Unified Interior Regions
Region 4: Mississippi Basin
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Gulf Coast Petroleum Systems Project - Assessments
This site highlights the assessments of the Gulf Coast Petroleum Systems Project. Scientifically robust assessments of undiscovered, technically recoverable hydrocarbon resources are published in a variety of USGS publications. This project also conducts research on the processes that impact the formation, accumulation, occurrence and alteration of hydrocarbon energy resources. The Gulf...
Relation between Plant Community Structure and Function and the Effectiveness of Wetland Restoration Efforts
High rates of wetland loss continue to occur along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast, and this remains an issue of concern to resource managers.
Distribution and Density of Sea Turtles in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM): Gulf of Mexico Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species (GoMMAPPS)
The over-arching goal of GoMMAPPS is to collect broad-scale survey data for seabirds, marine mammals and sea turtles to determine distribution and abundance in the Gulf of Mexico.
Wetland Forest Regeneration Dynamics and Productivity in Southeastern Cypress Swamp Ecosystems
Relict forests (i.e., forests unable to reestablish after disturbance) may develop in the southeastern U.S. in future predicted extreme climates of temperature, flooding, and drought, according to the International Panel on Climate Change.
Using Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) Capabilities to Help Identify Hummock-Hollow Formation and Fragmentation in Critical Marsh Habitat for Mottled Ducks
For many years, coastal marshes in Texas and Louisiana have served as critical habitat for the mottled duck (Anas fulvigula), which is considered a priority species in the Texas/Louisiana Gulf Coast area.
USGS Technical Support for Coastal/Wetlands Ecology: Spatial Analysis and Application for the Gulf Coast Prairie Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GCP LCC)
The Gulf Coastal Prairie (GCP) includes areas within Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas as well as Mexico. The GCP Landscape Conservation Cooperative aims to conserve prairie grasslands which helps migratory birds and other wildlife that rely on these ecosystems.
Past and Future Modeling of Ecological Indicators for the South Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative
The South Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) has developed a Conservation Blueprint: a “living spatial plan to conserve natural and cultural resources for future generations.” This blueprint is a data-driven plan based on terrestrial, freshwater, marine, and cross-ecosystem indicators to measure the overall health of South...
Geographic Information System and Remote Sensing Support: Gulf Coast Joint Venture
The Gulf Coast Joint Venture (GCJV) was established in 1988 as a result of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, which espouses the restoration of continental waterfowl populations through conservation partnerships in priority habitat regions. Since that time GCJV partners have expanded their mission and purpose to include the provision of habitat to support other priority bird species...
Bird Banding Laboratory
The Bird Banding Laboratory (BBL) is an integrated scientific program established in 1920 supporting the collection, archiving, management and dissemination of information from banded and marked birds in North America. This information is used to monitor the status and trends of resident and migratory bird populations. Because birds are good indicators of the health of the environment, the...
Heavy-Mineral Sand Resources in the Southeastern U.S.
We are assessing the extent of industrial mineral resources hosted by heavy-mineral sands in the coastal plain of the southeastern United States. “Heavy-mineral sands" (HMS) is a term commonly used in industry and geologic literature to describe layered sediments deposited in coastal environments that contain dense (“heavy") minerals of economic value. The heavy minerals extracted from these...
Webinar: Projecting Climate Change Impacts on Wetland-Dependent Birds in the Prairie Pothole Region
View this webinar to learn how scientists are projecting the impacts of climate change on birds in the Prairie Pothole Region.
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.
Orthoimagery Data
Orthoimagery data typically are high resolution aerial images that combine the visual attributes of an aerial photograph with the spatial accuracy and reliability of a planimetric map. The National Map offers public domain, 1-meter orthoimagery for the conterminous United States with many urban areas and other locations at 2-foot or finer resolution.
