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At least 397 records · Page 22Linked to original sources

USGS2023

Restoration research actions to address rapid change in drylands: Insights from the Colorado Plateau

The rapid intensification of ecological extremes in response to climate change and human land use is perhaps nowhere more apparent than in drylands, including the semiarid region of the Colorado Plateau in the southwestern United States. Here, we describe research directions to aid in the restoration of Colorado Plateau ecosystems during the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030) that 1) address high levels of heterogeneity 2) explore simultaneous global change drivers 3) are co-produced with a broad range of partners and 4) center Indigenous ways of knowing. We highlight restoration research efforts led by early career scientists grappling with informing management actions in a region where a rapidly changing climate intersects with historic grazing and continued land use pressures to create novel ecological extremes. We highlight restoration research efforts led by early career researchers grappling with informing management actions in a region where novel ecological extremes are the result of historic grazing, continued land-use pressures, and a rapidly changing climate.

Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah↗

USGS2026

Southeastern Utah Federal lands science needs survey

Evidence-based scientific information can help support defensible decision making in the management of public lands. This report sought to identify current (2024–25) Federal agency research needs in southeastern Utah and to synthesize common management challenges and questions across jurisdictional boundaries. We implemented a science needs assessment focused on lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service (FS), and National Park Service (NPS) in southeastern Utah—the area delineated by BLM’s Canyon Country District Office, portions of the FS Manti-La Sal National Forest, and Southeast Utah Group NPS units. U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) researchers met with and surveyed BLM, NPS, and FS staff in 2024 and 2025 to understand their science needs and preferred modes of information delivery. The USGS’s approach may be unrepresentative in terms of which topic areas were addressed, but the responses nevertheless highlight challenges and high-priority research areas that could contribute positively to agency decision making. Common management challenges and areas where additional research could be beneficial to land managers include the effects of climate change, recreation effects and visitor behavior, hydrology and hydrologic changes due to anthropogenic pressures, and the capacity for inventory and monitoring across essentially all resource types. Research on site-specific restoration techniques and their outcomes was also a common theme. In this report we discuss ways in which researchers can increase the extent to which their work could be actionable for resource managers and provide suggestions for potential priority research areas for the study region.

Utah↗

USGS2020

Unfamiliar territory: Emerging themes for ecological drought research and management

Novel forms of drought are emerging globally, due to climate change, shifting teleconnection patterns, expanding human water use, and a history of human influence on the environment that increases the probability of transformational ecological impacts. These costly ecological impacts cascade to human communities, and understanding this changing drought landscape is one of today’s grand challenges. By using a modified horizon-scanning approach that integrated scientists, managers, and decision-makers, we identified the emerging issues in ecological drought that represent key challenges to timely and effective responses. Here we review the themes that most urgently need attention, including novel drought conditions, the potential for transformational drought impacts, and the need for anticipatory drought management. This horizon scan and review provides a roadmap to facilitate the research and management innovations that will support forward-looking, co-developed approaches to reduce the risk of drought to our socio-ecological systems during the 21 st century.

One Earth↗

USGS2006

One-way coupling of an atmospheric and a hydrologic model in Colorado

This paper examines the accuracy of high-resolution nested mesoscale model simulations of surface climate. The nesting capabilities of the atmospheric fifth-generation Pennsylvania State University (PSU)-National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Mesoscale Model (MM5) were used to create high-resolution, 5-yr climate simulations (from 1 October 1994 through 30 September 1999), starting with a coarse nest of 20 km for the western United States. During this 5-yr period, two finer-resolution nests (5 and 1.7 km) were run over the Yampa River basin in northwestern Colorado. Raw and bias-corrected daily precipitation and maximum and minimum temperature time series from the three MM5 nests were used as input to the U.S. Geological Survey's distributed hydrologic model [the Precipitation Runoff Modeling System (PRMS)] and were compared with PRMS results using measured climate station data. The distributed capabilities of PRMS were provided by partitioning the Yampa River basin into hydrologic response units (HRUs). In addition to the classic polygon method of HRU definition, HRUs for PRMS were defined based on the three MM5 nests. This resulted in 16 datasets being tested using PRMS. The input datasets were derived using measured station data and raw and bias-corrected MM5 20-, 5-, and 1.7-km output distributed to 1) polygon HRUs and 2) 20-, 5-, and 1.7-km-gridded HRUs, respectively. Each dataset was calibrated independently, using a multiobjective, stepwise automated procedure. Final results showed a general increase in the accuracy of simulated runoff with an increase in HRU resolution. In all steps of the calibration procedure, the station-based simulations of runoff showed higher accuracy than the MM5-based simulations, although the accuracy of MM5 simulations was close to station data for the high-resolution nests. Further work is warranted in identifying the causes of the biases in MM5 local climate simulations and developing methods to remove them. ?? 2006 American Meteorological Society.

