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At least 1,135 records · Page 63Linked to original sources
USGS2004

Modeling interpopulation dispersal by banner-tailed kangaroo rats

Many metapopulation models assume rules of population connectivity that are implicitly based on what we know about within-population dispersal, but especially for vertebrates, few data exist to assess whether interpopulation dispersal is just within-population dispersal "scaled up." We extended existing multi-stratum mark-release-recapture models to incorporate the robust design, allowing us to compare patterns of within- and between-population movement in the banner-tailed kangaroo rat ( Dipodomys spectabilis ). Movement was rare among eight populations separated by only a few hundred meters: seven years of twice-annual sampling captured >1200 individuals but only 26 interpopulation dispersers. We developed a program that implemented models with parameters for capture, survival, and interpopulation movement probability and that evaluated competing hypotheses in a model selection framework. We evaluated variants of the island, stepping-stone, and isolation-by-distance models of interpopulation movement, incorporating effects of age, season, and habitat (short or tall grass). For both sexes, QAICc values clearly favored isolation-by-distance models, or models combining the effects of isolation by distance and habitat. Models with probability of dispersal expressed as linear-logistic functions of distance and as negative exponentials of distance fit the data equally well. Interpopulation movement probabilities were similar among sexes (perhaps slightly biased toward females), greater for juveniles than adults (especially for females), and greater before than during the breeding season (especially for females). These patterns resemble those previously described for within-population dispersal in this species, which we interpret as indicating that the same processes initiate both within- and between-population dispersal.

Ecology↗
USGS2004

Fort Collins Science Center: Ecosystem Dynamics

Many challenging natural resource management issues require consideration of a web of interactions among ecosystem components. The spatial and temporal complexity of these ecosystem problems demands an interdisciplinary approach integrating biotic and abiotic processes. The goals of the Ecosystem Dynamics Branch are to provide sound science to aid federal resource managers and use long-term, place-focused research and monitoring on federal lands to advance ecosystem science. Current studies fall into five general areas. Herbivore-Ecosystem Interactions examines the efficacy of multiple controls on selected herbivore populations and cascading effects through predator-herbivore-plant-soil linkages. Riparian Ecology is concerned with interactions among streamflow, fluvial geomorphology, and riparian vegetation. Integrated Fire Science focuses on the effects of fire on plant and animal communities at multiple scales, and on the interactions between post-fire plant, runoff, and erosion processes. Reference Ecosystems comprises long-term, place-based studies of ecosystem biogeochemistry. Finally, Integrated Assessments is investigating how to synthesize multiple ecosystem stressors and responses over complex landscapes in ways that are useful for management and planning.

Fact Sheet↗
USGS2016

Hydrologic exchange flows and their ecological consequences in river corridors

The actively flowing waters of streams and rivers remain in close contact with surrounding off-channel and subsurface environments. These hydrologic linkages between relatively fast flowing channel waters, with more slowly flowing waters off-channel and in the subsurface, are collectively referred to as hydrologic exchange flows (HEFs). HEFs include surface exchange with a channel’s marginal areas and subsurface flow through the streambed (hyporheic flow), as well as storm-driven bank storage and overbank flows onto floodplains. HEFs are important, not only for storing water and attenuating flood peaks, but also for their role in influencing water conservation, water quality improvement, and related outcomes for ecological values and services of aquatic ecosystems. Biogeochemical opportunities for chemical transformations are increased by HEFs as a result of the prolonged contact between flowing waters and geochemically and microbially active surfaces of sediments and vegetation. Chemical processing is intensified and water quality is often improved by removal of excess nutrients, metals, and organic contaminants from flowing waters. HEFs also are important regulators of organic matter decomposition, nutrient recycling, and stream metabolism that helps establish a balanced and resilient aquatic food web. The shallow and protected storage zones associated with HEFs support nursery and feeding areas for aquatic organisms that sustain aquatic biological diversity. Understanding of these varied roles for HEFs has been driven by the related disciplines of stream ecology, fluvial geomorphology, surface-water hydraulics, and groundwater hydrology. A current research emphasis is on the role that HEFs play in altered flow regimes, including restoration to achieve diverse goals, such as expanding aquatic habitats and managing dissolved and suspended river loads to reduce over-fertilization of coastal waters and offset wetland loss. New integrative concepts and models are emerging (eg, hydrologic connectivity) that emphasize HEF functions in river corridors over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales.

