Water Resource Management Commons^™

Coupled Oceanic-Atmospheric Variability And U.S. Streamflow, Glenn A. Tootle, Thomas C. Piechota, Ashok Singh

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

A study of the influence of interdecadal, decadal, and interannual oceanic-atmospheric influences on streamflow in the United States is presented. Unimpaired streamflow was identified for 639 stations in the United States for the period 1951–2002. The phases (cold/negative or warm/positive) of Pacific Ocean (El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)) and Atlantic Ocean (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO)) oceanic-atmospheric influences were identified for the year prior to the streamflow year (i.e., long lead time). Statistical significance testing of streamflow, based on the interdecadal, decadal, and interannual oceanic-atmospheric phase (warm/positive or cold/negative), was performed by …

Final Report: Evaluation Of The Morphoedaphic Index And Sediment Diatoms For Inference Of Pre-European Settlement Total Phosphorus Concentration In Epa Region 10 Lakes, Rich Miller, Aaron Hook, Richard Petersen, Mark D. Sytsma

Center for Lakes and Reservoirs Publications and Presentations

Water quality in many Northwest lakes has declined over the past century due, in part, to increased anthropogenic nutrient loading (Edmonson and Lehman, 1981). Under the Clean Water Act, resource managers such as the Washington Department of Ecology, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, and tribes are responsible for restoring and protecting the integrity of these waters. Targets for restoration or criteria for impairment are not well defined, however, and may naturally vary by geology, hydrology, morphometry, and climate.

One way to determine whether lakes are impaired and to identify restoration targets is to assess lake reference conditions (EPA 2000). Reference …

Water Quality Sampling, Analysis And Annual Load Determinations For Tss, Nitrogen And Phosphorus At The L'Anguille River Near Palestine, Marc A. Nelson, L. Wade Cash, Keith Trost, Jennifer Purtle

Technical Reports

A water quality sampling station was installed at the L’Anguille River near Palestine in 2003. This station is coordinated with a USGS gauging station at the same location. This station is instrumented to collect samples at sufficient intervals across the hydrograph to accurately estimate the flux of total suspended solids, nitrogen and phosphorus in the River. The L’Anguille River was listed on Arkansas' 1998 303d list as impaired from sediment (turbidity). The L’Anguille River was the second TMDL determined in Arkansas. Accurate determination of stream nutrients and sediment is critical for future determinations of TMDLs, effectiveness of best management practices …

Water Quality Sampling, Analysis And Annual Load Determinations For Nutrients And Sediment At The Arkansas Highway 45 Bridge On The White River Just Above Beaver Lake, Marc Nelson, L. Wade Cash, Keith Trost, Jennifer Purtle

Technical Reports

A water quality sampling station was installed at the Arkansas Highway 45 bridge on the White River just above Beaver Lake in 2002. This station is coordinated with a USGS gauging station at the same location. This station is instrumented to collect samples at sufficient intervals across the hydrograph to accurately estimate the flux of total suspended solids, nitrogen and phosphorus into the upper end of Beaver Lake from the White River. The West Fork of the White River is listed on Arkansas' 1998 303d list as impaired from sediment. The Upper White was designated as the states highest priority …

Water Quality Sampling, Analysis And Annual Load Determinations For Tss, Nitrogen And Phosphorus In The Bayou Bartholomew At Garrett Bridge, Ar And Near Portland, Ar, Marc A. Nelson, L. Wade Cash, G. Keith Trost, Jennifer Purtle

Technical Reports

Water quality sampling stations were installed at the Bayou Bartholomew at Garrett Bridge, AR and near Portland, AR. These stations are coordinated with USGS gauging stations at the same locations. These stations are instrumented to collect samples at sufficient intervals across the hydrograph to accurately estimate the flux of total suspended solids, nitrogen and phosphorus in the River. Bayou Bartholomew watershed is about 1.08 million acres and is located in the south east corner of the state. The land use in the watershed is mostly in forest and cropland agriculture with some urban area. High turbidity levels and excessive silt …

Water Quality Sampling, Analysis And Annual Load Determinations For Tss, Nitrogen And Phosphorus At The Washington County Road 76 Bridge On Ballard Creek, Marc A. Nelson, L. Wade Cash, G. Keith Trost, Jennifer Purtle

Technical Reports

The Illinois River Basin has experienced water quality impairment from non-point source pollution for many years. This fact was well documented in the State of Arkansas' Water Quality Assessment report, the Soil Conservation Service River Basin Study, and several University of Arkansas studies. Thirty-seven sub-watersheds have been identified by the SCS in the Arkansas portion of the Illinois River basin. In the Arkansas portion of the Basin, the Illinois River, Evansville Creek, Baron Fork, Cincinnati Creek, Muddy Fork, Moores Creek, Clear Creek, Osage Creek and Flint Creek were all classified as not supporting their designated use as primary contact recreation …

Water Quality Sampling, Analysis And Annual Load Determinations For Tss, Nitrogen And Phosphorus At The Washington County Road 195 Bridge On The West Fork Of The White River, 2004 Annual Report, Marc A. Nelson, L. Wade Cash, G. Keith Trost, Jennifer Purtle

Technical Reports

A water quality sampling station was installed at the Washington County road 195 bridge on the West Fork of the White River just above the confluence of the three main forks of the Upper White River in December 2001. The Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP) was approved by EPA Region six on March 2002 and sampling was begun at that time. This station is coordinated with a USGS gauging station at the same location. This station was instrumented to collect samples at sufficient intervals across the hydrograph to accurately estimate the flux of total suspended solids, nitrogen and phosphorus into …

2004 Pollutant Loads Kings River Near Berryville, Arkansas, Marc A. Nelson, L. Wade Cash, Keith Trost, Jennifer Purtle

Technical Reports

An automatic sampler and a USGS gauging station were established in 1998 and water quality sampling was begun in 1999 on the Kings River near Berryville, Arkansas. Continuous stage and discharge measurements and frequent water quality sampling have been used to determine pollutant concentrations and loads in the river. This report presents the results from the sampling and analysis for January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2004.