Journal of Hydrometeorology↗

USGS2022

Presence of the herbaceous marsh species Schoenoplectus americanus enhances surface elevation gain in transitional coastal wetland communities exposed to elevated CO2 and sediment deposition events

Coastal wetlands are dynamic ecosystems that exist along a landscape continuum that can range from freshwater forested wetlands to tidal marsh to mudflat communities. Climate-driven stressors, such as sea-level rise, can cause shifts among these communities, resulting in changes to ecological functions and services. While a growing body of research has characterized the landscape-scale impacts of individual climate-driven stressors, little is known about how multiple stressors and their potential interactions will affect ecological functioning of these ecosystems. How will coastal wetlands respond to discrete climate disturbances, such as hurricane sediment deposition events, under future conditions of elevated atmospheric CO 2 ? Will these responses vary among the different wetland communities? We conducted experimental greenhouse manipulations to simulate sediment deposition from a land-falling hurricane under future elevated atmospheric CO 2 concentrations (720 ppm CO 2 ). We measured responses of net primary production, decomposition, and elevation change in mesocosms representing four communities along a coastal wetland landscape gradient: freshwater forested wetland, forest/marsh mix, marsh, and mudflat. When Schoenoplectus americanus was present, above- and belowground biomass production was highest, decomposition rates were lowest, and wetland elevation gain was greatest, regardless of CO 2 and sediment deposition treatments. Sediment addition initially increased elevation capital in all communities, but post-deposition rates of elevation gain were lower than in mesocosms without added sediment. Together these results indicate that encroachment of oligohaline marshes into freshwater forested wetlands can enhance belowground biomass accumulation and resilience to sea-level rise, and these plant-mediated ecosystem services will be augmented by periodic sediment pulses from storms and restoration efforts.

Plants↗

USGS2013

Coral reef resilience through biodiversity

Irrefutable evidence of coral reef degradation worldwide and increasing pressure from rising seawater temperatures and ocean acidification associated with climate change have led to a focus on reef resilience and a call to “manage” coral reefs for resilience. Ideally, global action to reduce emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases will be accompanied by local action. Effective management requires reduction of local stressors, identification of the characteristics of resilient reefs, and design of marine protected area networks that include potentially resilient reefs. Future research is needed on how stressors interact, on how climate change will affect corals, fish, and other reef organisms as well as overall biodiversity, and on basic ecological processes such as connectivity. Not all reef species and reefs will respond similarly to local and global stressors. Because reef-building corals and other organisms have some potential to adapt to environmental changes, coral reefs will likely persist in spite of the unprecedented combination of stressors currently affecting them. The biodiversity of coral reefs is the basis for their remarkable beauty and for the benefits they provide to society. The extraordinary complexity of these ecosystems makes it both more difficult to predict their future and more likely they will have a future.

ISRN Oceanography↗

USGS2018

Drought and fire in the western USA: Is climate attribution enough?