Book chapter↗
USGS2014

Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) as a model system in community, landscape and ecosystem ecology

Model systems have had a profound influence on the development of ecological theory and general principles. Compared to alternatives, the most effective models share some combination of the following characteristics: simpler, smaller, faster, general, idiosyncratic or manipulable. We argue that biological soil crusts (biocrusts) have unique combinations of these features that should be more widely exploited in community, landscape and ecosystem ecology. In community ecology, biocrusts are elucidating the importance of biodiversity and spatial pattern for maintaining ecosystem multifunctionality due to their manipulability in experiments. Due to idiosyncrasies in their modes of facilitation and competition, biocrusts have led to new models on the interplay between environmental stress and biotic interactions and on the maintenance of biodiversity by competitive processes. Biocrusts are perhaps one of the best examples of micro-landscapes—real landscapes that are small in size. Although they exhibit varying patch heterogeneity, aggregation, connectivity and fragmentation, like macro-landscapes, they are also compatible with well-replicated experiments (unlike macro-landscapes). In ecosystem ecology, a number of studies are imposing small-scale, low cost manipulations of global change or state factors in biocrust micro-landscapes. The versatility of biocrusts to inform such disparate lines of inquiry suggests that they are an especially useful model system that can enable researchers to see ecological principles more clearly and quickly.

Biodiversity and Conservation↗
USGS2022

Counterfactuals to assess effects to species and systems from renewable energy development

Renewable energy production, mostly via wind, solar, and biofuels, is central to goals worldwide to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate anthropogenic climate change (IPCC, 2014; Pörtner et al., 2021). Nevertheless, adverse impacts to natural systems, especially fatalities of wildlife and alteration of habitat, are key challenges for renewable energy production (Allison et al., 2019; Katzner et al., 2019). Because of the magnitude of these challenges, extensive effort has been invested in surveys and science to understand the environmental effects of renewable energy on species and systems. Nevertheless, these impacts have not been formally compared relative to counterfactual conditions (Bull et al., 2021; Coetzee and Gaston, 2021), i.e., those occurring in the absence of renewable energy. As such, cumulative ecological impact assessments required by many regulating agencies typically only consider the adverse impacts of renewables, without evaluating whether mitigative effects of current and planned build-out (e.g., Larson et al., 2020) will offset their adverse impacts to species and natural systems (Allison et al., 2014). Accordingly, these critical decision processes have an insufficient perspective to foster fully informed decisions, and, for some species or systems, renewable energy could lead to more profound impacts than those it is intended to prevent. Furthermore, because of this approach and, despite the well-studied benefits to society of renewable energy development (IPCC, 2014), the ecological value of renewable energy is often premised on the plausible but untested assumption that its negative effects to natural populations and systems are less consequential than the negative effects in alternative scenarios with less renewable energy and greater climate change. A more comprehensive framing of the counterfactual in cumulative ecological impact assessments would evaluate, for each species or system, the incremental effects of renewables over their full life cycle against the incremental effects they provide by mitigating climate change. This framing is important because a given species or system may see net positive or net negative effects from either renewables or climate change. Furthermore, cumulative impact assessments could identify optimized tradeoffs that balance, for each species or system, the effects of both climate change and renewable energy.

