of interest in Everglades restoration planning, including the federally endangered Everglades snail kite.
April 2014 Floods in Alabama and Florida
Learn more about USGS flood activities related to the April 2014 floods in Alabama and Florida.
Spring/Summer 2011 Mississippi River Basin Floods
Learn more about USGS flood activities related to the Spring/Summer 2011 floods throughout the Mississippi River Basin.
May 2011 Memphis, Tennessee Flood
Learn more about USGS flood activities related to the May 2011 flood in Memphis, Tennessee, including deploying emergency real-time surface-water stage gages at critical locations in Shelby County.
Actual Evapotranspiration for Florida
Evapotranspiration is a large component of the Florida water budget – generally second only to rainfall, but exceeding rainfall and all other components during droughts. The prominence of evapotranspiration highlights the need to accurately quantify this hydrologic component in quantitative analyses of watershed hydrology. Spatio-temporal estimates of evapotranspiration throughout Florida are...
Alabama Current Water Conditions
See Current Water Conditions for Alabama using our new interactive map. Here you can find information on Groundwater, Surface Water and Water Quality.
Hurricane and Flood Response Map Viewer
The USGS Flood Event Viewer (FEV) is the public data discovery component of the Short-Term Network (STN) database. Data viewable and downloadable from this page are from the STN database. This application integrates with the USGS National Water Information System (NWIS) database for display of time-series water data.
Memphis Area Groundwater-Level Network
Groundwater Watch is a supplemental tool to NWISWeb and, as such, is able to provide additional benefits to the groundwater community. NWIS is the authoritative database for USGS groundwater data, and NWISWeb is the public interface for these groundwater data. This is information pertaining to the Memphis Area Groundwater-Level Network.
StreamStats for Georgia, North and South Carolina
StreamStats is a Web-based Geographic Information Systems (GIS) application that provides users with access to an assortment of analytical tools that are useful for a variety of water-resources planning and management purposes, and for engineering and design purposes.
Sea-Level Rise Visualization for Alabama and Mississippi
The interactive sea-level rise visualization tool results from a collaborative effort between NOAA's Coastal Services Center, USGS WARC, and USGS Mississippi Water Science Center. The tool illustrates the scale of potential flooding, but not the exact location, and does not account for erosion, subsidence, sediment accretion, or future construction.
Alabama Strategic Habitat Units Applications
WARC's Advanced Applications Team develops and maintains databases and applications to help the Alabama Department of Transportation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ensure new road construction and existing road maintenance at waterway crossings don't adversely affect threatened and endangered species dependent on those waterways.
Structures Data
USGS data portray selected structures data, including the location and characteristics of manmade facilities. Characteristics consist of a structure's physical form (footprint), function, name, location, and detailed information about the structure. The types of structures collected are largely determined by the needs of the disaster planning and response and homeland security organizations....
Boundaries Data
Boundaries data or governmental units represent major civil areas including states, counties, Federal, and Native American lands, and incorporated places such as cities and towns.
Hydrography Data
The National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) and Watershed Boundary Dataset (WBD) are used to portray surface water on The National Map.
The United States Interagency Elevation Inventory (USIEI)
The USIEI is a comprehensive, nationwide listing of known high-accuracy topographic and bathymetric data for the United States and its territories. The project is a collaborative effort of the USGS and NOAA with contributions from other federal agencies. The inventory supports the 3D Elevation Program and the Integrated Ocean and Coastal Mapping effort. This resource is updated in Spring and...
Elevation Data
The 3DEP products and services available through The National Map consist of lidar point clouds (LPC), standard digital elevation models (DEMs) at various horizontal resolutions, elevation source and associated datasets, an elevation point query service and bulk point query service. All 3DEP products are available, free of charge and without use restrictions.
Coastal and Marine Geology Video and Photography Portal
This portal contains U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) video and photography of the seafloor off of coastal California and Massachusetts, and aerial imagery of the coastline along segments of the Gulf of Mexico and mid-Atlantic coasts. These data were collected as part of several USGS Coastal and Marine Geology Program Seafloor Mapping projects and Hurricane and Extreme Storm research.
