Hydrology Commons^™

Aquifers Of Nebraska Ii: The Niobrara Aquifer, Dana Divine, Robert Matthew Joeckel, Sue Olafsen Lackey

Conservation and Survey Division: Faculty and Staff Publications

The marine shale, chalk, marl, and chalky limestone of the Niobrara Formation directly underlie Quaternary sediments in 23 counties from south-central to northeastern Nebraska. Nevertheless, the formation serves as an aquifer only in and around Cedar, Madison, and Nuckolls counties. Niobrara aquifer wells mostly supply irrigation, domestic, and livestock needs. Two hundred of the approximately 230 active registered wells in Nebraska that are screened entirely in the Niobrara aquifer are in Cedar County and environs. About another 200 wells in this area are screened in both the Niobrara aquifer and overlying Quaternary sediments. Wells screened entirely in the Niobrara aquifer …

Multi-Dimensional Drought Risk Assessment Based On Socio-Economic Vulnerabilities And Hydro-Climatological Factors, Ali Ahmadalipour

Dissertations and Theses

Drought is among the costliest natural hazards developing slowly and affecting large areas, which imposes severe consequences on society and economy. Anthropogenic climate change is expected to exacerbate drought in various regions of the globe, making its associated socioeconomic impacts more severe. Such impacts are of higher concern in Africa, which is mainly characterized by arid climate and lacking infrastructure as well as social development. Furthermore, the continent is expected to experience vast population growth, which will make it more vulnerable to the adverse effects of drought. This study provides the first comprehensive multi-dimensional assessment of drought risk across the …

A Geophysical Investigation Of Stratigraphy And Structure On St. Catherines Island, Georgia, Anne M. Delua

Honors College Theses

Geophysical tools were used to investigate potential structural and stratigraphic pathways of the salt water intrusion that is affecting the surficial aquifer on St. Catherines Island, Georgia. Ground penetrating radar (GPR) is a geophysical tool that uses electromagnetic waves to view the subsurface. GPR is used for a variety of applications stratigraphically, biologically, and anthropogenically. GPR electromagnetic waves react to changes in density and composition and type and percentage of pore fluids in sediment and rock. GPR waves also react to interfaces including fractures and faults. GPR waves exhibit attenuation and decreased return signal in materials such as clay. Fresh …

Cave Monitoring In The Béke And Baradla Caves (Northeastern Hungary): Implications For The Conditions For The Formation Cave Carbonates, György Czuppon, Attila Demény, Szabolcs Leél-Őssy, Mihály Óvari, Mihály Molnár, József Stieber, Klaudia Kiss, Krisztina Kármán, Gergely Surányi, László Haszpra

International Journal of Speleology

In order to use speleothems in the reconstruction of past climate and environmental changes it is necessary to understand the environmental and hydrological processes that determine the physico-chemical conditions of carbonate precipitation and hence speleothem formation. Therefore, in this study an extended monitoring program was conducted in the Béke and Baradla caves located in the Aggtelek region (Northeastern Hungary). The studied caves are rich in speleothem and flowstone occurrences with great potential for paleoclimatology studies. The monitoring activity included measurements of atmospheric and cave temperatures, CO₂ concentration in cave air, as well as chemical and isotopic compositions of water …

Suitability Of River Delta Sediment As Proppant, Missouri And Niobrara Rivers, Nebraska And South Dakota, 2015, Ronald B. Zelt, Christopher M. Hobza, Bethany L. Burton, Nathaniel J. Schaepe, Nadine M. Piatak-Hackley

United States Geological Survey: Water Reports and Publications

Document abstract

Sediment management is a challenge faced by reservoir managers who have several potential options, including dredging, for mitigation of storage capacity lost to sedimentation. As sediment is removed from reservoir storage, potential use of the sediment for socioeconomic or ecological benefit could potentially defray some costs of its removal. Rivers that transport a sandy sediment load will deposit the sand load along a reservoir-headwaters reach where the current of the river slackens progressively as its bed approaches and then descends below the reservoir water level. Given a rare combination of factors, a reservoir deposit of alluvial sand has …

Ncer Assistance Agreement Annual Progress Report For Grant #83582401 - Assessment Of Stormwater Harvesting Via Manage Aquifer Recharge (Mar) To Develop New Water Supplies In The Arid West: The Salt Lake Valley Example, Ryan Dupont, Joan E. Mclean, Richard C. Peralta, Sarah E. Null, Douglas B. Jackson-Smith