Frontiers in Conservation Science↗
USGS2010

Landscape genetics of high mountain frog metapopulations

Explaining functional connectivity among occupied habitats is crucial for understanding metapopulation dynamics and species ecology. Landscape genetics has primarily focused on elucidating how ecological features between observations influence gene flow. Functional connectivity, however, may be the result of both these between‐site (landscape resistance) landscape characteristics and at‐site (patch quality) landscape processes that can be captured using network based models. We test hypotheses of functional connectivity that include both between‐site and at‐site landscape processes in metapopulations of Columbia spotted frogs ( Rana luteiventris ) by employing a novel justification of gravity models for landscape genetics (eight microsatellite loci, 37 sites, n = 441). Primarily used in transportation and economic geography, gravity models are a unique approach as flow (e.g. gene flow) is explained as a function of three basic components: distance between sites, production/attraction (e.g. at‐site landscape process) and resistance (e.g. between‐site landscape process). The study system contains a network of nutrient poor high mountain lakes where we hypothesized a short growing season and complex topography between sites limit R. luteiventris gene flow. In addition, we hypothesized production of offspring is limited by breeding site characteristics such as the introduction of predatory fish and inherent site productivity. We found that R. luteiventris connectivity was negatively correlated with distance between sites, presence of predatory fish (at‐site) and topographic complexity (between‐site). Conversely, site productivity (as measured by heat load index, at‐site) and growing season (as measured by frost‐free period between‐sites) were positively correlated with gene flow. The negative effect of predation and positive effect of site productivity, in concert with bottleneck tests, support the presence of source–sink dynamics. In conclusion, gravity models provide a powerful new modelling approach for examining a wide range of both basic and applied questions in landscape genetics.

Idaho↗
USGS2014

Two approaches for incorporating climate change into natural resource management planning at Wind Cave National Park

Wind Cave National Park (WICA) protects one of the world’s longest caves, has large amounts of high quality, native vegetation, and hosts a genetically important bison herd. The park’s relatively small size and unique purpose within its landscape requires hands-on management of these and other natural resources, all of which are interconnected. Anthropogenic climate change presents an added challenge to WICA natural resource management because it is characterized by large uncertainties, many of which are beyond the control of park and National Park Service (NPS) staff. When uncertainty is high and control of this uncertainty low, scenario planning is an appropriate tool for determining future actions. In 2009, members of the NPS obtained formal training in the use of scenario planning in order to evaluate it as a tool for incorporating climate change into NPS natural resource management planning. WICA served as one of two case studies used in this training exercise. Although participants in the training exercise agreed that the scenario planning process showed promise for its intended purpose, they were concerned that the process lacked the scientific rigor necessary to defend the management implications derived from it in the face of public scrutiny. This report addresses this concern and others by (1) providing a thorough description of the process of the 2009 scenario planning exercise, as well as its results and management implications for WICA; (2) presenting the results of a follow-up, scientific study that quantitatively simulated responses of WICA’s hydrological and ecological systems to specific climate projections; (3) placing these climate projections and the general climate scenarios used in the scenario planning exercise in the broader context of available climate projections; and (4) comparing the natural resource management implications derived from the two approaches. Wind Cave National Park (WICA) protects one of the world’s longest caves, has large amounts of high quality, native vegetation, and hosts a genetically important bison herd. The park’s relatively small size and unique purpose within its landscape requires hands-on management of these and other natural resources, all of which are interconnected. Anthropogenic climate change presents an added challenge to WICA natural resource management because it is characterized by large uncertainties, many of which are beyond the control of park and National Park Service (NPS) staff. When uncertainty is high and control of this uncertainty low, scenario planning is an appropriate tool for determining future actions. In 2009, members of the NPS obtained formal training in the use of scenario planning in order to evaluate it as a tool for incorporating climate change into NPS natural resource management planning. WICA served as one of two case studies used in this training exercise. Although participants in the training exercise agreed that the scenario planning process showed promise for its intended purpose, they were concerned that the process lacked the scientific rigor necessary to defend the management implications derived from it in the face of public scrutiny. This report addresses this concern and others by (1) providing a thorough description of the process of the 2009 scenario planning exercise, as well as its results and management implications for WICA; (2) presenting the results of a follow-up, scientific study that quantitatively simulated responses of WICA’s hydrological and ecological systems to specific climate projections; (3) placing these climate projections and the general climate scenarios used in the scenario planning exercise in the broader context of available climate projections; and (4) comparing the natural resource management implications derived from the two approaches.