The National Map Small-Scale Collection
The National Map offers a collection of small-scale datasets, most of which are at 1:1,000,000. The National Map publishes two data collections at one million-scale: one for Global Map users and one for National Map users. In terms of vector geometry, the lines, points, and areas in these data collections are identical. The difference is in the attributes assigned to these features.
Science Data Integration and Delivery
Consistent synthesis, integration, storage, and availability of fundamental data is critical to meeting the needs of USGS Science. We develop databases for hydrography, topography, invasive species, water resources, and many other datasets utilized by resource managers.
Science Data Integration and Delivery
Consistent synthesis, integration, storage, and availability of fundamental data is critical to meeting the needs of USGS Science. We develop databases for hydrography, topography, invasive species, water resources, and many other datasets utilized by resource managers. Our National Geospatial Program uses partnerships and data collection through a network assigned to the Southeast Region...
Long Term Resource Monitoring
This web resource provides decision makers with the information needed to maintain the Upper Mississippi River System as a viable multiple-use large river ecosystem.
Introduction: Ecological subsidies as a framework for understanding contaminant fate, exposure, and effects at the land-water interface
Ecologists have long recognized that ecological subsidies (the flow of organic matter, nutrients, and organisms between ecosystems) can strongly affect ecosystem processes and community structure in the recipient ecosystem. Animal movements, organic matter flows, and food web dynamics between linked aquatic and terrestrial systems can also...
Walters, David; Kraus, Johanna M.; Mills, Marc A. Practical considerations for the incorporation of insect-mediated contaminant flux into ecological risk assessments
Insect-mediated contaminant flux is truly an interdisciplinary concept that merges ideas from many technical areas of science (e.g., environmental chemistry, landscape ecology, and entomology). This chapter introduces risk assessors to this emerging and ecologically relevant concept by distilling the main mechanisms that drive insect-mediated...
Otter, Ryan R.; Beaubien, Gale B.; Olson, Connor I.; Walters, David; Mills, Marc A. Synthesis: A framework for predicting the dark side of ecological subsidies
In this chapter, we synthesize the state of the science regarding ecological subsidies and contaminants at the land-water interface and suggest research and management approaches for linked freshwater-terrestrial ecosystems. Specifically, we focus on movements of animals with complex life histories and the detrital inputs associated with animal...
Kraus, Johanna M.; Wessner, Jeff; Walters, David Cross-ecosystem linkages and trace metals at the land-water interface
At low concentrations, trace metals are critical for sustaining life on Earth. However, at high concentrations, they become a global contaminant with particularly strong effects on freshwater communities. These effects can propagate to terrestrial ecosystems in part by altering production and community structure of adult aquatic insect emergence...
Kraus, Johanna M.; Pomeranz, Justin F.
Estimating flood magnitude and frequency on streams and rivers in Connecticut, based on data through water year 2015
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Connecticut Department of Transportation, updated flood-frequency estimates with 50-, 20-, 10-, 4-, 2-, 1-, 0.5-, and 0.2-percent annual exceedance probabilities (2-, 5-, 10-, 25-, 50-, 100-, 200-, and 500-year recurrence intervals, respectively) for 141 streamgages in Connecticut and 11...
Ahearn, Elizabeth A.; Hodgkins, Glenn A. Effects of early life stage exposure of largemouth bass to atrazine or a model estrogen (17α-ethinylestradiol)
Endocrine disrupting contaminants are of continuing concern for potentially contributing to reproductive dysfunction in largemouth and smallmouth bass in the Chesapeake Bay watershed (CBW) and elsewhere. Exposures to atrazine (ATR) have been hypothesized to have estrogenic effects on vertebrate endocrine systems. The incidence of intersex in male...
Leet, Jessica Kristin; Richter, Catherine A.; Cornman, Robert S.; Berninger, Jason P.; Bhandari, Ramji K.; Nicks, Diane K.; Zajicek, James L.; Blazer, Vicki S.; Tillitt, Donald E.
