Unified Interior Regions
Region 4: Mississippi Basin
Regions L2 Landing Page Tabs
Characterization of Macroinvertebrate and Fish Assemblages at 35 Streams in Southwestern Louisiana and an Assessment of Their Relations to Water-Quality and Physical Habitat
Short Title: Biological Characterization of Louisiana Streams
Project Chief: Billy Justus
Cooperator: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Project Time Frame: 2007 - 2009
Information is needed to support water-resources management...
Preliminary Characterization of Thermal Waters East of Hot Springs National Park - Arkansas
Short Title: Hot Springs Thermal Study
Project Chief: Tim Kresse
Cooperators: Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department
Project Time Frame: 2007 - 2009
Established in 1832 to preserve 47 hot springs flowing from of Hot Springs Mountain, Hot Springs National Park (HSNP) is the oldest National Park in the...
Digital Hydrogeologic Surface and Thickness of the Mississippi Embayment Regional Aquifer Study (MERAS)
Short Title: MERAS Framework
Project Chief: Rheannon Hart
Cooperator: U.S. Geological Survey Office of Ground-Water Resources Program
Project Time Frame: January 2006 - 2009
A hydrogeologic framework for a ground-water flow model is under development as part...
Lower Mississippi River National Rivers and Streams Assessment
Short Title: Mississippi River NRSA
Project Chief: Billy Justus
Cooperator: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Project Time Frame: 2008 - 2009
The USGS Arkansas and Missouri Water Science Centers (WSC) are conducting a study for the U.S. Environmental...
Analysis of Chloride Data in the Alluvial Aquifer of Southeastern Arkansas
Short Title: Southeastern Arkansas Chloride Study
Project Chief: Brian Clark
Cooperator: Boeuf-Tensas Regional Irrigation Water Distribution District
Project Time Frame: July 2007 - September 2008
The Mississippi River Valley alluvial aquifer is one of the highest use aquifer systems...
Water Quality of Potential Reference Lakes in Two Level-Three Ecoregions of Arkansas
Short Title: Reference Lakes
Project Chief: Billy Justus
Cooperators: Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and U. S. Environmental Protection Agency
Project Time Frame: 2007 - 2008
The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality has classified all lakes within Arkansas into five classifications...
Water Use in Louisiana
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD), has collected and published information on water withdrawals and use on a 5-year basis since 1960. The reports present information on withdrawals from ground- and surface-water sources for use in water supply, industry, power generation, rural domestic, livestock,...
East Baton Rouge Parish Hurricane Response Map
In the event of a hurricane, the appropriate response could save your life. This “East Baton Rouge Parish Hurricane Response Map” is a tool that can be useful in making decisions pertaining to evacuation and safety. IF LOCAL AUTHORITIES RECOMMEND EVACUATION, YOU SHOULD LEAVE--via major evacuation routes shown in red. Louisiana State Police Troop (A) headquarters can assist you in the most...
Mississippi Delta Management Systems Evaluation Areas (MDMSEA)
The Mississippi Delta Management Systems Evaluation Areas (MDMSEA) Project began in 1995 with two purposes: 1) to assess how agricultural activities affect water quality; and 2) to evaluate Best Management Practices (BMPs) that mitigate agricultural nonpoint source pollution. The project is located in the northwestern portion of Mississippi, an area of intense agriculture referred to as the...
Arkansas Water Use Program
In 1977, the Congress of the United States recognized the need for uniform, current, and reliable information on water use and directed the U.S. Geological Survey to establish a National Water-Use Information Program (NWUIP) to complement the Survey's data on the availability and quality of the Nations water resources. Since 1985 site-specific water-use data for several categories have been...
De facto water reuse: Bioassay suite approach delivers depth and breadth in endocrine active compound detection
Although endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) have been detected in wastewater and surface waters worldwide using a variety of in vitro effects-based screening tools, e.g. bioassays, few have examined potential attenuation of environmental contaminants by both natural (sorption, degradation, etc) and anthropogenic (water treatment practices)...