Sensitivity of storm response to antecedent topography in the XBeach model
Antecedent topography is an important aspect of coastal morphology when studying and forecasting coastal change hazards. The uncertainty in morphologic response of storm-impact models and their use in short-term hazard forecasting and decadal forecasting is important to account for when considering a coupled model framework. This study provided a...
Mickey, Rangley C.; Dalyander, P. Soupy; McCall, Robert T.; Passeri, Davina L.An interactive data visualization framework for exploring geospatial environmental datasets and model predictions
With the rise of large-scale environmental models comes new challenges for how we best utilize this information in research, management and decision making. Interactive data visualizations can make large and complex datasets easier to access and explore, which can lead to knowledge discovery, hypothesis formation and improved understanding. Here,...
Walker, Jeffrey D; Letcher, Benjamin; Rodgers, Kirk D.; Muhlfeld, Clint C.; D'Angelo, Vincent S.Estimated groundwater withdrawals from principal aquifers in the United States, 2015
In 2015, about 84,600 million gallons per day (Mgal/d) of groundwater were withdrawn in the United States for various uses including public supply, self-supplied domestic, industrial, mining, thermoelectric power, aquaculture, livestock, and irrigation. Of this total, about 94 percent (79,200 Mgal/d) was withdrawn from principal aquifers, which...
Lovelace, John K.; Nielsen, Martha G.; Read, Amy L.; Murphy, Chid J.; Maupin, Molly A.Changes in ecosystem nitrogen and carbon allocation with black mangrove (Avicennia germinans) encroachment into Spartina alterniflora salt marsh
Increases in temperature are expected to facilitate encroachment of tropical mangrove forests into temperate salt marshes, yet the effects on ecosystem services are understudied. Our work was conducted along a mangrove expansion front in Louisiana (USA), an area where coastal wetlands are in rapid decline due to compounding factors, including...
Macy, Aaron; Osland, Michael; Cherry, Julia A; Cebrian, JustGrowth rates for immature Kemp’s ridley sea turtles from a foraging area in the northern Gulf of Mexico
Examining vital rates helps clarify how environmental characteristics, biological resources and human activities affect population growth. Carapace lengths were gathered for 241 Kemp’s ridley Lepidochelys kempii sea turtles that were marked and recaptured (n = 23) between 2011 and 2019 at a foraging location in northwest Florida, USA....
Lamont, Margaret; Johnson, DarrenPesticide mixtures show potential toxicity to aquatic life in U.S. streams, water years 2013-2017
During water years (WY) 2013–2017, the U.S. Geological Survey, National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Project, sampled the National Water Quality Network – Rivers and Streams (NWQN) year-round and reported on 221 pesticides at 72 sites across the United States in agricultural, developed, and mixed land use watersheds. The Pesticide Toxicity...
Covert, S. Alex.; Shoda, Megan E.; Stackpoole, Sarah M.; Stone, Wesley W.Simulating wave runup on an intermediate–reflective beach using a wave-resolving and a wave-averaged version of XBeach
The prediction of wave runup, as well as its components, time-averaged setup and the time-varying swash, is a key element of coastal storm hazard assessments, as wave runup controls the transitions between morphodynamic response types such as dune erosion and overwash, and the potential for flooding by wave overtopping. While theoretically able to...
de beer, A.F.; McCall, R.T.; Long, Joseph W.; Tissier, M.F.S.; Reniers, A.J.H.M.The Everglades Depth Estimation Network (EDEN) surface-water interpolation model, version 3
The Everglades Depth Estimation Network (EDEN) is an integrated network of water-level gages, interpolation models that estimate daily water-level data at ungaged locations, and applications that generate derived hydrologic data across the freshwater part of the Greater Everglades landscape. Version 3 (V3) of the EDEN interpolation surface-...
Haider, Saira; Swain, Eric; Beerens, James; Petkewich, Matthew; McCloskey, Bryan; Henkel, HeatherPotentiometric surfaces, 2011–12, and water-level differences between 1995 and 2011–12, in wells of the “200-foot,” “500-foot,” and “700-foot” sands of the Lake Charles area, southwestern Louisiana
Water levels were determined in 90 wells to prepare 2011–12 potentiometric surfaces focusing primarily on the “200-foot,” 500-foot,” and “700-foot” sands of the Lake Charles area, which are part of the Chicot aquifer system underlying Calcasieu and Cameron Parishes of southwestern Louisiana. These three aquifers provided 34 percent of the total...