Distribution of selected hydrogeologic characteristics of the upper glacial and Magothy aquifers, Long Island, New York
The Pleistocene- and Cretaceous-age sediments underlying Long Island, New York, compose an important sole-source aquifer system that is nearly 2,000 feet thick in some areas. Sediment characteristics of importance for water supply include water-transmitting properties—horizontal and vertical hydraulic conductivity—and the distribution of lignite,...
Walter, Donald A.; Finkelstein, Jason S. 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, Just Growth 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, Darren Improved prediction of management-relevant groundwater discharge characteristics throughout river networks
Groundwater discharge zones connect aquifers to surface water, generating baseflow and serving as ecosystem control points across aquatic ecosystems. The influence of groundwater discharge on surface flow connectivity, fate and transport of contaminants and nutrients, and thermal habitat depends strongly on hydrologic characteristics such as the...
Barclay, Janet R.; Starn, J. Jeffrey; Briggs, Martin A.; Helton, Ashley
Potentiometric 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.
Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana
Is Louisiana falling into the sea, or is the sea inundating Louisiana? It's actually a bit of both. To the inhabitants of a tiny island on the bayou, an island getting tinier by the day, it hardly matters.
Satellite Image of New Orleans Region
This image of the New Orleans/Lake Pontchartrain area in Louisiana was acquired March 31, 2017, from the Indian Space Research Organization’s Resourcesat-2 LISS-3 sensor. Land loss and hurricane hazards are key landscape issues here.
ISRO Resourcesat-2 image of Lake Pontchartrain, March 2017
This is an image acquired with the Linear Imaging Self-Scanning Sensor III on the Indian Space Research Organization's Resourcesat-2 satellite that is now available in the EROS Archive. It is the New Orleans/Lake Pontchartrain area and was acquired March 31, 2017.
Rapid salt-marsh erosion in Grand Bay, Mississippi
This time-lapse video shows lateral erosion of a salt marsh in the Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, part of an embayment near the city of Pascagoula, Mississippi, on the US Gulf coast. Wave action over the course of 6.5 months led to about 1.5 meters of erosion. Researchers from the USGS Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center are studying the influence
Perfect Row with USGS Gage-Shane Stocks
This image is of a perfect row in a field with a USGS Gage in the background. The image was taken by Shane Stocks out of the LMG Jackson, MS office.
Geophysical and sediment core data collected between 2009
Location of geophysical and sediment core data collected between 2009 and 2013, and used in the Mississippi Coastal Improvement Project (MsCIP) project.
Team of scientists studied changes in nitrapyrin
A team of scientists studied changes in nitrapyrin — a nitrification inhibitor applied with fertilizers as a bactericide to kill natural soil bacteria for the purpose of increasing crop yields — occurrence associated with land use changes from March to June 2016. The above photographs document the following conditions: recent anhydrous ammonia application (upper left),
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Louisiana Black Bear and Cubs
A Louisiana black bear and her cubs up in a tree. USGS science on population demographics, population viability, and relocation efforts were used to inform the 2016 USFWS decision to remove the species from the Endangered Species List due to recovery.
Before and after pictures - Hurricane Rita and Holly Beach, Louisiana
Hurricanes can cause severe beach erosion
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The Storm-Induced Coastal Change Hazards component of the of the National Assessment of Coastal Change Hazards project
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Aerial view of the Mississippi River near Vicksburg, Mississippi
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Cedar River Surges to Second-Highest Level in Eastern Iowa
Images from Landsat 8's Operational Land Imager sensor show the dramatic transformation of the river as it flows toward Cedar Rapids. On July 8, 2016, the shallow river meanders into the city, surrounded by green crops in the heart of the growing season. The September 26 image shows the overflowing river at a time when magenta tones around it speak to a countryside
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Live Chat with James Fountain on Louisiana Floods
This was a Facebook Live video conducted with James Fountain of the USGS discussing the Louisiana flooding in August 2016 and the personal experience James had with this event. Questions and comments during the live video at: https://www.facebook.com/USGeologicalSurvey/videos/1144228595623122/
New US Topo maps for Iowa and Kansas are now available in the USGS Store for free download. The new maps of these Midwestern states feature the inclusion of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) road data.
