Large-scale climate features such as sea level pressures and sea surface temperatures have been shown to influence streamflows in regions around the world. We examined the influence of such features on total annual flows in a summertime glacial meltwater river, the Onyx River, in the ice-free McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. The 38-year Onyx record is the longest flow record for the continent. The study focused on the December-January climate features.

The Virginia Coast Reserve (VCR) is an extremely dynamic, heterogeneous coastal barrier landscape comprising mainland watersheds, tidal marshes, lagoons, and barrier islands. Our goal for the VCR LTER program is to develop a predictive understanding of the response of coastal barrier systems to long-term environmental changes in climate, sea level and land use, and to relate these to the ecological services the coastal barrier systems provide.

Urbanization is one of the major threats to stream ecosystems worldwide. The phrase “urban stream syndrome” has been coined to describe patterns in degraded streams draining urban land. In Puerto Rico, urbanization now covers 16% of the island. The fully protected Luquillo Experimental Forest (focus of the LUQ-LTER) is only 23 km from the center of San Juan, a city of 1.3 million. Therefore, LUQ is assessing the impacts of urbanization on tropical stream ecosystem structure and function.

Reach scale experiments have shown that transient storage (TS) zones may be important controls on dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) export to coastal waters. Here, we investigated the relative impact that main channel (MC), surface TS (STS) and hyporheic TS (HTS) have on DIN removal at the network scale using a DIN removal model applied to the Ipswich River in Massachusetts, USA.

The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a national-scale research platform for assessing the impacts of climate change, land-use change, and invasive species on ecosystem structure and function.

Long-term data from the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest show that air temperature has increased by 1-1.5 °C over the last half century. While more variable, annual precipitation has also increased by 19-26% during the same period. These changes in climate influence streamflow, which provides an integrated climate signal that incorporates physical (snowpack, evaporation) and biological (evapotranspiration) responses. Unlike the western United States, water is generally abundant in the Northeast.

Climate warming in western North America is expected to result in reduced snowpack, earlier melt, and increased evapotranspiration.  Consequently a shift toward a greater proportion of streamflow earlier in the water year with diminished spring and summer streamflows is anticipated.  However, few datasets exist of streamflow with associated climate and vegetation records adequate to interpret changes in climate, forest processes, and their consequences for streamflows.  This study examines trends in long-term streamflow records from three headwater catchments in old growth f

 In areas containing seasonal snowpacks, snowmelt contributes significantly to the hydrological cycle. Thus, quantifying the spatial distribution of flow through a snowpack is essential to accurate hydrograph interpretation and representation in snowmelt runoff modeling. Movement of liquid water through snowpacks is generally recognized to occur in distinct flow paths rather than as uniform flow through a homogeneous porous medium.

Land development practices result in compacted soils that filter less water, increase surface runoff and decrease groundwater infiltration. However, until now, there has been relatively little study of how hydrologic properties of lawns differ according to residential character such as year built or percent canopy cover. This study examines how soil infiltration rates and water retention properties of residential lawns differ according to social and physical factors that are readily attainable from national data sources.