Medlock Kakaley, Elizabeth K; Blackwell, Brett R.; Cardon, Mary C.; Conley, Justin M.; Evans, Nicola; Feifarek, David J.; Furlong, Edward; Glassmeyer, Susan T.; Gray, L. Earl Jr.; Hartig, Phillip C.; Kolpin, Dana W.; Mills, Marc A.; Rosenblum, Laura; Villeneuve, Daniel L.; Wilson, Vickie S.Using carbon isotope ratios to verify predictions of a model simulating the interaction between coastal plant communities and their effect on ground water salinity
As sea level rises in low-lying coastal islands, salt-tolerant (halophytic) coastal vegetation communities may be able to migrate inland, replacing the freshwater vegetation that is unable to tolerate salt stress. The pace of such shifts may be accelerated by a self-reinforcing feedback between the halophytic vegetation and salinity, as well as by...
Subedi, Suresh C.; Sternberg, Leonel; DeAngelis, Donald L.; Ross, Michael S.; Ogarcak, DanielleA comprehensive approach uncovers hidden diversity in freshwater mussels (Bivalvia: Unionidae) with the description of a novel species
Major geological processes have shaped biogeographical patterns of riverine biota. The Edwards Plateau of central Texas, USA, exhibits unique aquatic communities and endemism, including several species of freshwater mussels. Lampsilis bracteata (Gould, 1855) is endemic to the Edwards Plateau region; however, its phylogenetic relationship...
Inoue, Kentaro; Harris, John L.; Robertson, Clint; Johnson, Nathan; Randklev, Charles R.Establishing genome sizes of focal fishery and aquaculture species along Baja California, Mexico
Genome size—the total haploid content of nuclear DNA— is constant in all cells in individuals within a species, but differs among species. Consequently, the genome size is a quantifiable genetic signature that not only characterizes a species, but it can reflect chromatin modifications, which play fundamental roles in most biological processes...
del Mar Ochoa-Saloma, Constanza; Jenkins, Jill A.; Segovia, Manuel A.; Del Rio-Portilla, Miguel A.; Paniagua-Chavez, Carmen G.Spatially referenced models of streamflow and nitrogen, phosphorus, and suspended-sediment loads in the southeastern United States
Spatially Referenced Regression On Watershed attributes (SPARROW) models were applied to describe and estimate mean-annual streamflow and transport of total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), and suspended sediment (SS) in streams and delivered to coastal waters of the southeastern United States on the basis of inputs and management practices...
Hoos, Anne B.; Roland II, Victor L.Groundwater recharge estimates for Maine using a Soil-Water-Balance model—25-year average, range, and uncertainty, 1991 to 2015
To address the lack of information on the spatial and temporal variability of recharge to groundwater systems in Maine, a study was initiated in cooperation with the Maine Geological Survey to use the U.S. Geological Survey Soil-Water-Balance model to evaluate annual average potential recharge across the State over a 25-year period from 1991 to...
Nielsen, Martha G.; Westenbroek, Stephen M.Council monitoring and assessment program (CMAP) compilation of existing habitat and water quality monitoring and mapping assessments for the Gulf of Mexico Region
This report is a deliverable to the RESTORE Council for Task 7: Document the existing baseline habitat and water quality conditions prior to implementation of the restoration projects; these baseline conditions will serve as a basis for measuring change/progress after restoration. It is the second in a series of CMAP reports. The first report...
NOAAQuantifying changes to infaunal communities associated with several deep-sea coral habitats in the Gulf of Mexico and their potential recovery from the DWH oil spill
Extensive information is available about infaunal soft-sediment communities in the Gulf of Mexico (Gulf) (Pequegnat et al. 1990, Rowe and Kennicutt II 2009, Wei et al. 2010), particularly from the large-scale sampling effort of the Deep Gulf of Mexico Benthos (DGOMB) project in the early 2000s (Rowe and Kennicutt II 2009). Infaunal soft-sediment...
Bourque, Jill R.; Demopoulos, Amanda W.J.A hydrogeomorphic classification of connectivity of large rivers of the Upper Midwest, United States
River connectivity is defined as the water-mediated exchange of matter, energy, and biota between different elements of the riverine landscape. Connectivity is an especially important concept in large-river corridors (channel plus floodplain ) because large rivers integrate fluxes of water, sediment, nutrients, contaminants, and other transported...