White, Vincent E.; Griffith, Jason M.Modeling soil porewater salinity in mangrove forests (Everglades, Florida, USA) impacted by hydrological restoration and a warming climate
Hydrology is a critical driver controlling mangrove wetlands structural and functional attributes at different spatial and temporal scales. Yet, human activities have negatively affected hydrology, causing mangrove diebacks and coverage loss worldwide. In fact, the assessment of mangrove water budgets, impacted by natural and human disturbances,...
Zhao, Xiaochen; Rivera-Monroy, Victor H.; Wang, Hongqing; Xue, Zuo; Tsai, Cheng-Feng; Willson, C. S.; Castañeda-Moya, E.; Twilley, Robert R.Observed and modeled mercury and dissolved organic carbon concentrations and loads at control structure S-12D, Florida Everglades, 2013–17
Mercury (Hg) has been a contaminant of concern for several decades in South Florida, particularly in the Florida Everglades. The transport and bioavailability of Hg in aquatic systems is intimately linked to dissolved organic carbon (DOC). In aquatic systems, Hg can be converted to methylmercury (MeHg), which is the form of Hg that bioaccumulates...
Booth, Amanda; Poulin, Brett A.; Krabbenhoft, David P.Phytoremediation of slightly brackish, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon‐contaminated groundwater from 250 ft below land surface: A pilot‐scale study using salt‐tolerant, endophyte‐enhanced hybrid poplar trees at a Superfund site in the Central Valley of California, April‒November 2019
Slightly brackish groundwater contaminated by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) at a Superfund site in the Central Valley of California was pumped from 250 feet below land surface to a water storage tank using solar power and then gravity‐fed into 18, 330‐gallon intermediate bulk containers (totes) as follows:(1)Five totes contained planting...
Landmeyer, James E.; Rock, Steven; Freeman, John; Nagle, Greg; Samolis, Mark; Levine, Herb; Cook, Anna-Marie; O'Neill, HarryJuvenile Mangroves on Jim Foot Key, Florida
In Photo: Juvenile mangroves on eastern berm of Jim Foot Key, April 2019. Mangroves are intermingled with saltwort, the dominant live vegetation on the damaged berms, and standing dead mangroves. Grid is 25 cm high. The question is whether these trees will mature fast enough to protect the berm from rising sea level.
Scientists from the Florence Bascom
...Researchers deploying a corer in Lake Enriquillo.
Jessica Rodysill (Reston) and Hunter Wilcox (SPCMSC) deploying a corer in Lake Enriquillo. The scientists will use the cores to construct precipitation changes in Dominican Republic over the late Holocene (~5000 years ago to present) time period.
SPMSC scientist Lauren Toth conducts a photographic survey of the reef
SPMSC scientist Lauren Toth conducts a photographic survey of Porter Patch reef off Key Largo, one of the sites that has been surveyed as part of FWRI’s Coral Reef Ecosystem Monitoring project since 1996. The modern reef surveys will be compared to historic surveys to determine how much structural complexity the reefs of the Florida Keys have lost over the past two decades
Berm at Jim Foot Key, Florida (2019)
In Photo: Berm of Jim Foot Key about 1.5 years after Hurricane Irma. The red circle indicates the same position as shown in the April 2014 photo. The mature mangrove trees have not recovered from the storm.
Scientists from the Florence Bascom Geoscience Center
...USGS pilot landing an unmanned aerial system on Dauphin Island, AL
USGS unmanned aerial system (drone) pilot collecting aerial imagery and ground control points for the Coastal Resource Evaulation for Management Applications (CREMA) project on Dauphin Island, Alabama
A sea turtle mosaic made from the field station's broken floor tiles
After Hurricane Michael obliterated Fish Inn, the sea turtle research team's field station, team members salvaged some of the building's floor tiles and made this sea turtle mosaic, which they plan to eventually install in a new field station.
