Assessing the Impacts of Vegetation on the Water Balance

The USGS and the University of Texas at Austin co-sponsored a special session on "Assessing the Impacts of Vegetation on the Water Balance" at the 2003 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco, California, on December 8-12, 2003. Information was presented at this session on the important role plants have in the movement of water. USGS research has shown that in desert environments plants can dominate the movement of water in the unsaturated zone. Resource managers can make use of the information presented at the session to help manage water resources and waste disposal facilities in arid environments.

More Information

• Session Description
• Poster Session Agenda
• Oral Session Agenda 1
• Oral Session Agenda 2

USGS Presentation

• Ecotonal control on soil water fluxes in arid and semiarid regions, by Phillips, F.M., Walvoord, M.A., and Sandvig, R.

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The USGS Toxic Substances Hydrology Program's Amargosa Desert Research Site (ADRS), Nevada, conducts research on the movement of water and contaminants in desert environments. Much of the research at the site focuses on the critical role that plants have in the movement of water in desert unsaturated zones.

• Plume-scale testing of a simplified method for detecting tritium contamination in plants and soil, by Andraski, B.J., Halford, K.J., Johnson, M.J., Michel, R.L., and Radyk, J.C.
• Occurrence of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and elevated concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) in unsaturated zone vapors near a chemical and low-level radioactive waste disposal facility, Amargosa Desert Research Site, Nye County, Nevada, by Baker, R.J., Andraski, B.J., Walvoord, M.A., Stonestrom, D.A., Prudic, D.E., and Wentai Luo
• Modeling CO 2 and carbon-isotope dynamics in a deep unsaturated zone, by Walvoord, M.A., Prudic, D.E., Striegl, R.G., Stonestrom, D.A., and Parkhurst, D.
• Focused subsurface flow in the Amargosa Desert characterized by direct-current resistivity profiling, by Stonestrom, D.A., Abraham, J.D., Lucius, J.E., and Prudic, D.E.

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