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Filters: Tags: Natural Hazards (X) > partyWithName: John Wesley Powell Center for Earth System Analysis and Synthesis (X)

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It is well know that every earthquake can spawn others (e.g., as aftershocks), and that such triggered events can be large and damaging, as recently demonstrated by L’Aquila, Italy and Christchurch, New Zealand earthquakes. In spite of being an explicit USGS strategic-action priority (http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2012/1088; page 32), the USGS currently lacks an automated system with which to forecast such events and official protocols for disseminating the potential implications. This capability, known as Operational Earthquake Forecasting (OEF), could provide valuable situational awareness to emergency managers, the public, and other entities interested in preparing for potentially damaging earthquakes. With the various...
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Non-native insect invasions increasingly cause widespread ecological and economic damage in natural and agricultural ecosystems. Non-native insects specialized for feeding on specific plant groups are particularly problematic as they can potentially eliminate an entire genus of native plant species across a wide area. For example, emerald ash borer has killed hundreds of millions of ash trees in North America since its accidental introduction from Asia, including more than 99% of all trees in forests near the epicenter of the invasion. However, most introduced insects do not become high-impact pests. Our goal is to develop a framework that allows us to predict whether non-native herbivorous insects in natural ecosystems...
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The past decade has seen improvements in computational efficiency, seismic data coverage, and communication technology - driven by societal expectation for timely, accurate information. While aspects of earthquake research have taken advantage of this evolution, the adoption of improvements in earthquake monitoring has not been fully leveraged. In real-time monitoring, earthquakes are characterized in a vacuum, without building upon our knowledge of past events. New data types may help characterize earthquakes more quickly and accurately. New opportunities exist for rapidly communicating information. With these advances, global seismic monitoring can improve the quality and timeliness of information shared with...
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Sea-level rise and storms cause major changes on coastal landscapes, including shifts in elevation, ecosystem type (for example, dunes and tidal wetlands), soils, and plant communities. Because these changes can have impacts on human communities, the local economy, and ecosystems, understanding how, when, and why these changes occur can be important for informing policy and natural resource management decisions. However, much is still unknown in our understanding of and ability to forecast coastal landscape change, and many current modeling approaches do not include important feedbacks between the physical landscape and the species inhabiting it. Examples of these types of feedbacks include the rapid development...
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Despite the proven efficacy of geothermal energy as a city-scale heating and cooling resource, the relative newness of most city-scale applications using diverse technologies has resulted in limited widespread adoption. We aim to develop authoritative information suitable for city-managers and other decision-makers. Geothermal resources are ubiquitous and diverse, with technologies available both for harvesting ambient heat or for storing thermal energy. These local low-carbon, baseload energy sources provide resilience, security, and jobs. The project team proposes to accelerate understanding and possibly energy-solution adoption by developing an international systematic nomenclature to describe the range of...
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Despite the best monitoring networks, the highest rate of earthquakes and the longest continuous recorded history in the world, this year’s M=9.0 Tohoku, Japan, earthquake was completely unforeseen. The Japanese had expected no larger than a M=8 quake in the Japan trench, 1/30 th the size of the Tohoku temblor. This year also saw the devastating M=6.3 Christchurch, New Zealand earthquake and the M=5.8 Virginia quake, and it marks the bicentennial of the enigmatic but destructive 1811 - 1812 M~7 ½ New Madrid, Missouri, earthquakes, each event an example of how poorly we can forecast earthquake rates or their ultimate size in the planet’s vast intraplate regions far from plate boundaries. The goal of the Global...
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A revolution is underway in seismology that transforms fiber-optic cables into arrays of thousands of seismic sensors. Compared to the traditional monitoring networks using inertial seismometers, the fiber-optic approach can increase the spatial data density by orders of magnitude and enable data processing methodologies that require a high-fidelity wavefield. The Working Group aims to advance the USGS, along with several academic and industry partners, towards effective utilization of fiber-optic sensing techniques to understand earthquake hazards and improve monitoring and real-time warning systems. We will conduct synthesis studies that demonstrate the potential gains for various applications, including earthquake...
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The USGS “Did You Feel It” (DYFI) is an extremely popular way for members of the public to contribute to earthquake science and earthquake response. DYFI has been in operation for nearly two decades (1999-2019) in the U.S., and for nearly 15 years globally. During that period the amount of data collected is astounding: Over 5 million individual DYFI intensity reports—spanning all magnitude and distance ranges—have been amassed and archived. Several of these types of surveys have been developed by international seismological institutions as well and many of these institutions have implemented algorithms to interpret intensity evaluations automatically, as a rapid and easy way to obtain a geographical distribution...
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One of the grand challenges of Earth Surface Science and Natural Resource Management lies in the prediction of mass and energy transfer for large watersheds and landscapes. High resolution topography (lidar) datasets show potential to significantly advance our understanding of hydrologic and geomorphic processes controlling mass and energy transfer because they represent features at the appropriate fine scale on which surface processes operate. While lidar datasets have become readily available across the United States, challenges remain in extracting accurate and objective information relevant for hydrologic and geomorphic research, modeling, and prediction, as well as watershed management. We primarily focus our...
