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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Quantifying The Extent Of Wildfire Impacted Streams In The Western United States, Grady Ball
Quantifying The Extent Of Wildfire Impacted Streams In The Western United States, Grady Ball
Water Resources Professional Project Reports
Beginning in the mid-1980s, the number of fires and acres burned by wildfire in the United States has grown at an explosive rate. Several factors, anthropogenic and natural, have converged to create a new era of high frequency, high intensity fires, which is predicted to continue until at least mid-century. Investigations into wildfire impacts have largely focused on post-fire impacts on terrestrial systems, while effects on aquatic ecosystems have been underrepresented. The growing threat of fire to streams has accelerated the need for germane information regarding the spatial extent of fire impacts on watersheds and post-fire impacts to aquatic systems. …
Natural Salinization Of The Jemez River, New Mexico: An Insight From Trace Element Geochemistry, Jon K. Golla
Natural Salinization Of The Jemez River, New Mexico: An Insight From Trace Element Geochemistry, Jon K. Golla
Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs
The Jemez River, a tributary of the Rio Grande in north-central New Mexico, receives thermal water input from the geofluids of the Valles Caldera, an active, high-temperature, liquid-dominated geothermal system. We focus on a ∼50-km portion of the northern Jemez River. This research extends previous decadal work (Crossey et al., in prep., 2013) on major chemistry in the river by characterizing the response of 16 trace elements to geochemical contributions from geothermal waters (McCauley, Spence, Soda Dam, and Jemez Springs springs and San Ysidro mineral waters), an area with copious hydrothermal degassing (Hummingbird), and two major tributaries (Rio San Antonio …
Evaluating Future Reservoir Storage In The Rio Grande Using Normalized Climate Projections And A Water Balance Model, Nolan T. Townsend
Evaluating Future Reservoir Storage In The Rio Grande Using Normalized Climate Projections And A Water Balance Model, Nolan T. Townsend
Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs
We develop and implement new tools for assessing the future of surface water supplies in downstream reaches of the Rio Grande, for which Elephant Butte Reservoir is the major storage reservoir. First, a normalization procedure is developed to adjust natural Rio Grande streamflows simulated by dynamical models in downstream reaches. The normalization accounts for upstream anthropogenic impairments to flow that are not considered in the model, thereby yielding downstream flows closer to observed values and more appropriate for use in assessments of future flows in downstream reaches. The normalization is applied to assess the potential effects of climate change on …
Water Security And Wildfire In Municipal Source Watersheds Of The Western United States, Mattjew V. Segura
Water Security And Wildfire In Municipal Source Watersheds Of The Western United States, Mattjew V. Segura
Water Resources Professional Project Reports
The goal of this study is to investigate water resource security for large metropolitan areas in the western United States and to identify cities that are at potential risk of water resource degradation due to wildfire. In this study, source watersheds for western cities are identified and ranked based on the potential resistance and resilience of their water supply to wildfire impacts. Next, the wildfire hazard potential of each of these catchments is determined and erosion potential estimates are used to infer how water quality will be impacted if the watersheds burn. The findings identify large populous cities that receive …
Inventory Of Restoration Needs Of National Forest Lands Of The Contiguous United States: An Assessment Using Watershed And Terrestrial Ecosystem Classification Tools, Kevin Carns
Water Resources Professional Project Reports
Ecological restoration assists the recovery of degraded ecosystems by returning their structure, processes, and functions to within their natural range of variation, improving long term sustainability and resilience. The United States Forest Service has sought to increase the pace and scale of restoration treatments on lands that it manages in order to continue to provide important ecosystem services including timber production, fish and wildlife habitat, grazing, watershed protection, and recreation. The Agency developed two classification systems to identify restoration need on Forest Service managed lands, the Watershed Condition Classification (WCC) and the Terrestrial Condition Assessment (TCA). These two classification systems …
Observed And Projected Snowmelt Runoff In The Upper Rio Grande In A Changing Climate, Nels R. Bjarke
Observed And Projected Snowmelt Runoff In The Upper Rio Grande In A Changing Climate, Nels R. Bjarke
Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs
As climate has warmed over the past half century, the strength of the covariance between interannual snowpack and streamflow anomalies in the Rio Grande headwaters has decreased. This change has caused an amplification of errors in seasonal streamflow forecasts using traditional statistical forecasting methods, based on the diminishing correlation between peak snow water equivalent (SWE) and subsequent snowmelt runoff. Therefore, at a time when water resources in south-western North America are becoming scarcer, water supply forecasters need to develop prediction schemes that account for the dynamic nature of the relationship between precipitation, temperature, snowpack and streamflow. We quantify temporal changes …
Save Money, Save Water; Developing A Risk Model For Leak Detection And Pipe Replacement Using Spatial Analysis, Angelique Desiree Maldonado
Save Money, Save Water; Developing A Risk Model For Leak Detection And Pipe Replacement Using Spatial Analysis, Angelique Desiree Maldonado
Water Resources Professional Project Reports
It is imperative to properly and proactively maintain a distribution pipe system. The benefits to optimizing a pipe distribution system include ensuring a safe water quality, reducing water loss from leaks and line breaks, minimizing revenue losses and providing a reliable service. There are also economic concerns as pipe replacement is extremely expensive; in the state of New Mexico, an estimated $1.16 billion in drinking water infrastructure is needed over the next 20 years. (USEPA 2013). Because distribution pipe is so costly to replace, an approach that only looks at age or type or non-system specific data may overestimate the …
Preservation Protocols For Maintaining Species Stability Of Arsenic, Chromium, And Selenium In Water Samples, Contessa Lowery
Preservation Protocols For Maintaining Species Stability Of Arsenic, Chromium, And Selenium In Water Samples, Contessa Lowery
Water Resources Professional Project Reports
Water quality has become an increasing concern in recent years. The environmental challenges surrounding water quality include the presence of dissolved metals and their potential impact on human health and the environment. The challenge is exacerbated because many important metals have multiple oxidation states, which affect the health and environmental behavior of the metal. Many metals are known carcinogens and increased anthropogenic effects have inexorably made metals’ accumulation an imposing threat. Analytical instrumentation has advanced in many areas, making it now possible to measure very low concentrations of multiple elements in water. Current interest is determining the chemical speciation of …