Significant flood peaks occurred across the Arkansas, White and Red River Basins in Arkansas beginning on Dec. 26 and the rivers are still high, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
U.S. Geological Survey field crews are measuring record flooding on rivers and streams in 12 states across the country. USGS is making preparations for a prolonged field effort along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers as major flooding will extend well into mid-to-late January, particularly along the lower Mississippi River.
Heavy rainfall of up to 10 inches in northern and western Arkansas that fell during the Christmas weekend is still causing major flooding in some areas.
U.S. Geological Survey field crews are measuring flooding on rivers and streams across southwestern and southern Missouri and northeast into the St. Louis area.
A high-resolution airborne survey to study the rocks within the St. Francois Mountains will be conducted by U.S. Geological Survey scientists starting this week.
A newly published, three-volume “Remote Sensing Handbook” is a comprehensive coverage of all remote sensing topics written by over 300 leading global experts.
With the release of new US Topo maps for Illinois and South Dakota, the USGS has completed the second, three-year cycle of revising and updating electronic US Topo quadrangles. This means that since late 2009, the USGS has published nearly every map in the conterminous U.S., twice.
U.S. Geological Survey field crews are measuring flooding on rivers and streams across central and southern Missouri.
Fact sheets that detail information about parish water resources and water-use are available online for 34 of the state’s 64 parishes, with more coming soon.
U.S. Geological Survey scientists will conduct a high-resolution airborne survey to study the rock layers under a region of northeastern Iowa, starting Monday, October 19, and lasting into November.
Grass carp egg survival is compromised when they settle on streambeds and are potentially covered by sediments, according to a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey. It has been long assumed that the eggs of Asian carps, including grass carp, must be carried in the water current in order to hatch successfully, but no previous scientific studies have proven that theory.
Contacts
Locations
Region 4: Mississippi Basin
Fork Polk Project Office
Phone: (337) 531-4522 Fax:
Fax: (337) 531-6039
Louisiana Water Science Center
Phone: (225) 298-5481
Fax: (225) 298-5490
Arkansas Water Science Center
Phone: (501) 228-3600
Fax: (501) 228-3601
Ruston Program Office
Phone: (318) 251-9630
Fax: (318) 251-0372
National Geospatial Technical Operations Center - Rolla, MO
Missouri Water Science Center
Phone: 573-308-3667
Fax: (573) 308-3645
Lower Mississippi-Gulf Water Science Center - Little Rock, AR Office
Phone: (501) 228-3600
Lower Mississippi-Gulf Water Science Center - Jackson, MS Office
Phone: (601) 933-2900
Fax: (601) 933-2901
Lower Mississippi-Gulf Water Science Center - Baton Rouge, LA Office
Phone: (225) 298-5481
Fax: (225) 298-5490
Wetland and Aquatic Research Center - Lafayette, LA
Phone: 337-266-8500
Fax: 337-266-8513
Columbia Environmental Research Center
Phone: 573-875-5399
Iowa Water Science Center
Phone: 319-337-4191
Fax: (319) 358-3606
Western Iowa Field Office - Council Bluffs
Phone: 712-323-0824
Fax: 712-322-7775
Central Iowa Field Office - Fort Dodge
Phone: 515-576-4571
Fax: 515-576-1692
Lower Mississippi-Gulf Water Science Center - Ruston, LA Office
Phone: (318) 251-9630
Lower Mississippi-Gulf Water Science Center - Fayetteville, AR Office
Phone: (479) 442-4888
Western Missouri Field Office - Lee's Summit
Phone: 816-554-3489
Fax: 816-554-9273
Eastern Missouri - Olivette
Phone: 314-567-7077 or 314-567-5440
Fax: 314-567-7641
