NASA satellites have detected a vast pulse of warm water reaching the coast of South America, signaling that El Niño is likely developing. The warm water is being carried eastward by massive ocean waves known as Kelvin waves, which also...Read more

For many Idahoans, the Teton River is forever linked to one fateful day: June 5, 1976. That morning, the Teton Dam catastrophically failed during its initial filling, unleashing a wall of water that devastated downstream communities and changed lives in...Read more

The broken dam In a small village in the Catskill Mountains, the century-old Lake Jefferson Dam still stands, crumbling. This seemingly innocuous dam has the potential to cause a fatal flood if it fails. Its spillway, completed in 1926, is...Read more

In California’s Central Valley, a river can look alive and still be starving. The San Joaquin winds through farmland and former floodplain country, but for much of the last century, it has been cut off from the seasonal flooding that...Read more

The world’s oceans are rising at an accelerating pace, and scientists now say they can fully explain what’s driving it. Warming seawater is the biggest factor, while melting glaciers and polar ice sheets are increasingly pouring more water into the...Read more

Runoff from a high-intensity storm during the 2022 McKinney Fire depleted oxygen in the Klamath River to levels lethal to fish, killing aquatic life along nearly 60 miles of one of California's most culturally significant waterways, according to a U.S....Read more

Coral reefs along Hawaiʻi’s Kona Coast have undergone major declines over the past two decades, according to a new report from USGS and the National Park Service (NPS).Read more

Acadia National Park has had stronger and more frequent precipitation events in recent years, leading to a rise in high, infrastructure-damaging streamflows (flood flows), stream erosion, and costly impairments to historic carriage roads and trails.Read more

Most students at the University of California, Santa Barbara pass this place every day without fully realizing how special it is.  Just beyond campus sits Coal Oil Point Reserve and Devereux Slough, a tidal wetland shaped by shifting water and a surprising abundance of life. What might look like an open stretch of land from a distance is actually a dynamic, water-connected landscape.  We asked UCSB students what this place means to them. “It just feels like a quiet break from everything, even if you’re right next to campus.” — UCSB Environmental Studies Student  More Than Open Space  Coal Oil...Read more

Beneath the beauty of coral reefs lies a hidden universe of microbes unlike anything scientists expected. Each coral species supports its own specialized microbial partners, many of which have never been studied before. These microbes produce a stunning variety of...Read more

PAGE, Ariz. – In the span of U.S. history certain years are turning points, milestones in the nation’s story. 1776. 1865. 1929. 1968. Circumstance and consequence conspire to make it so. For the Colorado River and those who rely on...Read more

Voters throughout the West continue to care deeply about the protection of clean water and public lands as well as the wildlife habitats they contain.  The values protected by Wild and Scenic Rivers are the same values that Western voters consistently...Read more

A river with deep local meaning  The Myakka River is woven into everyday life in Sarasota County, Florida, with sunny mornings on the water, fishing, and paddling along the gentle waters with the occasional manatee sighting, if you’re lucky. Like all rivers, its...Read more

A new study from USGS uses strontium isotopes and mixing models to determine the provenance of terrestrial sediment clouding an ecologically important bay in southwestern Puerto Rico, offering a clearer path for restoration efforts aimed at protecting coastal waters and...Read more

Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey’s St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center (SPCMSC) and the University of Miami have launched a new collaborative effort to support the National Park Service (NPS) in restoring endangered corals within Dry Tortugas National...Read more