Report↗
USGS2019

Grounding simulation models with qualitative case studies: Toward a holistic framework to make climate science usable for US public land management

Policies directing agencies and public land managers to incorporate climate change into management face several barriers. These stem, in part, from a disconnect between the information that is produced and the information needs of local resource managers. A disproportionate focus on the natural and physical sciences in climate vulnerability and adaptation assessment obscure understandings of complex social systems and the interactions and feedbacks in social-ecological systems. We use a qualitative case study of bison management on Department of the Interior-managed and tribal lands to explore how a social-science driven Determinants and Analogue Vulnerability Assessment (DAVA) can inform ecological response models, specifically simulation models that account for multiple drivers of change. First, we illustrate how a DAVA approach can help to: 1) identify key processes, entities, and interactions across scales; 2) document local impacts, indicators, and monitoring efforts of drought and climate; and 3) identify major tradeoffs and uncertainties. We then demonstrate how qualitative narratives can inform simulation models by: 1) prioritizing model components included in modeling efforts; 2) framing joint management and climate scenarios; and 3) parameterizing and evaluating model performance. We do this by presenting a conceptual joint agent-based/state-and-transition simulation modeling framework. Simulation models can represent multiple interacting variables and can identify surprising, emergent outcomes that might not be evident from qualitative analysis alone, and we argue that qualitative case studies can ground simulation models in local contexts and help make them more structurally realistic and useful. Together, these can provide a step toward developing actionable climate change adaptation strategies.

Climate Risk Management↗
USGS2016

Mercury in western North America: A synthesis of environmental contamination, fluxes, bioaccumulation, and risk to fish and wildlife

Western North America is a region defined by extreme gradients in geomorphology and climate, which support a diverse array of ecological communities and natural resources. The region also has extreme gradients in mercury (Hg) contamination due to a broad distribution of inorganic Hg sources. These diverse Hg sources and a varied landscape create a unique and complex mosaic of ecological risk from Hg impairment associated with differential methylmercury (MeHg) production and bioaccumulation. Understanding the landscape-scale variation in the magnitude and relative importance of processes associated with Hg transport, methylation, and MeHg bioaccumulation requires a multidisciplinary synthesis that transcends small-scale variability. The Western North America Mercury Synthesis compiled, analyzed, and interpreted spatial and temporal patterns and drivers of Hg and MeHg in air, soil, vegetation, sediments, fish, and wildlife across western North America. This collaboration evaluated the potential risk from Hg to fish, and wildlife health, human exposure, and examined resource management activities that influenced the risk of Hg contamination. This paper integrates the key information presented across the individual papers that comprise the synthesis. The compiled information indicates that Hg contamination is widespread, but heterogeneous, across western North America. The storage and transport of inorganic Hg across landscape gradients are largely regulated by climate and land-cover factors such as plant productivity and precipitation. Importantly, there was a striking lack of concordance between pools and sources of inorganic Hg, and MeHg in aquatic food webs. Additionally, water management had a widespread influence on MeHg bioaccumulation in aquatic ecosystems, whereas mining impacts where relatively localized. These results highlight the decoupling of inorganic Hg sources with MeHg production and bioaccumulation. Together the findings indicate that developing efforts to control MeHg production in the West may be particularly beneficial for reducing food web exposure instead of efforts to simply control inorganic Hg sources.

