U.S. Department of the Interior
To support the modeling of the Colorado River water storage area capacity tables by the USGS Utah Water Science Center, the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center created a three-dimensional (3D) high-resolution topobathymetric digital elevation model (TBDEM) for Lake Powell, the second largest man-made reservoir in the United States.
In preparation for the anticipated removal of four large dams from the Klamath River on the California coast, the USGS has begun a multi-year, intensive monitoring program to document the effects that dam removal will have on the river system.
The USGS Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center (UMESC) is leading a study to construct, deploy, and evaluate an underwater Acoustic Deterrent System (uADS) at Lock and Dam 19 (LD19) near Keokuk, Iowa. The uADS will be designed with the goal of deterring Asian carp from moving upstream in the upper Mississippi River.
The USGS Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center (UMESC) participated in a small subsection of a larger scope of work for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) led by staff at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and the USGS Upper Midwest Water Science Center.
Changes in sandbar geometry were mapped using historcal and recent aerial imagery to quantify the extent of sandbar encroachment into the water intake structure of the pumping plant for the Buford-Trenton Irrigation District, Williams County, North Dakota. Nine sets of aerial imagery spanning over 60 years and rectified plats from the original 1893 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) data were used to study changes in the Missouri River extent and course.
Sound navigation and ranging (sonar) data were coupled with historical topographic data to map the extent and volume of silt collected behind the Heart Butte Dam reservoir in southwestern North Dakota. An elevation raster of the land surface submerged beneath the dam was created using sonar with 1–foot (0.3-m) depth intervals collected by the North Dakota Game & Fish Department. To depict the landscape before the dam was created, pre-dam contour and river lines were derived from a historical topographic map obtained from the U.S.
The Water Resources Division of the Region 6 FWS generated elevation data for the creation of a storage-capacity curve for MacFarlane Reservoir, which supplies water to the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) located in north central Colorado. The reservoir was originally built in 1915, repaired and reconstructed in 1962, and purchased by the FWS in 1993; the reservoir provides nesting and migration habitat for several bird species and is a water source for habitat creation and management at the refuge.
A team of scientists from the USGS Upper Midwest Environmental Science Center in La Crosse, Wisconsin, is studying ways to control and deplete aquatic invasive species in the Upper Mississippi River System (UMRS). One study site included a select backwater on the Marseilles Pool in the Illinois River. Split-beam hydroacoustic (stationary and mobile, 200-kHz transducers), side-scan sonar imagery, and bathymetry data were collected and integrated to evaluate fish abundance and distributions in specific areas before, during, and after integrated pest management tools were applied to deplete