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The goal of this Powell Center Working Group is to produce a collection of vetted and standardized earthquake and landslide tsunami sources that can be used to produce the meaningful hazard assessment products required for effective tsunami hazard mitigation and risk reduction. The need for a set of realistic and consistent tsunami sources was identified as a high priority at a 2016 workshop between USGS scientists and the National Tsunami Hazards Mitigation Program (NTHMP). The Powell Center Working Group will include scientists from the USGS, NOAA, the NTHMP, academia, and consulting companies. Tsunamis are extreme events that have caused devastation worldwide over the past several decades. The tsunami from...
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The Cascadia Subduction Zone, located in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and southwestern British Columbia, has hosted magnitude ≥8.0 megathrust earthquakes in the geologic past, a future earthquake is imminent, and the potential impacts could cripple the region. Subduction zone earthquakes represent some of the most devastating natural hazards on Earth. Despite substantial knowledge gained from decades of geoscience research, the size and frequency of Cascadian earthquakes remain controversial, as do the physics of earthquake rupture, the effects of earthquake shaking, and the effect of resultant tsunamis. This translates into major uncertainties in earthquake hazard assessments that can lead to ineffective preparedness...
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Mercury (Hg) is a serious environmental problem that is impacting ecological and human health on a global scale. However, local and regional processes are largely responsible for producing methylmercury, which drives ecological risk. This is particularly true in western North America where the combination of diverse landscapes, habitat types, climates, and Hg sources may disproportionally impact the region relative to other areas in North America. Even with decades of regional Hg research and monitoring, there is still no holistic synthesis of the spatiotemporal patterns of Hg in abiotic and biotic resources across the region, nor has there been a formal, simultaneous analysis of the landscape, ecological and climatological...
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The three-dimensional (3D) form of the Earth’s surface results from both abiotic and biotic forces. Major abiotic forces, such as tectonic uplift, erosion, and climate, exert strong influence over land surface morphology. Biotic forces, including, significantly, humans, also shape the landscape, but often at different temporal and spatial scales and magnitudes than geologic forces. Because the processes shaping the land surface, as expressed in its topography, are ongoing, topographic change is ever present and is a factor that must be broadly considered in studies of natural and built environments. Remote sensing data, especially in the form of derived high-resolution measurements of the topography, have been widely...
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A vast number of the world’s volcanoes are unmonitored by ground-based sensors, yet constitute an important hazard to nearby residents and infrastructure, as well as air travel and the global economy. Satellite data provide a cost-effective means of tracking activity at such volcanoes. Unfortunately, satellite acquisitions are not optimized for application to volcano hazards, in part because clear relations between satellite-monitored unrest and eruptive activity are lacking. We aim to bridge this gap by developing linked global databases of satellite observations of volcanic activity, with the goal of relating surface change and volcanic emissions to eruption style and impact. This database (or databases) will...
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Terrestrial evapotranspiration (ET), the second-largest component of the terrestrial water cycle, links water, energy, and carbon cycles and influences the productivity and health of our ecosystems. Despite the importance of ET, the dynamics of ET across a spectrum of spatiotemporal scale and their controls are uncertain. During an international ET workshop held in November 2021 by AmeriFlux, the scientific community identified key challenges to improve our understanding of ET dynamics. Participants underscored the need for an integrated understanding of ET across the different research disciplines: in-situ measurements, remote sensing, and modeling. Here, we propose the synthesis of the three research areas to...
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Despite the critical services freshwater systems provide, freshwater biodiversity has been vastly under-studied compared to terrestrial and marine biomes. In fact, systematic compilations of freshwater zooplankton are surprisingly rare despite the critical roles zooplankton play in regulating and supporting ecosystem services, serving as key indicator species, and consequently, influencing emergent system properties such as water quality and food web structure. We have compiled and harmonized the most temporally and spatially extensive freshwater zooplankton dataset available to date, designed to seamlessly integrate with a suite of in-lake and remote sensing data and modeling products. Our international team will...
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Fluid injection induced seismicity has been reported since the 1960s. There are currently more than 150,000 injection wells associated with oil and gas production in 34 states in the conterminous US. Pore pressure disturbance caused by injection is generally considered the culprit for injection induced seismicity, but, not all injection causes seismicity. It is not well understood what mechanical and hydrologic conditions cause some sites to be more prone than others to seismicity. The objectives of this proposed research are to utilize existing data on fluid injection and seismicity to (1) identify spatial and temporal correlations between fluid injection and induced seismicity; (2) conduct a hydro-mechanical modeling...
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Subsurface preferential flow (PF = water bypassing the soil matrix) provides rapid flowpaths for water and any substances transported with it, thereby profoundly impacting the recharge of aquifers, the spreading of contaminants, the health of the soil, and the functioning of ecosystems. It involves a complexity of processes that are poorly understood to the degree that current science provides no reliable way to predict its occurrence and magnitude. This effort will address the fundamental question of where and when PF occurs, taking advantage of two recent scientific developments: availability of high frequency (at least every 30 minutes), multi-depth soil moisture data suitable to detect preferential flow events...