Science of the Total Environment↗
USGS2017

A dynamic spatio-temporal model for spatial data

Analyzing spatial data often requires modeling dependencies created by a dynamic spatio-temporal data generating process. In many applications, a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) is used with a random effect to account for spatial dependence and to provide optimal spatial predictions. Location-specific covariates are often included as fixed effects in a GLMM and may be collinear with the spatial random effect, which can negatively affect inference. We propose a dynamic approach to account for spatial dependence that incorporates scientific knowledge of the spatio-temporal data generating process. Our approach relies on a dynamic spatio-temporal model that explicitly incorporates location-specific covariates. We illustrate our approach with a spatially varying ecological diffusion model implemented using a computationally efficient homogenization technique. We apply our model to understand individual-level and location-specific risk factors associated with chronic wasting disease in white-tailed deer from Wisconsin, USA and estimate the location the disease was first introduced. We compare our approach to several existing methods that are commonly used in spatial statistics. Our spatio-temporal approach resulted in a higher predictive accuracy when compared to methods based on optimal spatial prediction, obviated confounding among the spatially indexed covariates and the spatial random effect, and provided additional information that will be important for containing disease outbreaks.

Wisconsin↗
USGS1997

Effect of tributary inflows on the distribution of trace metals in fine- grained bed sediments and benthic insects of the Clark Fork River, Montana

The effect of tributary inflows on metal concentrations in <63-μm sediments and benthic insects was examined on two scales (380 km and <2 km) in a river impacted by mining. A dilution−mixing model effectively described large-scale dispersion of Cd, Cu, and Pb in the sediments of the river. Input of metal from contaminated flood plains may introduce additional contamination in the middle reaches of the river. Intensive sampling around the confluences of two tributaries showed that there were significant, localized decreases in some metal concentrations immediately downstream of the inflows. Sediment metal concentrations 1 km below the inflows returned to values within the range predicted by the dilution−mixing model. Metal concentrations in benthic insects exhibited spatial patterns similar to those of the sediments, indicating that biological exposures to metals are at least partially dependent on the physical processes controlling the dispersion of sediment-bound metals. Tributary inflows introduce variability in metal contamination on different spatial scales that must be considered when assessing ecological risks in contaminated rivers. In addition to large-scale dilution of contaminants, smaller areas of reduced metal exposure occur near tributary inflows. These may shelter metal-sensitive taxa from severe metal contamination in the mainstem.

Environmental Science & Technology↗
USGS2019

Reserve design to optimize functional connectivity and animal density

Ecological distance-based spatial capture–recapture models (SCR) are a promising approach for simultaneously estimating animal density and connectivity, both of which affect spatial population processes and ultimately species persistence. We explored how SCR models can be integrated into reserve-design frameworks that explicitly acknowledge both the spatial distribution of individuals and their space use resulting from landscape structure. We formulated the design of wildlife reserves as a budget-constrained optimization problem and conducted a simulation to explore 3 different SCR-informed optimization objectives that prioritized different conservation goals by maximizing the number of protected individuals, reserve connectivity, and density-weighted connectivity. We also studied the effect on our 3 objectives of enforcing that the space-use requirements of individuals be met by the reserve for individuals to be considered conserved (referred to as home-range constraints). Maximizing local population density resulted in fragmented reserves that would likely not aid long-term population persistence, and maximizing the connectivity objective yielded reserves that protected the fewest individuals. However, maximizing density-weighted connectivity or preemptively imposing home-range constraints on reserve design yielded reserves of largely spatially compact sets of parcels covering high-density areas in the landscape with high functional connectivity between them. Our results quantify the extent to which reserve design is constrained by individual home-range requirements and highlight that accounting for individual space use in the objective and constraints can help in the design of reserves that balance abundance and connectivity in a biologically relevant manner.

Conservation Biology↗
USGS2026

Adaptation and response in drylands: A dryland research agenda and campaign strategy

