Publications

Conservation planning, the process of deciding how to protect, conserve, enhance and(or) minimize loss of natural and cultural resources, is a fundamental process to achieve conservation success in a time of rapid environmental change. Conservation targets, the measurable expressions of desired resource conditions, are an important tool in biological planning to achieve effective...

The Anniston Polychlorinated Biphenyl (PCB) Site is located in the vicinity of the municipality of Anniston in Calhoun County, in the north-eastern portion of Alabama. Although there are a variety of land-use activities within the Choccolocco Creek watershed, environmental concerns in the area have focused mainly on releases of PCBs to aquatic and riparian habitats. PCBs were...

Sea level rise and the subsequent intrusion of saline seawater can result in an increase in soil salinity, and potentially cause coastal salinity-intolerant vegetation (for example, hardwood hammocks or pines) to be replaced by salinity-tolerant vegetation (for example, mangroves or salt marshes). Although the vegetation shifts can be easily monitored by satellite imagery, it is hard to...

Due to their position at the land-sea interface, coastal wetlands are vulnerable to many aspects of climate change. However, climate change vulnerability assessments for coastal wetlands generally focus solely on sea-level rise without considering the effects of other facets of climate change. Across the globe and in all ecosystems, macroclimatic drivers (e.g., temperature and rainfall...

Though the potential for information to measurably improve management has been highlighted for several decades, in recent years the “value of information” has surfaced with increasing frequency in natural resources. However, the use of this phrase belies the fact that many in natural resources have only a limited understanding about what it actually means, how to measure it, and what to...

Background: Hydraulic fracturing technologies, developed over the last 65 years, have only recently been combined with horizontal drilling to unlock oil and gas reserves previously deemed inaccessible. While these technologies have dramatically increased domestic oil and natural gas production, they have also raised concerns for the potential contamination of local water supplies with...

Our study investigated the carbon:nitrogen:phosphorus (C:N:P) stoichiometry of mangrove island of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef (Twin Cays, Belize). The C:N:P of abiotic and biotic components of this oligotrophic ecosystem was measured and served to build networks of nutrient flows for three distinct mangrove forest zones (tall seaward fringing forest, inland dwarf forests and a...

Global sea level is rising and may accelerate with continued fossil fuel consumption from industrial and population growth. In 2012, the U.S. Geological Survey conducted more than 30 training and feedback sessions with Federal, State, and nongovernmental organization (NGO) coastal managers and planners across the northern Gulf of Mexico coast to evaluate user needs, potential benefits...

The Everglades has been greatly reduced and is threatened by land use change and altered hydrology. The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan calls for monitoring and assessment of key ecosystem attributes, one of which is abundance of American alligators. We examined 10 years of alligator night spotlight counts from Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge along two...

Controlling fugitive dust while protecting natural resources is a challenge faced by all managers of unpaved roads. Unfortunately, road managers choosing between dust control products often have little objective environmental information to aid their decisions. To address this information gap, the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service collaborated on a field test...

In October 2012, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Central Texas Groundwater Conservation District, began an assessment to better understand if and where groundwater from the Ellenburger-San Saba aquifer is discharging to the Colorado River, and if and where Colorado River streamflow is recharging the Ellenburger-San Saba aquifer in the study area. Discharge...

A forested wetland (swamp) is a forest where soils are saturated or flooded for at least a portion of the growing season, and vegetation, dominated by trees, is adapted to tolerate flooded conditions. A tidal freshwater forested wetland is a forested wetland that experiences frequent but short-term surface flooding via tidal action, with average salinity of soil porewater less than 0.5 g...