Watershed- and Regional-Scale Contamination

Locations of Toxics Program Watershed- and Regional-Scale Contamination Investigations (Click on map for larger version) Equipment to capture runoff waters from experimental plots for later analysis, Topeka Experimental Field Site, Topeka, Kansas -- from the Encapsulated Herbicide Experiment Photo Gallery

The Toxics Program conducts watershed- and regional-scale investigations of legacy, current, and emerging contaminants affecting aquatic ecosystems from common types of nonpoint and distributed point-source contamination. More about watershed- and regional-scale contamination investigations

Watershed Contamination from Hard-Rock Mining

Pesticide Contamination in Varied Pesticide-Use Settings

Emerging Contaminants in the Environment

Mercury in Aquatic Ecosystems

Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative

Priority Ecosystem Studies

Complete listing of watershed and regional scale investigations and projects >>

Other Watershed- and Regional-Scale Investigations

• Fate of Organic Compounds in River Systems, Lower Calcasieu River, Louisiana [Completed]
• Management Systems Evaluation Areas, Upper Midwest (Corn Belt) [Completed]
• Nonpoint-Source Ground-Water Contamination in Relation to Land Use [Completed]
• National Irrigation Water Quality Program (NIWQP) [Completed]

Watershed- and Regional-Scale Contamination Information

• Index of Bibliographies from Point-Source Investigations
• Index of Photo Galleries for Watershed- and Regional-Scale Contamination Investigations
• Crosscutting Topics Related to Watershed- and Regional-Scale Contamination
• Agricultural Chemicals — Occurrence and fate of chemicals used for agriculture
• Contaminant Occurrence Studies — Large-scale studies of the occurrence and distribution of new contaminants in the environment
• Nutrients — Fate and effects of nutrients in the environment
• Surface-Water Contaminant Transport — Research on the transport and fate of contaminants in surface water
• Unsaturated Zone — Contaminant transport and fate in the unsaturated zone
• Selected Fact Sheets on Watershed- and Regional-Scale Contamination
• Water quality in the Blue River Basin, Kansas City metropolitan area, Missouri and Kansas, July 1998 to October 2004: USGS Fact Sheet 2006-3103.
• Wastewater chemicals in Colorado's streams and ground water: USGS Fact Sheet 2004-3127.
• Trends in the water budget of the Mississippi River basin, 1949-1997: USGS Fact Sheet 2005-3020.
• Is septic waste affecting drinking water from shallow domestic wells along the Platte River in eastern Nebraska?: USGS Fact Sheet 072-03.
• Linking selenium sources to ecosystems--San Francisco Bay-Delta model: USGS Fact Sheet 2004-3091.
• Water quality of the Boulder Creek watershed, Colorado: USGS Fact Sheet 043-03.
• Mercury in stream ecosystems--New studies initiated by the U.S. Geological Survey: USGS Fact Sheet 016-03.
• Occurrence of antibiotics in water from fish hatcheries: USGS Fact Sheet 120-02.
• Glacial ice cores reveal a record of natural and anthropogenic atmospheric mercury deposition for the last 270 years: USGS Fact Sheet FS-051-02.
• Pharmaceuticals, hormones, and other organic wastewater contaminants in U.S. streams: USGS Fact Sheet FS-027-02.
• Malformed frogs in Minnesota--An update: USGS Fact Sheet FS-043-01.
• Nitrogen in the Mississippi Basin--Estimating sources and predicting flux to the Gulf of Mexico: USGS Fact Sheet 135-00.
• Mercury contamination from historic gold mining in California: USGS Fact Sheet FS-061-00.
• Discharge of herbicides from the Mississippi River Basin to the Gulf of Mexico, 1991-97: USGS Fact Sheet FS-163-98.
• Occurrence of cotton pesticides in surface water of the Mississippi Embayment: USGS Fact Sheet FS-022-98.
• Herbicides in rain fall across the Midwestern and Northeastern United States, 1990-91: USGS Fact Sheet FS-181-97.
• Herbicides in Midwestern reservoir outflows, 1992-93: USGS Fact Sheet FS-134-98.
• Herbicides in ground water of the Midwest--A regional study of shallow aquifers, 1991-94: USGS Fact Sheet FS-076-98.
• A reconnaissance for sulfonylurea herbicides in waters of the Midwestern USA: An example of collaboration between the public and private sectors: USGS Fact Sheet FS-046-98.
• Methods to identify areas susceptible to irrigation-induced selenium contamination in the Western United States: USGS Fact Sheet FS-O38-97.
• Source characterization of disinfection byproduct precursors in two Arkansas water-supply reservoirs: USGS Fact Sheet 118-97.
• Agricultural chemicals in Iowa's ground water, 1982-95 -- What are the trends: USGS Fact Sheet FS-116-97.
• Are walleye from Lake Roosevelt contaminated with mercury?: USGS Fact Sheet FS-102-97.
• Vulnerability of public drinking water supplies in New Jersey to pesticides: USGS Fact Sheet FS-165-96.
• Using Geochemical and Statistical Tools to Identify Irrigated Areas that Might Contain High Selenium Concentrations in Surface Water: USGS Fact Sheet FS-O77-96.
• Mercury Contamination of Aquatic Ecosystems: USGS Fact Sheet FS-216-95.