Purpose of Review I sought to review the contributions of recent literature and prior foundational papers to our understanding of drought and fire. In this review, I summarize recent literature on drought and fire in the western USA and discuss research directions that may increase the utility of that body of work for twenty-first century application. I then describe gaps in the synthetic knowledge of drought-driven fire in managed ecosystems and use concepts from use-inspired research to describe potentially useful extensions of current work. Recent Findings Fire responses to climate, and specifically various kinds of drought, are clear, but vary widely with fuel responses to surplus water and drought at different timescales. Ecological and physical factors interact with human management and ignitions to create fire regime and landscape trajectories that challenge prediction. Summary The mechanisms by which the climate system affects regional droughts and how they translate to fire in the western USA need more attention to accelerate both forecasting and adaptation. However, projections of future fire activity under climate change will require integrated advances on both fronts to achieve decision-relevant modeling. Concepts from transdisciplinary research and coupled human-natural systems can help frame strategic work to address fire in a changing world.

Current Climate Change Reports↗

USGS2019

Intermountain west drought social science synthesis working group: Report to the National Climate Adaptation Science Center

Throughout the Intermountain West, there has been significant investment in understanding how social factors influence manager and citizen experiences of drought in particular locations. Yet there is still a gap in knowledge of how human dimensions of drought impacts, planning, and resilience are similar and different across cases and regions. Building on the natural science understanding developed by the USGS’ various ecological drought projects as well as a range of other place-based social science case studies of drought and its impacts, this project explored human dimensions of ecological drought across the intermountain west from a comparative, regional perspective. The Working Group brought together agency and university experts in the field of drought social science, including researchers affiliated with the North Central and South Central Climate Adaptation Science Centers (USGS), Western Water Assessment (a NOAA RISA program), the Northern Plains Climate Hub (USDA), and the USGS-supported SNAPP Ecological Drought Working Group. The group held three virtual meeting during Spring 2018 in preparation for an extended in-person workshop in June 2018 in Fort Collins, CO, followed by monthly calls to finalize products. The group’s objectives were to (1) integrate insights from existing social science studies of drought to identify commonalities and trends that generalize across cases while simultaneously accounting for the complexity experienced in particular places by individual decision makers, (2) develop a common lexicon and analytic framework for understanding drought across the Intermountain West from a social-ecological systems perspective, (3) identify emergent research themes, questions, and needs, (4) consider strategies for social scientists to contribute to drought management, (5) facilitate coordination among federal and university researchers for future collaborative activities, and (6) develop a typology of drought decision making that captured group insights. Project outputs included two conference sessions, a typology manuscript to be submitted by the end of FY19, and the conceptual framing of a rapid assessment methodology that was subsequently developed into a standalone project.

Cooperator Report↗

USGS2009

Effects of hydrologic infrastructure on flow regimes of California's Central Valley rivers: Implications for fish populations

Alteration of natural flow regimes is generally acknowledged to have negative effects on native biota; however, methods for defining ecologically appropriate flow regimes in managed river systems are only beginning to be developed. Understanding how past and present water management has affected rivers is an important part of developing such tools. In this paper, we evaluate how existing hydrologic infrastructure and management affect streamflow characteristics of rivers in the Central Valley, California and discuss those characteristics in the context of habitat requirements of native and alien fishes. We evaluated the effects of water management by comparing observed discharges with estimated discharges assuming no water management ("full natural runoff"). Rivers in the Sacramento River drainage were characterized by reduced winter–spring discharges and augmented discharges in other months. Rivers in the San Joaquin River drainage were characterized by reduced discharges in all months but particularly in winter and spring. Two largely unaltered streams had hydrographs similar to those based on full natural runoff of the regulated rivers. The reduced discharges in the San Joaquin River drainage streams are favourable for spawning of many alien species, which is consistent with observed patterns of fish distribution and abundance in the Central Valley. However, other factors, such as water temperature, are also important to the relative success of native and alien resident fishes. As water management changes in response to climate change and societal demands, interdisciplinary programs of research and monitoring will be essential for anticipating effects on fishes and to avoid unanticipated ecological outcomes.

