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At least 433 records · Page 24Linked to original sources

USGS2025

Catalyzing change: A literature review on the implementation of the Nature Futures Framework

The Nature Futures Framework (NFF), developed under the Intergovernmental Science–Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), serves as a catalyst for advancing new scenarios and models focused on biodiversity and ecosystem services within the broader research community. In particular, the framework facilitates the development of scenarios and models that can help guide change processes toward desirable futures for nature and people. This paper assesses 31 studies that have engaged with the NFF since its introduction in 2020, aiming to identify which research areas have been addressed, and where development needs remain. The applications exhibit a large diversity in terms of locations, spatial scales, methods, outputs, and stakeholder involvement. The most common use of the framework has been in developing visions and scenarios. Nearly all studies engaged with diverse values of nature through the framework’s fundamental value perspectives: ‘Nature for Society’, ‘Nature for Nature’, and ‘Nature as Culture/One with Nature’. While the framework is generally perceived as useful, challenges remain in integrating the NFF across multiple scales and fully incorporating plural values, particularly in measuring relational aspects and avoiding Western-centric biases. Future research priorities include developing integrated, quantitative studies and exploring transformative pathways to enhance the framework's effectiveness in driving sustainable outcomes. Overall, the growing body of work using the NFF provides a strong foundation for distilling best practices, facilitating large-scale applications, and achieving the framework's objectives.

Sustainability Science↗

USGS2001

River flow mass exponents with fractal channel networks and rainfall

An important problem in hydrologic science is understanding how river flow is influenced by rainfall properties and drainage basin characteristics. In this paper we consider one approach, the use of mass exponents, in examining the relation of river flow to rainfall and the channel network, which provides the primary conduit for transport of water to the outlet in a large basin. Mass exponents, which characterize the power-law behavior of moments as a function of scale, are ideally suited for defining scaling behavior of processes that exhibit a high degree of variability or intermittency. The main result in this paper is an expression relating the mass exponent of flow resulting from an instantaneous burst of rainfall to the mass exponents of spatial rainfall and that of the network width function. Spatial rainfall is modeled as a random multiplicative cascade and the channel network as a recursive replacement tree; these fractal models reproduce certain types of self-similar behavior seen in actual rainfall and networks. It is shown that under these modeling assumptions the scaling behavior of flow mirrors that of rainfall if rainfall is highly variable in space, and on the other hand flow mirrors the structure of the network if rainfall is not so highly variable. ?? 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Advances in Water Resources↗

USGS2008

Topographic mapping

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) produced its first topographic map in 1879, the same year it was established. Today, more than 100 years and millions of map copies later, topographic mapping is still a central activity for the USGS. The topographic map remains an indispensable tool for government, science, industry, and leisure. Much has changed since early topographers traveled the unsettled West and carefully plotted the first USGS maps by hand. Advances in survey techniques, instrumentation, and design and printing technologies, as well as the use of aerial photography and satellite data, have dramatically improved mapping coverage, accuracy, and efficiency. Yet cartography, the art and science of mapping, may never before have undergone change more profound than today.

General Information Product↗

USGS2006

Science deficiency in conservation practice: the monitoring of tiger populations in India

Conservation practices are supposed to get refined by advancing scientific knowledge. We study this phenomenon in the context of monitoring tiger populations in India, by evaluating the 'pugmark census method' employed by wildlife managers for three decades. We use an analytical framework of modem animal population sampling to test the efficacy of the pugmark censuses using scientific data on tigers and our field observations. We identify three critical goals for monitoring tiger populations, in order of increasing sophistication: (1) distribution mapping, (2) tracking relative abundance, (3) estimation of absolute abundance. We demonstrate that the present census-based paradigm does not work because it ignores the first two simpler goals, and targets, but fails to achieve, the most difficult third goal. We point out the utility and ready availability of alternative monitoring paradigms that deal with the central problems of spatial sampling and observability. We propose an alternative sampling-based approach that can be tailored to meet practical needs of tiger monitoring at different levels of refinement.