Dryland ecosystems cover 41% of Earth's land surfaces, account for 44% of cultivated lands and 60% of food sources, and make large contributions to the global water and carbon cycles. However, these ecosystems are experiencing unprecedented extremes including heatwaves, floods, and droughts as well as hotter temperatures and often declining water resource availability. These ecosystems are some of the most challenging to monitor given their high temporal variability with rapid response to their environment as well as vast spatial variability with intermixing of different plant species and life forms amongst bare soil coverage. The Adaptation and Response in Drylands (ARID) campaign was selected by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as a scoping study to develop a research agenda for a dryland field campaign. Here, we detail our ARID science research agenda and implementation plan that were developed based on an extensive community engagement effort in over 160 events with over a thousand scientists, land managers, and Tribal communities between 2023 and 2024. The selected science themes cover drought and climate variability, ecosystem structure, function, and biodiversity, carbon cycle interannual variability and trends, and social ecological systems (land management and adaptation). We then detail our remote sensing, modeling, and field-based strategies to capture high temporal and high spatial resolution processes. Finally, our implementation strategy is presented which includes focus area selections in a core intensive western U.S. domain and distributed international domains. This strategy includes our overarching guiding principles of using multi-temporal airborne acquisitions and super sites as well as enhancing land management in co-development with end-user partners. While originally developed for NASA, our ARID report creates a blueprint for any future dryland field campaign, at any scale, that can be implemented widely for foundational and applied science objectives.

Global Change Biology↗
USGS2021

Vulnerability assessment in and near Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is in western North Dakota and was established in 1978 under the National Wilderness Preservation system to preserve and protect the qualities of the North Dakota Badlands, including the wildlife, scenery, and wilderness. The park is made up of three units (North, Elkhorn Ranch, and South) that are connected by the Little Missouri River, which was identified by the National Park Service as a significant resource essential to fulfilling the park's purpose. The development of oil and gas (OG) resources has expanded in the past two decades in the region surrounding Theodore Roosevelt National Park. This expansion of OG development outside park boundaries increases the potential for adverse environmental and economic effects inside the park boundaries, especially for the hydrologic processes within Theodore Roosevelt National Park. This report assesses the vulnerability of critical components that contribute to supporting plants and wildlife of the Northwestern Great Plains ecological region and Theodore Roosevelt National Park’s mission of preservation. Critical components include land cover, slope, soil saturated hydraulic conductivity, distance to Ovis canadensis (Shaw, 1804) (bighorn sheep) critical habitat, distance to springs, distance to rivers and streams, and distance to surficial aquifers. The study area included all the 12-digit hydrologic units within the watershed boundary dataset that intersect Theodore Roosevelt National Park or are within the 12-digit hydrologic units for Little Missouri River tributaries that flow into the park. Critical components that had existing publicly available geographic data were assessed and assigned vulnerability index values. These values were then summed to develop a vulnerability score and mapped. OG development and associated transportation infrastructure, referred to as “stressors” in this report, with publicly available geographic data were mapped, and then flow paths were generated starting from the stressor locations to assess their likelihood to contaminate vulnerable areas within the study area. The North Unit had the most area with moderate, high, and very high vulnerability. These areas occurred all across the southern and eastern parts of the North Unit where the Little Missouri River, surficial aquifer, wetland type land covers, and bighorn sheep critical habitat are present. Several stressor flow paths from pipelines and highways cross these areas and may pose the most risk to the vulnerable areas identified. In the Elkhorn Ranch Unit, areas with moderate, high, and very high vulnerability were in the southeastern part of the unit, where the Little Missouri River, surficial aquifer, wetland type land covers, and bighorn sheep critical habitat are present. The stressor flow paths in the Elkhorn Ranch Unit follow the length of the Little Missouri River and all its tributaries in the study area. The stressor flow paths originated from crude oil wells and pipelines. In the South Unit, one area had moderate, high, and very high vulnerability. This area is where the Little Missouri River and bighorn sheep critical range are present. The stressor flow paths in the South Unit follow the length of the Little Missouri River and nearly all its tributaries in the study area. Several stressor flow paths cross the one identified vulnerable area that originated from crude oil wells.

