Publications

As bighead carp Hypophthalmichthys nobilis and silver carp H. molitrix (the bigheaded carps) are poised to enter the Laurentian Great Lakes and potentially damage the region’s economically important fishery, information on developmental rates and behaviors of carps is critical to assessing their ability to establish sustainable populations within the Great Lakes basin. In laboratory...

Fish hatcheries and other types of aquatic facilities are potential sources for the introduction of nonnative species of fish or aquatic invertebrates into watersheds. Chlorine has been suggested for use to kill organisms that might be released from the effluent of a facility. While acute LC50s (concentrations lethal to 50% of organisms exposed for up to 96 h) for chlorine are available...

Wastewater discharges to the Assabet River contribute substantial amounts of phosphorus, which support accumulations of nuisance aquatic plants that are most evident in the river’s impounded reaches during the growing season. To restore the Assabet River’s water quality and aesthetics, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency required the major wastewater-treatment plants in the drainage...

The aquifers in the Nacatoch Sand and Tokio Formation in southwestern Arkansas and the Nacatoch Sand in northeastern Arkansas are sources of water for industrial, public supply, domestic, and agricultural uses. Potentiometric-surface maps were constructed from water-level measurements made in 47 wells completed in the Nacatoch Sand and 45 wells completed in the Tokio Formation during...

Resource managers need to make decisions to plan for future environmental conditions, particularly sea level rise, in the face of substantial uncertainty. Many interacting processes factor in to the decisions they face. Advances in process models and the quantification of uncertainty have made models a valuable tool for this purpose. Long-simulation runtimes and, often, numerical...

In 2012, a map of vegetation communities on Big Muddy National Fish and Wildlife Refuge was expanded based on interpretation of aerial photographs and field data. National Agricultural Imagery Program aerial photographs were used to identify distinct communities on previously unmapped refuge units and newly acquired parcels. Newly mapped polygons were then visited to adjust map...

No abstract available.

Exploration of unconventional natural gas reservoirs such as impermeable shale basins through the use of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has changed the energy landscape in the USA providing a vast new energy source. The accelerated production of natural gas has triggered a debate concerning the safety and possible environmental impacts of these operations. This study...

Large water-sample sets collected from 1899 through 1902, 1907, and in the early 1950s allow comparisons of pre-impoundment and post-impoundment (1969 through 2008) nitrogen concentrations in the lower Missouri River. Although urban wastes were not large enough to detectably increase annual loads of total nitrogen at the beginning of the 20th century, carcass waste, stock-yard manure...

Chemical data from soil and weathered waste material samples collected from five uranium mines north of the Grand Canyon (three reclaimed, one mined but not reclaimed, and one never mined) were used in a screening-level risk analysis for the Arizona chisel-toothed kangaroo rat (Dipodomys microps leucotis); risks from radiation exposure were not evaluated. Dietary toxicity reference...

Streamflow and concentrations of sodium and chloride estimated from records of specific conductance were used to calculate loads of sodium and chloride during water year (WY) 2011 (October 1, 2010, to September 30, 2011), for tributaries to the Scituate Reservoir, Rhode Island. Streamflow and water-quality data used in the study were collected by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) or the...

A Presidential Disaster Declaration was issued for Massachusetts, with a focus on the northwestern counties, following flooding from tropical storm Irene on August 28–29, 2011. Three to 10 inches of rain fell during the storm on soils that were susceptible to flash flooding because of wet antecedent conditions. The gage height at one U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) streamgage rose nearly...