California↗

USGS2019

Mapping irrigated cropland extent across the conterminous United States at 30 m resolution using a semi-automatic training approach on Google Earth Engine

Accurate and timely information on the distribution of irrigated croplands is crucial to research on agriculture, water availability, land use, and climate change. While agricultural land use has been well characterized, less attention has been paid specifically to croplands that are irrigated, in part due to the difficulty in mapping and distinguishing irrigation in satellite imagery. In this study, we developed a semi-automatic training approach to rapidly map irrigated croplands across the conterminous United States (CONUS) at 30 m resolution using Google Earth Engine. To resolve the issue of lacking nationwide training data, we generated two intermediate irrigation maps by segmenting Landsat-derived annual maximum greenness and enhanced vegetation index using county-level thresholds calibrated from an existing coarse resolution irrigation map. The resulting intermediate maps were then spatially filtered to provide a training data pool for most areas except for the upper midwestern states where we visually collected samples. We then used random samples extracted from the training pool along with remote sensing-derived features and climate variables to train ecoregion-stratified random forest classifiers for pixel-level classification. For ecoregions with a large training pool, the procedure of sample extraction, classifier training, and classification was conducted 10 times to obtain stable classification results. The resulting 2012 Landsat-based irrigation dataset (LANID) identified 23.3 million hectares of irrigated croplands in CONUS. A quantitative assessment of LANID showed superior accuracy to currently available maps, with a mean Kappa value of 0.88 (0.75–0.99), overall accuracy of 94% (87.5–99%), and producer’s and user’s accuracy of the irrigation class of 97.3% and 90.5%, respectively, at the aquifer level. Evaluation of feature importance indicated that Landsat-derived features played the primary role in classification in relatively arid regions while climate variables were important in the more humid eastern states. This methodology has the potential to produce annual irrigation maps for CONUS and provide insights into the field-level spatial and temporal aspects of irrigation.

conterminous United States↗

USGS2026

Comparative assessment of STIC sensors, streamflow and rain gauges for quantifying river connectivity in intermittent systems

In intermittent stream systems, including those occurring in Texas, USA, the severity of low-flow conditions, duration of seasonal disconnection, and frequency of no-flow events have been amplified by drought. Documentation of these no-flow events is necessary to evaluate ecosystem health. However, many intermittent reaches remain un-gauged given that perennial river sec-tions are often prioritized for gauge placement. Our objectives were to 1) document stream flow using Stream Temperature, Intermittency, and Conductivity (STIC) loggers to determine the frequency and duration of no-flow events in intermittent tributaries of the Colorado River, Texas and 2) compare logger data to publicly available data from streamflow discharge and precipitation gauge networks to understand differences among these data types for drying event characterization. We use these comparisons to summarize benefits and limitations of the application of in-stream data loggers. STIC loggers were deployed at 19 sites, one in each pool and riffle habitat of a stream reach. STIC loggers recorded a measurement of relative conductance every six hours from June 2022 to March 2024, which was used to determine the presence or absence of flow connectivity in a reach. No-flow duration among intermittent reaches varied between 37 and 270 days across tributaries during an ongoing drought in the study area. Overall, logger data was more precise than discharge data for characterizing no-flow events or precipitation data when documenting presence of water in the stream channel due to runoff. Lack of discharge gauges in intermittent tributaries left large sections of stream reaches undocumented and resulted in mischaracterization of flow patterns. Drought severity across the tributaries did not follow longitudinal patterns that would be expected by the climatic precipitation gradient of the study area. More research is needed to determine if factors such as population size affect severity. Likewise, precipitation data did not correlate well with logger water presence data, lacking consideration for groundwater recharge, soil hydrophobicity, and surface compaction. This study shows that to monitor no-flow events, detailed spatial datasets are necessary and that STIC loggers are useful tools that provide data to fill spatial information gaps and facilitate more accurate flow characterization and water presence data in intermittent systems.

Texas↗

USGS2013

Empirical estimates to reduce modeling uncertainties of soil organic carbon in permafrost regions: a review of recent progress and remaining challenges

The vast amount of organic carbon (OC) stored in soils of the northern circumpolar permafrost region is a potentially vulnerable component of the global carbon cycle. However, estimates of the quantity, decomposability, and combustibility of OC contained in permafrost-region soils remain highly uncertain, thereby limiting our ability to predict the release of greenhouse gases due to permafrost thawing. Substantial differences exist between empirical and modeling estimates of the quantity and distribution of permafrost-region soil OC, which contribute to large uncertainties in predictions of carbon–climate feedbacks under future warming. Here, we identify research challenges that constrain current assessments of the distribution and potential decomposability of soil OC stocks in the northern permafrost region and suggest priorities for future empirical and modeling studies to address these challenges.