Meetings and Conferences

• USGS is co-sponsoring the short course Environmental Fate and Effects of Emerging Contaminants at the SETAC North America 29th Annual Meeting, Tampa, Florida, November 16-20, 2008
• GSA and USGS cosponsor GeoHealth I: Building Bridges Across the Geological and Health Sciences, USGS Headquarters, Reston, Virginia, March 4-6, 2008

New Publications

Upcoming Publications

• Fate of consumer product chemicals in the subsurface environment--25 Years of research on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA: Barber, L.B., in Hill, M.C., ed., Groundwater Quality 2007--Securing Groundwater Quality in Urban and Industrial Environments: International Association of Hydrological Sciences IAHS Redbook (IN PRESS).
• Subsurface fate and transport of 4-nonylphenol, 17Β-estradiol, and sulfamethoxazole: Barber, L.B., Meyer, M.T., LeBlanc, D.R., Kolpin, D.W., Bradley, P.M., Chapelle, F.H., and Rubio, F., in Hill, M.C., ed., Groundwater Quality 2007--Securing Groundwater Quality in Urban and Industrial Environments: International Association of Hydrological Sciences IAHS Redbook (IN PRESS).
• Corbula amurensis: Thompson, J.K., in Invasive Species Compendium, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom, CABI (IN PRESS).
• Shallow water processes govern system-wide phytoplankton bloom dynamics--A field study: Thompson, J.K., Koseff, J.R., Monismith, S.G., and Lucas, L.V., Journal of Marine Systems, doi:10.1016/j.jmarsys.2007.12.006 (IN PRESS).