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

The aims of the original proposed project remain the same, that is, to test the hypothesis that Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) for stormwater harvesting is a technically feasible, socially and environmentally acceptable, economically viable, and legally feasible option for developing new water supplies for arid Western urban ecosystems experiencing increasing population, and climate change pressures on existing water resources. The project is being carried out via three distinct but integrated components that include: 1) Monitoring of existing distributed MAR harvesting schemes involving a growing number of demonstration Green Infrastructure (GI) test sites; 2) Integrated stormwater/vadose zone/groundwater/ ecosystem services modeling; and …

Evidence Of Subglacial Brine Inflow And Wind-Induced Mixing From High Resolution Temperature Measurements In Lake Bonney, Antarctica, Jade Lawrence

LSU Master's Theses

Hypersaline brine beneath Taylor Glacier enters proglacial West Lobe Lake Bonney (WLB) subglacially as well as from Blood Falls, a surface discharge point at the Taylor Glacier terminus. The brine strongly influences the water column of WLB. Because of the extremely high salinities below the chemocline in WLB, density is determined almost entirely by salinity and temperature can be used as a passive tracer. Cold brine intrusions enter WLB at the glacier face and intrude in to the water column at the depth of neutral buoyancy, where they can be identified by anomalously cold temperatures at that depth. This study …

Floodplain Impacts On Water Quality: A Case Study In Southern Louisiana, Emily Delduco

LSU Master's Theses

The quantity and quality of dissolved carbon delivered to coastal margins by rivers is an important component of global carbon cycling. The Atchafalaya River (AR) discharges ~25% of the flow of the Mississippi River (MR) and the total flow of the Red River (RR) into the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) annually while flowing through the largest bottomland swamp in North America. This provides a unique opportunity to study floodplain impacts on dissolved carbon processes in a large river system. The research aimed to: (1) determine DIC and DOC transport and processing by a river swamp basin under varied seasons and …

Assessing The Periodic Groundwater Flow Conditions Of A Perched Aquifer System In The Daniel Boone National Forest, Ethan Sweet

Posters-at-the-Capitol

Assessing the Periodic Groundwater Flow Conditions of a Perched Aquifer System in the Daniel Boone National Forest

Ethan Sweet and Jonathan Malzone

Eastern Kentucky University, Department of Geosciences

Natural ephemeral wetlands situated among the ridge-tops in the Daniel Boone National Forest serve as reservoirs that recharge a shallow groundwater system. Unique interactions between surface and groundwater in these isolated systems provide substantial support for the native ecosystem, serving as a breeding ground for amphibians and as source water for vegetation—especially in periods of drought. Currently it is not understood how groundwater could provide regional biodiversity, a drought buffer, or a …

Flash Droughts: A Review And Assessment Of The Challenges Imposed By Rapid-Onset Droughts In The United States, Jason A. Otkin, Mark Svoboda, Eric D. Hunt, Trent W. Ford, Martha C. Anderson, Christopher Hain, Jeffrey B. Basara

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Bonneville Basin Data, Larry V. Benson

United States Geological Survey: Datasets

In the Bonneville Basin folder, all data were reported in: Benson, L.V., Lund, S.P., Smoot, J.P., Rhode, D.E., Spencer, R.J., Verosub, K.L., Louderback, L.A., Johnson, C.A., Rye, R.O., Negrini, R., 2011. The rise and fall of Lake Bonneville between 45 and 10.5 ka. Quaternary International 235: 57-69.

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/usgsstaffpub/726

General Comment: in most cases an age model based on ¹⁴C analyses is not included with the data sets although ones were created for the original publications. Given the general problems with ¹⁴C ages in the lakes of the Great Basin, age models based on paleomagnetic secular variation (PSV) are …

A Study Of Marine Terrace Formation Along The California Central Coast, Mary C. Devlin

Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences

Marine terrace formation is in many instances attributed to wave action, and shore platforms are often called “wave-cut”. However, alternative models for marine terrace formation suggest that other types of physical and chemical weathering have a more central role in the formation of marine terraces than is widely acknowledged. Roering and Retallack (2012) concluded that the roles of subaerial physical and chemical weathering are significant, and played a major role in the formation of the terraces. In this study, weathering of beach cliffs and shore platforms associated with marine terraces at eight sites in two different locations along the central …

Econometric Estimation Of Groundwater Depth Change For The High Plains Aquifer, Jonathan R. Sims