Environmental Research Letters↗

USGS2025

A new groundwater energy transport model for the MODFLOW hydrologic simulator

Heat transport in the subsurface is an important aspect of research related to the effects of a warming climate on ecological services (i.e., cold-water refugia); the development of geothermal resources for energy banking schemes (i.e., aquifer thermal energy storage [ATES]); and the effects of temperature on other aspects of groundwater quality, such as nutrient cycling. Historically, simulation of heat transport using the MODFLOW groundwater simulator and related codes was performed by scaling the input parameters of a solute-transport model to emulate heat transport. However, that approach required additional pre- and post-processing of input and output and could not account for the variation in effective thermal storage and transport properties during transient, unsaturated flow, for example. True heat-transport capabilities in the context of MODFLOW were first introduced in a variant called USG-Transport. More recently, a new groundwater energy-transport (GWE) model type has been added to MODFLOW 6, the core version of the MODFLOW hydrologic simulator. GWE supports the simulation of heat transport on structured or unstructured grids as well as within and between features of advanced packages that represent streams, lakes, multi-aquifer wells, and the unsaturated zone. GWE is integrated within MODFLOW 6 and is accessible through the FloPy Python package and the MODFLOW 6 application programming interface (API). An example simulation demonstrates conduction between grid cells through both the water and the solid aquifer material, including thermal bleeding from saturated overburden cells into a groundwater flow field.

Groundwater↗

USGS2015

Validation of meter-scale surface faulting offset measurements from high-resolution topographic data

Studies of active fault zones have flourished with the availability of high-resolution topographic data, particularly where airborne light detection and ranging (lidar) and structure from motion (SfM) data sets provide a means to remotely analyze submeter-scale fault geomorphology. To determine surface offset at a point along a strike-slip earthquake rupture, geomorphic features (e.g., stream channels) are measured days to centuries after the event. Analysis of these and cumulatively offset features produces offset distributions for successive earthquakes that are used to understand earthquake rupture behavior. As researchers expand studies to more varied terrain types, climates, and vegetation regimes, there is an increasing need to standardize and uniformly validate measurements of tectonically displaced geomorphic features. A recently compiled catalog of nearly 5000 earthquake offsets across a range of measurement and reporting styles provides insight into quality rating and uncertainty trends from which we formulate best-practice and reporting recommendations for remote studies. In addition, a series of public and beginner-level studies validate the remote methodology for a number of tools and emphasize considerations to enhance measurement accuracy and precision for beginners and professionals. Our investigation revealed that (1) standardizing remote measurement methods and reporting quality rating schemes is essential for the utility and repeatability of fault-offset measurements; (2) measurement discrepancies often involve misinterpretation of the offset geomorphic feature and are a function of the investigator’s experience; (3) comparison of measurements made by a single investigator in different climatic regions reveals systematic differences in measurement uncertainties attributable to variation in feature preservation; (4) measuring more components of a displaced geomorphic landform produces more consistently repeatable estimates of offset; and (5) inadequate understanding of pre-event morphology and post-event modifications represents a greater epistemic limitation than the aleatoric limitations of the measurement process.

Geosphere↗

USGS2020

Changes to Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity Program’s production procedures and data products

The Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) program has been providing the fire science community with large fire perimeter and burn severity data for the past 14 years. As of October 2019, 22 969 fires have been mapped by the MTBS program and are available on the MTBS website ( https://www.mtbs.gov ). These data have been widely used by researchers to examine a variety of fire and climate science topics. However, MTBS has undergone significant changes to its fire mapping methodology, the remotely sensed imagery used to map fires, and the subsequent fire occurrence, burned boundary, and severity databases. To gather a better understanding of these changes and the potential impacts that they may have on the user community, we examined the changes to the MTBS burn mapping protocols and whether remapped burned area boundary and severity products differ significantly from the original MTBS products.