Newly Published

• A national reconnaissance of pharmaceuticals and other organic wastewater contaminants in the United States--I. Groundwater: Barnes, K.K., Kolpin, D.W., Furlong, E.T., Zaugg, S.D., Meyer, M.T., and Barber, L.B., 2008, Science of the Total Environment, v. 402, no. 2-3, p. 192-200, doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2008.04.028.
• A national reconnaissance for pharmaceuticals and other organic wastewater contaminants in the United States--II. Untreated drinking water sources: Focazio, M.J., Kolpin, D.W., Barnes, K.K., Furlong, E.T., Meyer, M.T., Zaugg, S.D., Barber, L.B., and Thurman, E.M., 2008, Science of the Total Environment, v. 402, no. 2-3, p. 201-216, doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2008.02.021.
• The occurrence of glyphosate, atrazine, and other pesticides in vernal pools and adjacent streams in Washington, DC, Maryland, Iowa, and Wyoming, 2005Ð2006: Battaglin, W.A., Rice, K.C., Focazio, M.J., Salmons, S., and Barry, R.X., 2008, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, doi:10.1007/s10661-008-0435-y (Advanced Web release).
• Chemical contaminants, health indicators, and reproductive biomarker responses in fish from rivers in the Southeastern United States: Hinck, J., Blazer, V., Denslow, N., Echols, K., Gale, R., Wieser, C., May, T., Ellersieck, M., Coyle, J., and Tillitt, D., 2008, Science of the Total Environment, v. 390, no. 2-3, p. 538-557, doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2007.10.026.
• Utilization of protein expression profiles as indicators of environmental impairment of smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu) from the Shenandoah River, Virginia, USA: Ripley, J., Iwanowicz, L., Blazer, V., and Foran, C., 2008, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, v. 27, no. 8, p. 1756-1767, doi:10.1897/07-588.1.
• Metals fate and transport modelling in streams and watersheds--State of the science and USEPA workshop review: Caruso, B.S., Cox, T.J., Runkel, R.L., Velleux, M.L., Bencala, K.E., Nordstrom, D.K., Julien, P.Y., Butler, B.A., Alpers, C.N., Marion, A., and Smith, K.S., 2008, Hydrologic Processes, v. 22, no. 19, p. 4011-4021, doi:10.1002/hyp.7114.
• Solute transport along stream and river networks (Chap. 18): Gooseff, M.N., Bencala, K.E., and Wondzell, S.M., 2008 in Rice, S.P., Roy, A.G., and Rhoads, B.L., eds., River Confluences, Tributaries and the Fluvial Network, Hoboken, N.J., John WIley and Sons, Ltd., p. 395-417, ISBN:978-0-470-02672-4.
• Occurrence of pyrethroids in bed and suspended sediments in California: Hladik, M.L., and Kuivila, K.M., 2008, in Gan, J.J., Spurlock, F., Hendley, P., and Weston, D., eds., Synthetic Pyrethroids--Occurrence and Behavior in Aquatic Environments: ACS Symposium Series 991, p. 55-71.
• Hydrologic data from the study of acidic contamination in the Miami Wash--Pinal Creek Area, Arizona, water years 1997-2004: Konieczki, A.D., Brown, J.G., and Parker, J.T.C., 2008, U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2008-1273.
• Photoreduction fuels biogeochemical cycling of iron in Spain's acid rivers: Gammons, C.H., Nimick, D.A., Parker, S.R., Snyder, D.M., McCleskey, R.B., Amils, R., and Poulson, S.R., 2008, Chemical Geology, v. 252, no. 3-4, p. 202-213, doi:10.1016/j.chemgeo.2008.03.004.
• Wetlands as principal zones of methylmercury production in southern Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico region: Hall, B.D., Aiken, G.R., Krabbenhoft, D.P., Marvin-DiPasquale, M., and Swarzenski, C.M., 2008, Environmental Pollution, v. 154, no. 1, p. 124-134, doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2007.12.017.
• Comparison of total mercury and methylmercury cycling at five sites using the small watershed approach: Shanley, J.B., Mast, A.M., Campbell, D.H., Aiken, G.R., Krabbenhoft, D.P., Hunt, R.J., Walker, J.F., Schuster, P.F., Chalmers, A., Aulenbach, B.T., Peters, N.E., Marvin-DiPasquale, M., Clow, D.W., and Shafer, M.M., 2008, Environmental Pollution, v. 154, no. 1, p. 143-154, doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2007.12.031.
• Influence of natural dissolved organic carbon on the bioavailability of mercury to a freshwater alga: Gorski, P.R., Armstrong, D.E., Hurley, J.P., and Krabbenhoft, D.P., 2008, Environmental Pollution, v. 154, no. 1, p. 116-123 doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2007.12.004.
• Exposure of insects and insectivorous birds to metals and other elements from abandoned mine tailings in three Summit County drainages, Colorado: Custer, C.M., Yang, C., Crock, J.G., Shearn-Bochsler, V., Smith, K.S., and Hageman, P.L., 2008, doi:10.1007/s10661-008-0346-y (Advanced Web release).
• Determination of human-health pharmaceuticals in filtered water by chemically modified styrene-divinylbenzene resin-based solid-phase extraction and high-performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry: Furlong, E.T., Werner, S.L., Anderson, B.D., and Cahill, J.D., 2008, U.S. Geological Survey Techniques and Methods book 5, sec. B, chap. B5, 56 p.
• Principal locations of major-ion, trace-element, nitrate, and Escherichia coli loading to Emigration Creek, Salt Lake County, Utah, October 2005: Kimball, B.A., Runkel, R.L., and Walton-Day, K., 2008, U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2008-5043, 33 p.
• Oceans--On phytoplankton trends: Smetacek, V., and Cloern, J.E., 2008, Science, v. 319, no. 5868, p. 1346-1348, doi:10.1126/science.1151330.