Department of Agricultural Economics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This article presents a new method for estimating changes in depth to groundwater at a yearly, county level and incorporates these estimates as the dependent variable of econometric models for the High Plains aquifer. The High Plains (Ogallala) aquifer underlies eight states in the central United States and is the primary source of irrigation water for this large food producing region. The stock of groundwater is a finite, non-renewable resource with minimal recharge in most areas. Many fields of study, including hydrology and agricultural economics, are interested in depth to groundwater changes because they serve as a proxy for estimating …

Groundwater And Subsurface Water In A Landscape With Shallow Bedrock: Implications For Agricultural Nutrient Export, Laura Kelley, Hunter R. Evans, Reid E. Buskirk, Jonathan M. Malzone, Walter S. Borowski

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Controls on nutrient export from agricultural landscapes include regional hydrological and geological conditions. In many central Kentucky basins shallow fractured bedrock produces focused groundwater discharge and flashy runoff events. Eastern Kentucky University’s Meadowbrook Farm is currently experimenting with nutrient sequestration techniques; however the effectiveness of these techniques given the local hydrogeology needs to be quantified. Our objective was to determine the potential pathways for nutrient export by mapping key hydrologic features and using a watershed approach. The key features mapped were springs, tile drains, runoff channels, land use and the underlying geology. We chose a 0.46 km² watershed to …

Assessing Morphodynamics Of The Lower Mississippi River From 1985 To 2015 With Remote Sensing And Gis Techniques, Bo Wang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The Lower Mississippi River is one of the most highly engineered rivers in the world. The river is now completely regulated by a combination of levees, artificial cutoffs, bank revetments, and dike fields; however, the river engineering has also complicated the geomorphological response to the sediment brought in the river. This dissertation research examined morphodynamics of the middle portion of the Lower Mississippi River from Vicksburg, Mississippi (river kilometer: 737) to Red River Landing, Louisiana (river kilometer: 486) to elucidate river engineering effects on sediment transport, storage, and distribution. The Old River Control Structure (ORCS) diverts approximately 25% of the …

A Framework For Incorporating The Impact Of Water Quality On Water Supply Stress: An Example From Louisiana, David M. Borrok, Jian Chen, Hisham Eldardiry, Emad Habib

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Water of poor quality can directly impact the budget of water available for key user groups. Despite this importance, methods for quantifying the impact of water quality on water availability remain elusive. Here, we develop a new framework for incorporating the impact of water quality on water supply by modifying the Water Supply Stress Index (WaSSI). We demonstrate the usefulness of the framework by investigating the impact of high salinity waters on the availability of irrigation water for agriculture in Louisiana. The WaSSI was deconstructed into sectoral components such that the total available water supply could be reduced for a …

Best Management Practices: A Community-Based Approach To Construction And Installation, Nathanael J. La Breche

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

The Wabash River Enhancement Corporation (WREC) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving both the health of the Wabash River and the surrounding terrestrial areas. In an effort to improve water quality, their urban cost-share program focuses on supporting green projects within a critical region surrounding the Great Bend of the Wabash River. In this essay, a Purdue student describes his experience as leader of a six-member group who worked with WREC to locate a suitable site within this critical area and implement a green project. They selected the Lighthouse Baptist Church, located in Lafayette, Indiana, since it was experiencing …

Geology Of Northeastern Nebraska And Environs: Cedar, Dakota, And Dixon Counties In Nebraska, And Plymouth And Woodbury County In Iowa, Robert Matthew Joeckel, Dana Divine, P.R. Hanson, Leslie M. Howard

Conservation and Survey Division: Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Aggieair Joins The Oshkosh Aviation Festival, Aggieair

News

EAA Oshkosh AirVenture 2017 is the largest airshow in the world, with over a half million people in attendance, over the span of a week. AggieAir pilot, Dan Robinson, joined the USU airfleet and hosted the AggieAir UAV booth. Dan was available to talk about the strong history of UAVs in academia and research and the future of AggieAir's research.

Diurnal And Seasonal Variation In Groundwater Nitrate -N Concentration In A Saturated Buffer Zone, Joseph Miller

Theses and Dissertations

Surface water pollution by nitrate (NO3-) is identified as a critical problem in agricultural land-use areas. Excess NO3- loading causes eutrophication and hypoxia in near-shore marine waters such as the Gulf of Mexico. Diversion of agricultural runoff into saturated buffer zones reduces NO3- loading. Although the mechanisms responsible for NO3- reduction in saturated buffer zones are well characterized, little is known about how NO3- concentrations vary temporally and what factors control those changes. The objective of this study is to understand NO3- concentration and environmental factor variability in a saturated buffer zone on a diurnal scale within and among the …