Jacobson, Robert B.; Rohweder, Jason J.; De Jager, Nathan R.Scientist’s guide to developing explanatory statistical models using causal analysis principles
Recent discussions of model selection and multimodel inference highlight a general challenge for researchers, which is how to clearly convey the explanatory content of a hypothesized model or set of competing models. The advice from statisticians for scientists employing multimodel inference is to develop a well‐thought‐out set of candidate models...
Grace, James B.; Irvine, KathrynSimulation of groundwater flow and chloride transport in the “1,500-foot” sand, “2,400-foot” sand, and “2,800-foot” sand of the Baton Rouge area, Louisiana
Groundwater withdrawals since the 1940s have lowered water levels, altered groundwater-flow directions, and caused saltwater to intrude within some freshwater-containing sands of the fluvial-deltaic Southern Hills regional aquifer system beneath Baton Rouge, Louisiana. New interpretations of stratigraphic correlations amongst geophysical well logs...
Heywood, Charles E.; Lindaman, Maxwell; Lovelace, John K.Plot Locator: An app for locating plots in the field
PREMISE: One of the challenges in field biology is locating previously sampled plots. The Plot Locator app was developed to assist field biologists with plot identification and location, with or without GPS or online connectivity. METHODS AND RESULTS: The Plot Locator Android app helps users locate field plots by creating a searchable database...
Boudell, Jere ; Middleton, BethScientists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Madison, Wisc., confirmed today that five dead crows found in the St. Louis, Mo., area tested positive for the West Nile Virus. On Thursday, USGS biologists announced that a dead blue jay, found near El Dorado, Ark., also tested positive for the virus.
Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Madison, Wisc., said today that two dead crows, found in the Chicago area tested positive for the West Nile Virus. Last week, dead crows found near Milwaukee also tested positive for the virus. So far this year, West Nile Virus has been identified in 20 states, the District of Columbia and in southern Ontario.
A minor earthquake, preliminary magnitude 3.9 according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), occurred in the northern part of Arkansas at 9:29 p.m.
More than 100 scientists will converge on the Cajundome in Lafayette, La., Nov. 2-4 to share the latest technologies used in studying everything from hurricanes in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico to grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park. They are participants in the U.S. Geological Survey’s symposium, "BioGeo99: Applications of Geospatial Technology to Biological Sciences."
Wildfires have long played a key role in structuring ecosystems and plant communities in the southeastern United States. From the coastal prairie of Texas and Louisiana to the marshes and pinelands of Florida, many native species have adapted to a natural regime of frequent wildfire caused by lightning strikes.
Gaye S. Farris of Carencro, La., is the new national secretary of the National Association of Government Communicators, a national professional network of federal, state and local government employees who disseminate information within and outside government.
From the drastic impacts of major floods and droughts to more gradual shifts in channel, sandbar and floodplain habitats, large river systems such as the Missouri are always changing. Over the past century human activities also have caused physical and biological changes in such rivers.
The mysterious brain disease responsible for the deaths of bald eagles and American coots in Arkansas has now been found in two species of ducks discovered dead at Woodlake, North Carolina, and in bald eagles and coots from three other southeastern states.
Nutrients from the Mississippi River Basin are believed to be responsible, at least in part, for the large hypoxic zone that develops on the Louisiana-Texas shelf in the Gulf of Mexico each summer, according to Don Goolsby, a hydrologist with the U.S.Geological Survey in Denver, Colo.
Effective immediately, the Environmental and Contaminants Research Center, an environmental research facility of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Biological Resources Division (Central Region) located in Columbia, MO, was re-named the Columbia Environmental Research Center (CERC).
Heavy rainfall and flooding prompted an emergency response from USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) engineers and field technicians to keep stream gages operational during and after Hurricane Georges. Personnel from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida are working to secure gages threatened by rising rivers and streams or damaged by the storm. Some gaging stations monitored by the USGS are used
Aerial flights on Tuesday, two days after Hurricane Georges hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast, revealed what one scientist called the worst damage to the Chandeleur Islands that he had seen in more than a decade.