• A decade of measuring, monitoring, and studying the fate and transport of triazine herbicides in groundwater, surface water, reservoirs, and precipitation by the U.S. Geological Survey (Chapter 30): Thurman, E.M., and Scribner, E.A., 2008 in LeBaron, H.M., McFarland, J., and Burnside, O., eds., The Triazine Herbicides, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Elsevier Science, ISBN:978-0-444-51167-6.
• Analysis of chlorothalonil and three degradates in sediment and soil: Hladik, M.L., and Kuivila, K.M., 2008, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, v. 56, no. 7, p. 2310-2314, doi:10.1021/jf703695s.
• Isotopic variation of dissolved copper and zinc in stream waters affected by historical mining: Borrok, D.M., Nimick, D.A., Wanty, R.B., and Ridley, W.I., 2008, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, v. 72, no. 2, p. 329-344, doi:10.1016/j.gca.2007.11.014.
• Occurrence of chlorothalonil, its transformation products, and selected other pesticides in Texas and Oklahoma streams, 2003-2004: Battaglin, W.A., Kuivila, K., Winton, K., and Meyer, M., 2008, U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2008–5016, 9 p.
• A multi-residue method for the analysis of pesticides and pesticide degradates in water using HLB solid-phase extraction and gas chromatography--ion trap mass spectrometry: Hladik, M.L., Smalling, K.L., and Kuivila, K.M., 2008, Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, v. 80, no. 2, p. 139-144, doi:10.1007/s00128-007-9332-2.
• Transport of elemental mercury in the unsaturated zone from a waste disposal site in an arid region: Walvoord, M.A., Andraski, B.J., Krabbenhoft, D.P., and Striegl, R.G., 2008, Applied Geochemistry, v. 23, no. 3, p. 572-583, doi:10.1016/j.apgeochem.2007.12.014.
• A comparison of winter mercury accumulation at forested and no-canopy sites measured with different snow sampling techniques: Nelson, S.J., Johnson, K.B., Weathers, K.C., Loftin, C.S., Fernandez, I.J., Kahl, J.S., and Krabbenhoft, D.P., 2008, Applied Geochemistry, v. 23, no. 3, p. 384-398, doi:10.1016/j.apgeochem.2007.12.009.
• Ground- and surface-water chemistry of Handcart Gulch, Park County, Colorado, 2003-2006: Verplanck, P.L., Manning, A.H., Kimball, B.K., McCleskey, R.B., Runkel, R.L., Caine, J.S., Adams, M., Gemery-Hill, P.A., and Fey, D.L., 2007, U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2007-1020, 31 p.
• Characterization and cycling of atmospheric mercury along the central US Gulf Coast: Engle, M.A., Tate, M.T., Krabbenhoft, D.P., Kolker, A., Olson, M.L., Edgerton, E.S., DeWild, J.F., and McPherson, A.K., 2008, Applied Geochemistry, v. 23, no. 3, p. 419-437, doi:10.1016/j.apgeochem.2007.12.024.
• Reproductive disruption in fish downstream from an estrogenic wastewater effluent: Vajda, A.M., Barber, L.B., Gray, J.L., Lopez, E.M., Woodling, J.D., and Norris, D.O., 2008, Environmental Science and Technology, doi:10.1021/es0720661 (Advanced Web release).
• Using biodynamic models to reconcile differences between laboratory toxicity tests and field biomonitoring with aquatic insects: Buchwalter, D.B., Cain, D.J., Clements, W.H., and Luoma, S.N., 2008, Environmental Science and Technology, doi:10.1021/es703130e (Advanced Web release).
• Trace analysis of trimethoprim and sulfonamide, macrolide, quinolone, and tetracycline antibiotics in chlorinated drinking water using liquid chromotagrphy electrospray tandem mass spectrometry: Ye, Z., Weinberg, H.S., and Meyer, M.T., 2007, Analytical Chemistry, v. 79, no. 3, p. 1135-1144, doi:10.1021/ac060972a.
• Trace analysis of antidepressant pharmaceuticals and their select degradates in aquatic matrixes by LC/ESI/MS/MS: Schultz, M.M., and Furlong, E.T., 2008, Analytical Chemistry, v. 80, no. 5, p. 1756-1762, doi:10.1021/ac702154e.
• Effects of ionic strength, temperature, and pH on degradation of selected antibiotics: Loftin, K.A., Adams, C.D., and Meyer, M.T., 2008, Journal of Environmental Quality, v. 37, no. 2, p. 378-386, doi:10.2134/jeq2007.0230.
• Potential for 4-n-nonylphenol biodegradation in stream sediments: Bradley, P.M., Barber, L.B., Kolpin, D.W., McMahon, P.B., and Chapelle, F.H., 2008, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, v. 27, p. 260-265, doi:10.1897/07-333.
• Bioaccumulation of pharmaceuticals and other anthropogenic waste indicators in earthworms from agricultural soil amended with biosolid or swine manure: Kinney, C.A., Furlong, E.T., Kolpin, D.W., Burkhardt, M.R., Zaugg, S.D., Werner, S.L., Bossio, J.P., and Benotti, M.J., 2008, Environmental Science and Technology, doi:10.1021/es702304c (Advanced Web release).
• Environmental presence and persistence of pharmaceuticals--An overview: Glassmeyer, S., Kolpin, D.W., Furlong, E.T., and Focazio, M.T., 2008 in Aga, D.S., ed., Fate of Pharmaceuticals in the Environment and in Water Treatment Systems, CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Books, p. 3-51, ISBN:9781420052329.
• Impairment of the reproductive potential of male fathead minnows by environmentally relevant exposures to 4-nonylphenol: Schoenfuss, H.L., Bartell, S.E., Bistodeau, T.B., Cediel, R.A., Grove, K.J., Zintek, L., Lee, K.E., and Barber, L.B., 2008, Aquatic Toxicology, v. 86, no. 1, p. 91-98, doi:10.1016/j.aquatox.2007.10.004.
• A biodynamic understanding of dietborne metal uptake by a freshwater invertebrate: Croteau, M.-N., and Luoma, S.N., 2008, Environmental Science and Technology, doi:10.1021/es7022913 (Advanced web release).
• Environmental presence and persistence of pharmaceuticals--An overview: Glassmeyer, S., Kolpin, D.W., Furlong, E.T., and Focazio, M.T., 2008 in Aga, D.S., ed., Fate of Pharmaceuticals in the Environment and in Water Treatment Systems, CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Books, p. 3-51, ISBN:9781420052329.