North Dakota↗
USGS2009

Effect of agricultural practices on hydrology and water chemistry in a small irrigated catchment, Yakima River Basin, Washington

The role of irrigation and artificial drainage in the hydrologic cycle and the transport of solutes in a small agricultural catchment in central Washington's Yakima Valley were explored using hydrologic, chemical, isotopic, age-dating, and mineralogical data from several environmental compartments, including stream water, ground water, overland flow, and streambed pore water. A conceptual understanding of catchment hydrology and solute transport was developed and an inverse end-member mixing analysis was used to further explore the effects of agriculture in this small catchment. The median concentrations of major solutes and nitrates were similar for the single field site and for the catchment outflow site, indicating that the net effects of transport processes for these constituents were similar at both scales. However, concentrations of nutrients were different at the two sites, suggesting that field-scale variations in agricultural practices as well as nearstream and instream biochemical processes are important components of agricultural chemical transformation and transport in this catchment. This work indicates that irrigation coupled with artificial drainage networks may exacerbate the ecological effects of agricultural runoff by increasing direct connectivity between fields and streams and minimizing potentially mitigating effects (denitrification and dilution, for example) of longer subsurface pathways.

Washington↗
USGS2022

Quality assurance report for Loch Vale Watershed, 2010–19

The Loch Vale Watershed Research and Monitoring Program collects long-term datasets of ecological and biogeochemical parameters in Rocky Mountain National Park to support both (1) management of this protected area and (2) research into watershed-scale ecosystem processes as those processes respond to atmospheric deposition and climate variability. The program collects data on precipitation depth and atmospheric deposition chemistry—as well as surface water biogeochemistry—within the watershed and in other areas of the park. These data are used by resource managers, scientists, policy makers, and students, so it is important that all collected data meet high quality standards. This report presents an evaluation of data quality for precipitation, atmospheric ammonia, and surface water quality samples collected from 2010 to 2019. This report also presents changes made to the monitoring and laboratory equipment used during the study period and describes new data streams added to the project, including atmospheric ammonia, surface water chlorophyll-a, and dissolved oxygen in two lakes: The Loch and Sky Pond. Quality-assurance procedures looked at the accuracy and precision of measurements made over the study period and found that precipitation and surface water chemistry data were 99 percent accurate and precise. Records that failed to meet quality standards were removed from published databases. From 2010 to 2014, a colocated precipitation gauge and deposition collector were installed on site as quality checks. From 2014 to 2018, power loss at the site resulted in significant loss of precipitation data records during the snow seasons. Those problems were addressed by installing new solar-power equipment in 2019. Measurements of deposition chemistry, atmospheric ammonia deposition, and surface water biogeochemistry were all sufficiently complete and consistent to support project data needs.

Colorado↗
USGS2012

Primer for identifying cold-water refuges to protect and restore thermal diversity in riverine landscapes

In 2003, EPA issued Region 10 guidance for Pacific Northwest state and tribal temperature water quality standards. This document was the culmination of a multi-agency, multi-disciplinary effort to develop a temperature standard for the protection of salmon, steelhead, bull trout, and redband and Lahontan cutthroat trout (collectively termed coldwater salmonids). Since its release, the Oregon and Washington have adopted the temperature standard for their waters designated for protection of coldwater salmonids. One of the unique aspects of the temperature standard, which strived to integrate the physical nature of rivers and streams and the biological requirements of coldwater salmonids, is the requirement to protect and restore cold-water refuges. This requirement is incorporated into the temperature criterion for the protection of migration corridors in the Willamette, Columbia, and Snake rivers. The intent of this provision is the recognition that some coldwater salmonids migrate through waters during thermally stressful months of summer and most likely are able to do so by using features in the rivers that provide cold water spatially or temporally. The challenge is to ensure that these features are identified, protected, and restored in order for these waters to meet the temperature standard. This primer is intended to assist Region 10 states, tribes, and local watershed groups in meeting this goal and thereby further the protection and restoration of coldwater salmonids. It provides an up-to-date summary with easily referenced information and illustrations on the scientific advances and management applications of research on cold-water refuges and can be used as a "roadmap" for identifying cold-water refuges and learning more about processes that create thermal diversity in riverine landscapes. The specific objectives are to 1. define cold-water refuge in scientific and management contexts. 2. outline an approach for identifying cold-water refuges to address water quality standards. 3. classify and characterize the types and physical processes that create cold-water refuges. 4. review methods and tools for identifying cold-water refuges in small streams to large rivers. 5. describe ecological perspectives and on-the-ground approaches for protecting and restoring thermal diversity in rivers.

