Publications

We studied soil decomposition in a Panicum hemitomon (Schultes)-dominated freshwater marsh located in southeastern Louisiana that was unambiguously changed by secondarily-treated municipal wastewater effluent. We used four approaches to evaluate how belowground biomass decomposition rates vary under different nutrient regimes in this marsh. The results of laboratory experiments...

myScience (http://txpub.usgs.gov/myscience/) is a Web application developed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Texas Water Science Center through a partnership with the USGS Community for Data Integration to address the need for increasing public awareness and participation in existing USGS citizen science projects. The myScience application contains data for 20 projects available for...

Discharge, suspended sediment, and salinity data collected between 1997 and 2008 indicate that the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW) is an important distributary of river water and suspended sediments to coastal wetlands in south-central coastal Louisiana. Following natural hydraulic gradients, the GIWW passively distributes freshwater and suspended sediments from the Atchafalaya River...

Final leachates (leachate after storage or treatment processes) from 22 landfills in 12 states were analyzed for 190 pharmaceuticals and other contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), which were detected in every sample, with the number of CECs ranging from 1 to 58 (median = 22). In total, 101 different CECs were detected in leachate samples, including 43 prescription pharmaceuticals, 22

This report presents the results of a cooperative study by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Oklahoma Department of Transportation to estimate the magnitude and frequency of peak streamflows from regional regression equations for ungaged stream sites in and near the Oklahoma Panhandle. These methods relate basin characteristics (physiographic and climatic attributes) to selected peak...

This report compares concentrations for a wide range of inorganic and organic constituents in bed sediment from Big Base Lake and Little Base Lake, which are located on Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas, to sediment-quality guidelines. This report also compares trace-metal concentrations in a bed-sediment core sample to sediment age to determine when the highest concentrations of...

A hydrogeological study including two numerical groundwater-flow models was completed for the Citizen Potawatomi Nation Tribal Jurisdictional Area of central Oklahoma. One numerical groundwater-flow model, the Citizen Potawatomi Nation model, encompassed the jurisdictional area and was based on the results of a regional-scale hydrogeological study and numerical groundwater flow model of...

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...

The 2011 Mississippi River Flood resulted in the opening of the Morganza Spillway for the second time since its construction in 1954 releasing 7.6 km3 of water through agricultural and forested lands in the Morganza Floodway and into the Atchafalaya River Basin. This volume, released over 54 days, represented 5.5% of the Mississippi River (M.R.) discharge and 14% of the total discharge...

In 2010, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the San Antonio Water System, began a study to assess the brackish-water movement within the Edwards aquifer (more specifically the potential for brackish-water encroachment into wells near the interface between the freshwater and brackish-water transition zones, referred to in this report as the transition-zone interface) and...

Groundwater withdrawals have caused saltwater to encroach into freshwater-bearing aquifers beneath Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The 10 aquifers beneath the Baton Rouge area, which includes East and West Baton Rouge Parishes, Pointe Coupee Parish, and East and West Feliciana Parishes, provided about 184.3 million gallons per day (Mgal/d) for public supply and industrial use in 2012...

The Ozark aquifer is the largest aquifer, both in area of outcrop and thickness, and the most important source of freshwater in the Ozark Plateaus physiographic province, supplying water to northern Arkansas, southeastern Kansas, southern Missouri, and northeastern Oklahoma. The study area includes 16 Arkansas counties lying completely or partially within the Ozark Plateaus of the...