The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is the federal government's primary science and natural-resource research agency. The USGS has no regulatory or land-management authority — its sole mission is to collect impartial scientific data, monitor conditions, and conduct research. It operates thousands of stream gauges, well monitors, and sampling stations that track real-time river flow, groundwater levels, and water quality.
USGS also monitors and issues alerts for active natural threats, produces topographic maps and elevation models, and study fish, wildlife health, invasive species, and habitat changes to support conservation and fisheries management — and assess the location, quality, and abundance of mineral, energy, and soil resources across the country.
Since the late 1990s the primary model or tool they use to estimate how pollutants (primarily nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus) move from the land into streams and rivers has been the SPARROW model. That stands for SPAtially Referenced Regression On Watershed attributes. New research details a new kind of SPARROW model that improves or extends the understanding of nutrient pollution by accounting for what's called 'storage lag' — meaning legacy nutrients stored in soils or groundwater for longer than one season before entering streams, and how those lagged nutrients are impacting water quality across the United States.
We learn more about this new model, and who will be using it from the USGS research hydrologist who led the study.
Guest:
Olivia Miller, Research Hydrologist with the US Geological Survey
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