Surface Water and Sediment Studies
USGS employee recording high water marks after the June 2008 floods in Wisconsin.
The Surface Water and Sediment Studies team provides the critical information to local, state, national, and international managers necessary for making decisions regarding laws and regulations, urban development planning, and remediation activities.
Surface water is water on the Earth's surface that flows in lakes, bays, rivers, streams, springs, ponds, reservoirs, wetlands, marshes, canals, and other natural or artificial systems. Surface water excludes water in treatment systems, geothermal water and falling precipitation. Although surface water and ground water are interconnected, projects that have surface water as the primary focus are grouped here.
The Surface Water and Sediment Studies Team encompasses a variety of projects that involve monitoring or modeling of the quantity and/or quality of surface-water runoff. The products of these efforts provide critical information to local, state, national, and international managers necessary for making decisions regarding laws and regulations, urban development planning, and remediation activities.
The Fluvial Geomorphology Studies have focused on monitoring and evaluating stream restoration or erosion-control techniques, land conservation practices, or aquatic habitat improvements. In addition, we have also conducted floodplain sedimentation and stratigraphy studies, surveys of geomorphic distribution of legacy contaminants in impoundments and millponds, sediment budgets, and sediment source studies.
The
Regional Flood-Frequency Study for Wisconsin is currently being updated to include the June 2008 historic flooding. The data for the 2003 study is available at the Flood Frequency web page.
Surface-water data is collected and loaded into the National Water Information System (NWIS). NWIS is a very large collection of data and information on the water resources of the United States containing current and historical water data from more than 1.5 million sites across the nation.
Surface water and sediment team projects involve monitoring or modeling of the quantity of surface-water runoff and its effects.
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