Illinois River 2004 Pollutant Loads At Arkansas Highway 59 Bridge, Marc A. Nelson, L. Wade Cash, Keith Trost, Jennifer Purtle

Technical Reports

Automatic water sampler and a U. S. Geological Survey gauging station were established in 1995 on the main stem of the Illinois River at the Arkansas Highway 59 Bridge. Since that time, continuous stage and discharge measurements and water quality sampling have been used to determine pollutant concentrations and loads in the Arkansas portion of the Illinois River. This report represents the results from the measurement and sampling by the Arkansas Water Resources Center -Water Quality Lab for January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2004.

The Chesapeake Bay Breakwater Database Project Hurricane Isabel Impacts To Four Breakwater Systems, C. Scott Hardaway Jr., Donna A. Milligan, Christine A. Wilcox, Linda M. Meneghini, G. R. Thomas, Travis R. Comer

Reports

The Chesapeake Bay Breakwater Database is being developed by personnel in the Virginia Institute of Marine Science’s (VIMS) Shoreline Studies Program for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE) in order to:

1) document breakwater system performance around Chesapeake Bay relative to predictions

2) develop guidelines for breakwaters in sand limited and fetch limited systems such as estuaries, reservoirs, lakes and bays.

Stormwater Utility Fees: Considerations & Options For Interlocal Stormwater Working Group (Iswg), New England Environmental Finance Center

Economics and Finance

Stormwater utilities are a concept whose time seems to have arrived. Established by relatively few communities in the 1970s as a method of funding flood control measures, stormwater utilities now exist in over 400 municipalities and counties throughout the United States. During the next 10 years, their numbers are expected to swell dramatically – by one estimate to over 2,000 by the year 2014.

The reasons for this growth are multifold. Federal stormwater regulations passed in the 1980s (Phase I of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Program, or NPDES), motivated many larger communities to seek alternative funding sources and …

Drought Preparedness Planning: Building Institutional Capacity, Donald A. Wilhite, Michael Hayes, Cody L. Knutson

Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Past attempts to manage drought and its impacts through a reactive, crisis management approach have been ineffective, poorly coordinated, and untimely, as illustrated by the hydro- illogical cycle in Figure 1. The crisis management approach has been followed in both developed and developing countries. Because of the ineffectiveness of this approach, greater interest has evolved in recent years in the adoption of a more proactive risk-based management approach in some countries (see Chapter 6). Other countries are striving to obtain a higher level of preparedness through development of national action programs that are part of the United Nations Convention to …

Discovering Associations Between Climatic And Oceanic Parameters To Monitor Drought In Nebraska Using Data-Mining Techniques, Tsegaye Tadesse, Donald A. Wilhite, Michael J. Hayes, Steve Goddard

Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Drought is a complex natural hazard that is best characterized by multiple climatological and hydrological parameters. Improving our understanding of the relationships between these parameters is necessary to reduce the impacts of drought. Data mining is a recently developed technique that can be used to interact with large databases and assist in the discovery of associations between drought and oceanic data by extracting information from massive and multiple data archives. In this study, a new data-mining algorithm [i.e., Minimal Occurrences With Constraints and Time Lags (MOWCATL)] has been used to identify the relationships between oceanic parameters and drought indices. Rather …

A New Approach For Predicting Drought-Related Vegetation Stress: Integrating Satellite, Climate, And Biophysical Data Over The U.S. Central Plains, Tsegaue Tadesse, Jesslyn F. Brown, Michael Hayes

Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Droughts are normal climate episodes, yet they are among the most expensive natural disasters in the world. Knowledge about the timing, severity, and pattern of droughts on the landscape can be incorporated into effective planning and decisionmaking. In this study, we present a data mining approach to modeling vegetation stress due to drought and mapping its spatial extent during the growing season. Rule-based regression tree models were generated that identify relationships between satellite-derived vegetation conditions, climatic drought indices, and biophysical data, including land-cover type, available soil water capacity, percent of irrigated farm land, and ecological type. The data mining method …

Tidal Wetland Contributions To Fecal Coliform Loads In Shellfish Growing Waters By Analysis Of Model Prediction Discrepancy, Jie. Huang

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Fecal contamination in estuaries has become an increasing concern worldwide. The use of wetlands for wastewater treatment has expanded due to their natural ability to improve water quality by removing suspended sediments, nutrients, and fecal bacteria. In general, most of the removal occurs through deposition and accumulation in the wetland substrate. This would suggest that wetlands are effective filters for fecal coliform transported from terrestrial environments to surface waters. It has also been hypothesized, however, that wetlands may be an intermittent source of fecal coliform in tidal systems as a result of wildlife deposition and /or accumulation from terrestrial sources. …