New USGS National Water Quality Program Reports
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Quality Program has announced three new reports on a variety of water related topics that should be of interest to state drinking water programs.
- A new Mississippi River Basin study entitled, “Long-Term Mississippi River Trends Expose Shifts in the River Load Response to Watershed Nutrient Balances Between 1975 and 2017,” determined that latent processes (such as legacy nutrients, best management practices, and tile drainage) may represent important factors for changes in nutrient loads over time. Read the report here. For questions, contact Sarah Stackpoole.
- A new report entitled, “Relation between Road-Salt Application and Increasing Radium Concentrations in a Low-pH Aquifer, Southern New Jersey,” connects road salt application (and related increasing salinity in aquifers) to increasing radium concentrations in groundwater through multiple lines of evidence. Read the report here. For questions, contact: Bruce Lindsey.
- A new study entitled, “Climate extremes as drivers of surface-water-quality trends in the United States,” finds that in some cases, management changes may have offset potential water-quality changes related to climate. This study is based on the use of a USGS mapping tool to overlay trends in indices of climate extremes and trends in water-quality (e.g. nutrients, chloride, sediment, organic carbon). Read the report here. For questions, contact Karen Ryberg.