Animal Conservation↗

USGS2022

Integrating climate-informed planning into State Wildlife Action Plans in the north central United States

State fish and wildlife agencies are required to submit a State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP) every 10 years to be eligible for grants through the State Wildlife Grant Program. With the next round of revisions due in 2025, the U.S. Geological Survey North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center is evaluating how to best support states with further integrating climate-informed planning in their SWAPs. Here, we summarize how states in the North Central region, which includes Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming, addressed adaptation planning in their 2015 SWAPs. We review climate adaptation considerations in required SWAP elements one through five, including species, habitats, threats, conservation actions, and conservation monitoring, respectively. We also include a list of potential strategies that the North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center could use to support states in the North Central region with further advancing the integration of climate informed planning in ongoing and future SWAP revisions. These strategies were primarily identified during meetings in 2021 with six of seven state fish and wildlife agencies in the North Central region where we discussed their priority needs relating to climate-informed planning. Our hope is that these strategies will enhance existing efforts in the region to advance the integration of climate change in conservation planning.

Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota,↗

USGS2024

U.S. Geological Survey data strategy 2023–33

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has long recognized the strategic importance and value of well-managed data assets as an integral component of scientific integrity and foundational to the advancement of scientific research, decision making, and public safety. The USGS investment in the science lifecycle, including collection of unbiased data assets, interpretation, peer review, interpretive publications, and data release, ultimately contributes to the transparency and availability of science. Foundational Government directives and laws, such as the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 (Public Law 115–435, 132 Stat. 5529) as well as Executive Order 13642, “Making Open and Machine Readable the New Default for Government Information,” provide a framework for addressing strategic data management. The USGS Data Strategy builds on that framework by outlining high-level goals and objectives that serve as a long-term, decadal guide toward achieving a broad, data-focused vision. Benefits of the USGS Data Strategy are many. The USGS will contribute to open science by increasing efficiencies in the consistent management of valuable data assets; driving innovation that results in modernized capabilities to ensure data are analysis ready; increasing data skills across the Bureau to enhance workforce data literacy; broadening capacity to understand and address needs of stakeholders; and measuring progress in producing findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) data products. The major goals and objectives of the USGS Data Strategy promote maximizing the utility of USGS data based on stakeholder needs, promoting data innovation, coordinating common data practices, modernizing our USGS enterprise data architecture, and enhancing our data-centric culture. The goals and objectives in the strategy align with other Bureau strategic plans, guidance, and directives from the Department of the Interior and the Federal Government. This strategy is a key component to strengthen the Bureau’s data ecosystem to ensure a relevant, long-term capacity that supports internal needs and achieves its scientific mission in the most efficient and effective manner.

Circular↗

USGS2010

Paleoclimates: Understanding climate change past and present

The field of paleoclimatology relies on physical, chemical, and biological proxies of past climate changes that have been preserved in natural archives such as glacial ice, tree rings, sediments, corals, and speleothems. Paleoclimate archives obtained through field investigations, ocean sediment coring expeditions, ice sheet coring programs, and other projects allow scientists to reconstruct climate change over much of earth's history. When combined with computer model simulations, paleoclimatic reconstructions are used to test hypotheses about the causes of climatic change, such as greenhouse gases, solar variability, earth's orbital variations, and hydrological, oceanic, and tectonic processes. This book is a comprehensive, state-of-the art synthesis of paleoclimate research covering all geological timescales, emphasizing topics that shed light on modern trends in the earth's climate. Thomas M. Cronin discusses recent discoveries about past periods of global warmth, changes in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, abrupt climate and sea-level change, natural temperature variability, and other topics directly relevant to controversies over the causes and impacts of climate change. This text is geared toward advanced undergraduate and graduate students and researchers in geology, geography, biology, glaciology, oceanography, atmospheric sciences, and climate modeling, fields that contribute to paleoclimatology. This volume can also serve as a reference for those requiring a general background on natural climate variability.