Oregon↗
USGS2024

Annotated bibliography of scientific research relevant to oil and gas reclamation best management practices in the western United States, published from 1969 through 2020

Integrating recent scientific knowledge into management decisions supports effective natural resource management and can lead to better resource outcomes. However, finding and accessing scientific knowledge can be time consuming and costly. To assist in this process, the U.S. Geological Survey has created a series of annotated bibliographies on topics of management concern for lands in the western United States (U.S.). Oil and gas development on public lands is a long-standing and substantial component of local and regional economies and has expanded in recent decades, particularly on public lands in the western U.S. This development is associated with extensive networks of pipelines, roads, and processing facilities, across which reclamation is Federally mandated following initial well pad development (“interim” reclamation) and once resource extraction is complete (“final” reclamation). Reclamation is critical for recovering ecological services to energy-affected lands, including vegetation productivity, wildlife habitat, water and air quality, and soil stability (for example, resistance to wind and water erosion). However, reclamation of oil and gas affected lands in the western U.S. has proved challenging due to an array of regulatory and environmental factors, such as minimally developed soils, short growing seasons, herbivory, high winds, invasive species, rugged terrain, and in particular, arid climates associated with low total precipitation, high evapotranspiration rates, and highly variable precipitation patterns. We compiled and summarized journal articles, government reports, technical reports, proceedings, and theses and dissertations relevant to oil and gas reclamation. We constrained our search to products published on or before December 31, 2020 but did not limit our search by a starting date; the earliest product resulting from this effort was published in March 1969. Second, we manually scanned the last 15 years (2005-2020) of tables of contents in journals, bibliographies, and proceedings of which we were aware would contain articles highly relevant to this bibliography. We carried out the search for these products through multiple means: (1) performing a structured search of two reference databases, (2) examining articles published since 2005 in highly relevant scientific journals and conference proceedings, and (3) reviewing additional material suggested by authors of products identified in steps 1 and 2. Our search was intentionally broad in order to identify as much relevant work as possible, much of which is professionally applied and tested within the industry of oil and gas reclamation, but which remains unpublished in scientific journals. We refined the initial list of products by removing: (1) duplicates, (2) products not written in English, (3) products that were not relevant to the arid ecosystems of western North America, (4) products that were not released as research, data products, or review articles in journals or as formal scientific reports, and (5) products with data which were not relevant to reclamation of oil and gas-affected lands, or for which the study did not present new data, findings, or syntheses relevant to reclamation of oil and gas-affected lands. We summarized each product using a consistent structure (background, objectives, methods, location, findings, and implications) and assigned standardized management topics to each. Management topics are intended to aid online searching within the bibliography and are described in more detail in the Methods Section of this report; they include what type of disturbance the product addresses (well pads, mining, pipelines), what aspect of oil and gas reclamation they pertain to (practices, standards, monitoring), what type of data are present in the product (for instance soil or vegetation recovery data), and an indication if the product were from a source other than a published, peer-reviewed outlet (such as dissertations or unpublished professional reports – these are identified as grey literature). The review process for this annotated bibliography included an initial internal colleague review of each summary, requesting input on each summary from an author of the original product, and a formal peer-review. Our initial searches resulted in 3,197 total products, of which 290 met our criteria for inclusion. “Reclamation Practices” is by far the management topic most addressed, followed by “Reclamation Monitoring,” for example, products assessing what and how monitoring methods are used to track and measure reclamation outcome. This document may be accessed at https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20231068 or from the U.S. Geological Survey Publication Warehouse ( https://pubs.usgs.gov/ ). The 1-page product summaries herein will also be used to create a bibliography at https://apps.usgs.gov/science-for-resource-managers that includes links to each original product, where available, and in which subject matter will be searchable by topic, location, and year. The studies compiled and summarized here may inform planning and management actions that seek to reclaim landscapes across the western U.S. which have been affected by oil and gas development.

Open-File Report↗