Fire Ecology↗

USGS2021

Demography of the Appalachian Spotted Skunk (Spilogale putorius putorius)

Spilogale putorius (Eastern Spotted Skunk) is a small, secretive carnivore that has substantially declined throughout the eastern United States since the mid-1900s. To better understand the current status of Eastern Spotted Skunks, we studied survival and reproduction of the S. p. putorius (Appalachian Spotted Skunk) subspecies across 4 states in the central and southern Appalachian Mountains from 2014 to 2020. Using encounter histories from 99 radio-collared Appalachian Spotted Skunks in a Kaplan–Meier known-fate survival analysis, we calculated a mean annual adult survival rate of 0.58. We did not find support for this survival rate varying by sex, predator cover (canopy cover and topographic ruggedness), or climate. Compared to estimates of survival from previous research, our data suggest that Appalachian Spotted Skunk survival is intermediate to the S. p. interrupta (Plains Spotted Skunk) and S. p. ambarvalis (Florida Spotted Skunk) subspecies of Eastern Spotted Skunk. We located 11 Appalachian Spotted Skunk natal dens and estimated mean litter size to be 2.8 juveniles per female. We used a Lefkovitch matrix to identify the most important demographic rates and found that adult survivorship had the largest impact on the population growth rate. These results provide important demographic information for future Eastern Spotted Skunk population viability analyses and can serve as a baseline for future comparative assessments of the effects of management interventions on the species.

Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia↗

USGS2015

Impacts of weather on long-term patterns of plant richness and diversity vary with location and management

Better understanding the influence of precipitation and temperature on plant assemblages is needed to predict the effects of climate change. Many studies have examined the relationship between plant productivity and weather (primarily precipitation), but few have directly assessed the relationship between plant richness or diversity and weather despite their increased use as metrics of ecosystem condition. We focus on the grasslands of central North America, which are characterized by high temporal climatic variability. Over the next 100 years, these grasslands are predicted to experience further increased variability in growing season precipitation, as well as increased temperatures, due to global climate change. We assess 1) the portion of interannual variability of richness and diversity explained by weather, 2) how relationships between these metrics and weather vary among plant assemblages, and 3) which aspects of weather best explain temporal variability. We used an information-theoretic approach to assess relationships between long-term plant richness and diversity patterns and a priori weather covariates using six datasets from four grasslands. Weather explained up to 49% and 63% of interannual variability in total plant species richness and diversity, respectively. However, richness and diversity responses to specific weather variables varied both among sites and among experimental treatments within sites. In general, we found many instances in which temperature was of equal or greater importance as precipitation, as well as evidence of the importance of lagged effects and precipitation or temperature variability. Although precipitation has been shown to be a key driver of productivity in grasslands, our results indicate that increasing temperatures alone, without substantial changes in precipitation patterns, could have measurable effects on Great Plains grassland plant assemblages and biodiversity metrics. Our results also suggest that richness and diversity will respond in unique ways to changing climate and management can affect these responses; additional research and monitoring will be essential for further understanding of these complex relationships. Read More: http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/14-1989.1

Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota↗

USGS2022

U.S. Geological Survey science strategy for Arctic Alaska, fiscal years 2022–24

Introduction The United States is an Arctic nation because of Alaska and thus maintains tremendous interests and stewardship responsibilities in the region, especially as the region undergoes substantial environmental transformation. This Arctic Science Strategy is intended to support those interests and responsibilities by expressing the core values, mission, vision, and the broad research goals and priority objectives of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for science coordination in Arctic Alaska. It synthesizes strategic planning activities across the USGS in the Arctic over the next 3-year planning horizon, identifies some major networks of collaboration, and aligns with current research priorities of the Department of the Interior Climate Action Plan, released October 7, 2021 (U.S. Department of the Interior, 2021). Also, in recognition of the rapid pace of Arctic environmental changes and the corresponding need to move with urgency beyond routine patterns of operation, this strategy extends an implementation challenge to staff and colleagues in hopes of reaching for breakthrough results in some target areas of performance.

Alaska↗