Book↗

USGS2022

Fifty years of Landsat science and impacts

Since 1972, the Landsat program has been continually monitoring the Earth, to now provide 50 years of digital, multispectral, medium spatial resolution observations. Over this time, Landsat data were crucial for many scientific and technical advances. Prior to the Landsat program, detailed, synoptic depictions of the Earth's surface were rare, and the ability to acquire and work with large datasets was limited. The early years of the Landsat program delivered a series of technological breakthroughs, pioneering new methods, and demonstrating the ability and capacity of digital satellite imagery, creating a template for other global Earth observation missions and programs. Innovations driven by the Landsat program have paved the way for subsequent science, application, and policy support activities. The economic and scientific value of the knowledge gained through the Landsat program has been long recognized, and despite periods of funding uncertainty, has resulted in the program's 50 years of continuity, as well as substantive and ongoing improvements to payload and mission performance. Free and open access to Landsat data, enacted in 2008, was unprecedented for medium spatial resolution Earth observation data and substantially increased usage and led to a proliferation of science and application opportunities. Here, we highlight key developments over the past 50 years of the Landsat program that have influenced and changed our scientific understanding of the Earth system. Major scientific and programmatic impacts have been realized in the areas of agricultural crop mapping and water use, climate change drivers and impacts, ecosystems and land cover monitoring, and mapping the changing human footprint. The introduction of Landsat collection processing, coupled with the free and open data policy, facilitated a transition in Landsat data usage away from single images and towards time series analyses over large areas and has fostered the widespread use of science-grade data. The launch of Landsat-9 on September 27, 2021, and the advanced planning of its successor mission, Landsat-Next, underscore the sustained institutional support for the program. Such support and commitment to continuity is recognition of both the historic impact the program, and the future potential to build upon Landsat's remarkable 50-year legacy.

Remote Sensing of Environment↗

USGS2021

Water priorities for the Nation—USGS Integrated Water Science basins

The United States faces growing challenges to its water supply, infrastructure, and aquatic ecosystems because of population growth, climate change, floods, and droughts. To help address these challenges, the U.S. Geological Survey Water Resources Mission Area is integrating recent advances in monitoring, research, and modeling to improve assessments of water availability throughout the United States. A key part of this effort is the intensive study of 10 Integrated Water Science (IWS) basins across the Nation between 2019 and 2028. The goal is to study 10 IWS basins that are representative of large geographic regions across the United States and that encompass a variety of potential threats to the amount and quality of water across the Nation. Lessons learned from these smaller IWS basins (10,000–20,000 square miles in size) about the interactions among climate, human effects, surface water, groundwater, water quality, and water supply and demand will be used to help quantify and forecast water availability in the larger regions and ultimately the Nation.

Fact Sheet↗

USGS1990

Earth sciences and emergency management

As understanding of California's earthquake risk had increased over the past decade, there has been a concurrent expansion of interactions between emergency management professionals and earth scientists. The effort have resulted not from a formal plan-though the U.S National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program has provided much of the support for scientific advances since 1977-but from interactions focused on specific projects. three examples stand out, perhaps suggesting how mutually beneficial exchanges can simultaneously enhance science and public safety.

Earthquakes & Volcanoes (USGS)↗

USGS2005

Ecological science and sustainability for the 21st century

Ecological science has contributed greatly to our understanding of the natural world and the impact of humans on that world. Now, we need to refocus the discipline towards research that ensures a future in which natural systems and the humans they include coexist on a more sustainable planet. Acknowledging that managed ecosystems and intensive exploitation of resources define our future, ecologists must play a greatly expanded role in communicating their research and influencing policy and decisions that affect the environment. To accomplish this, they will have to forge partnerships at scales and in forms they have not traditionally used. These alliances must act within three visionary areas: enhancing the extent to which decisions are ecologically informed; advancing innovative ecological research directed at the sustainability of the planet; and stimulating cultural changes within the science itself, thereby building a forward-looking and international ecology. We recommend: (1) a research initiative to enhance research project development, facilitate large-scale experiments and data collection, and link science to solutions; (2) procedures that will improve interactions among researchers, managers, and decision makers; and (3) efforts to build public understanding of the links between ecosystem services and humans.

Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment↗

USGS2018

Anticipatory natural resource science and management for a changing future

Prolonged shifts in long‐term average climate conditions and increasing variability in short‐term weather conditions affect ecological processes, and represent a fundamental challenge for natural resource management. Recent and forthcoming advances in climate predictability may offer novel opportunities, but capitalizing on these opportunities will require focusing scientific research on understanding the links between climate and ecological responses over multiple timescales, fostering programmatic links among science and management agencies, and developing new and flexible decision‐making frameworks. Anticipating short‐ to near‐term climate conditions can help managers mitigate land degradation driven by unfavorable conditions and promote actions that make the most of favorable conditions. Similarly, anticipating long‐term, multidecadal climate trajectories can help managers to identify those species and communities that are most likely to remain viable throughout the 21st century. A focus on “anticipatory science and management” could substantially bolster natural resource planning and management but will require long‐term investment and widespread adoption.

Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment↗

USGS2016

Smokey comes of age: Unmanned aerial systems for fire management

During the past century, fire management has focused on techniques both to protect human communities from catastrophic wildfire and to maintain fire-dependent ecological systems. However, despite a large and increasing allocation of resources and personnel to achieve these goals, fire management objectives at regional to global scales are not being met. Current fire management techniques are clearly inadequate for the challenges faced by fire managers, and technological innovations are needed. Advances in unmanned aerial systems (UAS) technology provide opportunities for innovation in fire management and science. In many countries, fire management organizations are beginning to explore the potential of UAS for monitoring fires. We have taken the next step and developed a prototype that can precisely ignite fires as part of wildfire suppression tactics or prescribed fires (fire intentionally ignited within predetermined conditions to reduce hazardous fuels, improve habitat, or mitigate for large wildfires). We discuss the potential for these technologies to benefit fire management activities, while acknowledging the sizeable sociopolitical barriers that prevent their immediate broad application.

Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment↗

USGS2026

Decision-centered systems for the future of wildlife conservation

The future of wildlife conservation will be determined by how well we decide, not simply by how much we know. Advances in quantitative ecology, sensor networks, and artificial intelligence have enhanced the field's ability to estimate population states and predict ecological dynamics. Yet, these technological and analytical advancements have not translated into proportional improvements in wildlife conservation decision making. The prevailing science-centered paradigm, which prioritizes research production as the primary route to better management, was appropriate when limited ecological understanding was the primary constraint on decision making. Today, wildlife conservation challenges are more often restricted by inadequate decision-making processes rather than by insufficient information. This paper defines a decision-centered system as an institutional and organizational arrangement in which the generation, integration, and application of scientific knowledge are explicitly structured around the decisions required for wildlife conservation. Decision systems evaluate success not only through scientific rigor, but through the quality of decision-making processes and outcomes they support. Artificial intelligence (AI) is likely to deepen this mismatch by rapidly expanding analytical capacity while leaving the underlying challenges of decision making unresolved. As AI data synthesis, modeling, and estimation become increasingly automated, the comparative advantage of conservation professionals is likely to shift toward tasks requiring human judgment (e.g., eliciting stakeholder values, weighting competing management objectives). The conceptual basis for this shift already exists in structured decision making, adaptive management, and similar frameworks. The remaining barriers to implementation are both institutional and organizational. The rules, norms, and incentive structures governing what counts as good conservation work, including what gets funded, published, and rewarded, will benefit from shifting alongside the agencies, universities, and professional societies that train and employ wildlife professionals. Conditions for this transition include redesigning incentives, training, and governance so that organizations are prepared not only to generate knowledge, but to consistently translate it into effective action.

The Wildlife Society Bulletin↗

USGS2011

Lake carbonate-δ 18 records from the Yukon Territory, Canada: Little Ice Age moisture variability and patterns

A 1000-yr history of climate change in the central Yukon Territory, Canada, is inferred from sediment composition and isotope geochemistry from small, groundwater fed, Seven Mile Lake. Recent observations of lake-water δ 18 O, lake level, river discharge, and climate variations, suggest that changes in regional effective moisture (precipitation minus evaporation) are reflected by the lake’s hydrologic balance. The observations indicate that the lake is currently 18 O-enriched by summer evaporation and that during years of increased precipitation, when groundwater inflow rates to the lake increase, lake-water δ 18 O values decrease. Past lake-water δ 18 O values are inferred from oxygen isotope ratios of fine-grained sedimentary endogenic carbonate. Variations in carbonate δ 18 O, supplemented by those in carbonate and organic δ 13 C, C/N ratios, and organic carbon, carbonate and biogenic silica accumulation rates, document changes in effective moisture at decadal time scales during the early Little Ice Age period to present. Results indicate that between &sim;AD 1000 and 1600, effective moisture was higher than today. A shift to more arid climate conditions occurred after &sim;AD 1650. The 19th and 20th centuries have been the driest of the past millennium. Temporal variations correspond with inferred shifts in summer evaporation from Marcella Lake δ 18 O, a similarly small, stratified, alkaline lake located &sim;250 km to the southwest, suggesting that the combined reconstructions accurately document the regional paleoclimate of the east-central interior. Comparison with regional glacial activity suggests differing regional moisture patterns during early and late Little Ice Age advances.