Preparing for fieldwork in Florida Bay
Conducting field work after Hurricane Irma on Bob Allen Key in Florida Bay, Everglades National Park, January 29, 2018. Lynn Wingard (left) and Miriam Jones (right) consult field notes from 2014 to decide where to take samples. Photo: B. Stackhouse, USGS
Scientists collect data on Pelican Island, Alabama
In an effort spanning the Natural Hazards and Ecosystems Mission Areas, pilots from the Saint Petersburg and Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Centers collect imagery data using Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) while personnel from the Wetlands and Aquatic Research Center (WARC) conduct ground-based site surveys of Pelican Island, Alabama. These data are being combined to
...Collecting a core from a reef
Two divers work to collect a long core sample from a coral reef in Florida.
Cuban treefrog - Osteopilus septentrionalis
Can you hear the difference between the non-native Cuban treefrog and two common Louisiana native treefrogs? Cuban treefrogs’ call is distinctive. Biologist Paul Moler of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission recorded them in South Florida. Credit: Paul Moler, used with permission.
Green treefrog - Hyla cinerea
Green treefrogs call from their favorite habitat, rivers and lakes. They’re native to Louisiana and Florida, where these were recorded. Credit: Paul Moler, used with permission.
Squirrel treefrog - Hyla squirella (Marion)
Squirrel treefrogs are also native to Florida and Louisiana. Hear them calling from ditches, puddles and other ephemeral pools of water. Credit: Paul Moler, used with permission.
Reporters: Do you want to accompany a USGS crew as they work in the field to install storm-tide sensors before Hurricane Florence’s arrival?
If so, please contact John Shelton for NC and SC at 803-750-6112 or jmshelto@usgs.gov
No one has a crystal ball to foresee what will happen during the 2018 hurricane season that begins June 1, but NOAA forecasters say there’s a 75 percent chance this hurricane season will be at least as busy as a normal year, or busier.
Environmental DNA picks up traces of the elusive mammals’ saliva, skin, waste, or exhaled breaths.
At 12:32 am Alaska time on January 23, 2018, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake shook Alaska residents out of their beds and set off fears of a tsunami all down the West Coast. Fortunately, the tsunami was only a few inches in height, but within an hour of the earthquake in Alaska, waves of a different sort were hitting far away in Florida.
Florida's second-largest turtle rescue of 21st century is “exhausting, inspiring,” USGS biologist says
It may be hard to believe the legend that sailors long-at-sea once considered manatees to be mermaids. The manatee nickname – the “Sea Cow” – which comes from the herbivores’ affinity for grazing on vegetation and their slow, ambling way just makes more sense. But a U.S. Geological Survey video reveals that while they may be cow-like, they also have more than a bit of the magical mermaid to them.
Coastal communities count on beaches for recreation and for protection from large waves, but beaches are vulnerable to threats such as erosion by storms and flooding. Whether beaches grow, shrink, or even disappear depends in part on what happens just offshore. How do features like shifting sandbars affect waves, currents, and the movement of sand from the beach to offshore and back?
U.S. Geological Survey field crews in Puerto Rico are rapidly repairing the damage wrought by Hurricanes Irma and Maria, tracking the scope of storm floods, and documenting the new contours of rivers re-sculpted by floodwaters and mountains re-shaped by landslides.
Coral reef expert Caroline Rogers was the only USGS employee in the Virgin Islands when the Category 5 storm hit.
A recent study led by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the National Park Service found dozens of contaminants within the protected areas of Congaree National Park in South Carolina.
Reporters: Do you want to accompany a USGS field crew as they work in the field to document how high the flood waters and storm surge from Hurricane Irma reached around the Jacksonville, Tampa and Fort Myers Areas?
If so, please contact Jeanne Robbins, jrobbins@usgs.gov, 919-571-4017.
To learn more about USGS’ role providing science to decision makers before, during and after Hurricane Maria, visit the USGS Hurricane Maria page at https://www.usgs.gov/maria.
Follow Region 2 activities on social media, get contact information for Region 2 USGS centers, and meet Region 2's staff and center directors.