Yukon Territory↗

USGS2002

Development and evaluation of a local grid refinement method for block-centered finite-difference groundwater models using shared nodes

A new method of local grid refinement for two-dimensional block-centered finite-difference meshes is presented in the context of steady-state groundwater-flow modeling. The method uses an iteration-based feedback with shared nodes to couple two separate grids. The new method is evaluated by comparison with results using a uniform fine mesh, a variably spaced mesh, and a traditional method of local grid refinement without a feedback. Results indicate: (1) The new method exhibits quadratic convergence for homogeneous systems and convergence equivalent to uniform-grid refinement for heterogeneous systems. (2) Coupling the coarse grid with the refined grid in a numerically rigorous way allowed for improvement in the coarse-grid results. (3) For heterogeneous systems, commonly used linear interpolation of heads from the large model onto the boundary of the refined model produced heads that are inconsistent with the physics of the flow field. (4) The traditional method works well in situations where the better resolution of the locally refined grid has little influence on the overall flow-system dynamics, but if this is not true, lack of a feedback mechanism produced errors in head up to 3.6% and errors in cell-to-cell flows up to 25%. ?? 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Advances in Water Resources↗

USGS1994

Stress triggering of the 1994 M = 6.7 Northridge, California, earthquake by its predecessors

A model of stress transfer implies that earthquakes in 1933 and 1952 increased the Coulomb stress toward failure at the site of the 1971 San Fernando earthquake. The 1971 earthquake in turn raised stress and produced aftershocks at the site of the 1987 Whittier Narrows and 1994 Northridge ruptures. The Northridge main shock raised stress in areas where its aftershocks and surface faulting occurred. Together, the earthquakes with moment magnitude M ≥ 6 near Los Angeles since 1933 have stressed parts of the Oak Ridge, Sierra Madre, Santa Monica Mountains, Elysian Park, and Newport-Inglewood faults by more than 1 bar. Although too small to cause earthquakes, these stress changes can trigger events if the crust is already near failure or advance future earthquake occurrence if it is not.

California↗

USGS2011

Proceedings of the Fourth Interagency Conference on Research in the Watersheds—Observing, Studying, and Managing for Change

These proceedings contain the abstracts, manuscripts, and posters of presentations given at the Fourth Interagency Conference on Research in the Watersheds—Observing, Studying, and Managing for Change, held at the Westmark Hotel in Fairbanks, Alaska, September 26–30, 2011. The conference was jointly hosted by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service. Watersheds face resource impacts driven by accelerated change related to land use, population, and climate. About every three years a conference is held to bring together watershed researchers, observers, and managers to share scientific advances and management strategies. This year, the Fourth ICRW took a wider perspective on watershed science and examined some pressing issues of watershed science and management in our largest and perhaps most vulnerable state, Alaska. The purpose of the conference was to better understand the processes driving change and help managers incorporate societal needs and scientific uncertainty in the management of natural resources. The conference echoed similar themes to the last, highlighting the challenges of managing watersheds based on available science when considerably uncertainty remains regarding the hypothesized relationships between observed environmental changes and their ultimate effects. For example, while the scientific case for anthropogenic climate change has been well presented, confirming possible cause and effect relationships between climatic change and physical and ecological impacts in highly variable, natural systems continues to represent a scientific challenge. This goal becomes even more difficult when superimposed upon a long history of natural resource and land management practices that have fundamentally changed the physical, chemical and biological processes important in maintaining naturally functioning ecosystems. Designing and implementing studies to better understand watersheds and clearly communicating the findings to decisionmakers will be the primary challenge for natural resource scientists and managers into the foreseeable future.

Scientific Investigations Report↗