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John F. Ficke

Publications and source records attributed to John F. Ficke.

8 recordsLinked to original sources
USGS1977

Quality of rivers of the United States, 1974 water year: based on the National Stream Quality Accounting Network (NASQAN)

The National Stream Quality Accounting Network (NASQAN) was established by the U.S Geological Survey to determine and compare the quality at key locations on the Nation 's major rivers. There are 345 stations in the network--data from the first 101 of these (those operating during the 1974 water year) are summarized in this report. Temperature data from NASQAN stations have been summarized for each station. At most stations the harmonic provides an estimate of daily temperatures with a standard error of estimate of 2.5 degrees C or less. According to 1974 water-year data summarized from NASQAN operations, water quality of the rivers of the United States is best (by most standards) in the Northeast, Southeast, and Northwest. Waters there generally are low in dissolved solids and major and minor chemical constitutents, generally are soft (except in Florida), and carry relatively small amounts of sediment. However, many of these waters carry moderate or high levels of major nutrients and have correspondingly high populations of attached and floating plants. High counts of indicator bacteria also show signs of local pollution at some sites. Rivers of most of the Midcontinent and Southwest are characterized by moderate to high levels of dissolved major and minor constituents, sediment, major nutrients, and biota (floating and attached aquatic plants and indicator bacteria. (Woodard-USGS)

Open-File Report↗
USGS1977

Quality of rivers of the United States, 1975 water year; based on the National Stream Quality Accounting Network (NASQAN)

The National Stream Quality Accounting Network (NASQAN) was established by the U.S. Geological Survey to provide a nationally uniform basis for continuously assessing the quality of U.S. rivers. Stations generally are at the downstream end of hydrologic accounting units in order to measure the quantity and quality of water flowing from the units. The 1975 water year was the first year of operation of the network that represents essentially all of the accounting units and thereby describes the water- quality of the entire country. Data are available on a large number of water-quality constituents measured at 345 stations during the 1975 water year. Temperature data (usually continuous or daily measurements) from NASQAN stations were fitted to a first order harmonic equation and the parameters for the harmonic function are reported for each station. Mean temperatures generally range from 5°-10°C in the North to more than 20°C along the southern border of the continental United States and in Hawaii and Puerto Rico; means were less than 10°C at 63 stations and greater than 25°C at only 7 stations. Amplitudes of the temperature curves are greatest (greater than 12°C) for the streams at midlatitudes and in the Great and Central Plains, and they are smallest for the subtropical and cold-climate streams. Considering chemical and biological characteristics of U.S. streams as described by NASQAN data, water quality is best (by many standards) in the Northeast, Southeast, and Northwest. Waters there generally are low in dissolved solids and major and minor chemical constituents, generally are soft (except in Florida), and carry relatively small amounts of sediment. These conditions mainly reflect the geology of the regions and the relatively large amounts of precipitation. However, many of these waters show the effects of pollution and carry moderate or high levels of major nutrients and have correspondingly high populations of attached and floating plants. High counts of indicator bacteria also show signs of local pollution, particularly in regions of the country with large human and animal populations. In the Northeast, some heavy metals are at moderate levels, but not above most water-quality criteria. Rivers of most of the Mid-Continent and Southwest reflect the arid or semi-arid climate, erodible soils, and agricultural activities. They are characterized by moderate to high levels of dissolved major and minor constituents, sediment, major nutrients, and biota (floating and attached aquatic plants and indicator bacteria). In addition, the most incidences of pesticides in stream and bottom sediments were found in these regions. A special analysis was made to study the patterns of dissolved solids, major nutrients, phytoplankton, and zinc in the Mississippi River above Memphis, Tennessee. It was found that flow volume is an important factor in influencing river quality, and that stations with low concentration of major nutrients generally had low phytoplankton populations as well.

Open-File Report↗
USGS1977

Evaporation from seven reservoirs in the Denver water-supply system, central Colorado

Seven reservoirs in central Colorado, operated by the Denver Board of Water Commissioners, were studied during 1967-73 to determine evaporation losses. These reservoirs, Elevenmile Canyon, Dillon, Gross, Antero, Cheesman, Williams Fork, and Ralston, are located on both sides of the Continental Divide. Methods for computing evaporation include energy-budget, mass-transfer, and pan relationships. Three reservoirs, Elevenmile Canyon, Dillon, and Gross, had mass-transfer coefficients calibrated by energy-budget studies. At the remaining reservoirs, an empirical technique was used to estimate the mass-transfer coefficient. The enery-budget-calibrated methods give the most accurate evaporation values; the empirical coefficients give only a best estimate of evaporation. All reservoirs should be calibrated by energy-budget studies. The pan method of computing evaporation is the least reliable method because of problems of advected energy through the sides of the pan, representative pan exposure , and the irregularity of ratios of reservoir to pan evaporation. (Woodard-USGS)

Water-Resources Investigations Report↗
USGS1977

Ice on rivers and lakes: a bibliographic essay

Ice on rivers and lakes has many important influences on design and construction of structures, operation of shipping, flow and circulation, water quality, and other factors related to the use of the water resources. Human interest in understanding these influences has led to many programs of data collection, research, and investigations for a century or more. The body of literature reporting on these studies includes several thousand items in textbooks, proceedings, journals, and technical reports. By far, the largest part of the studies were in the United States, Canada, and the Soviet Union. For the sake of this bibliography, the literature can be classified as dealing with basic characteristics of ice; freezing and melting processes and their prediction and control on rivers, and on lakes; effects of river and lake ice on navigation, flow, and structures; and influences of ice on chemical, biological, and the thermal characteristics of water quality. This bibliography cites about 750 publications dealing with ice. Literature prior to the mid 1960's is summarized in several earlier bibliographies, and therefore this paper concentrates mainly on work over the past decade or so, plus some background from a few earlier reports. The body of literature is large, and this bibliography is not exhaustive; it does provide, however, a representative cross section of the scope of recent work in the field.

Water-Resources Investigations Report↗
USGS1975

Water temperature-influential factors, field measurement, and data presentation

This manual contains suggested procedures for collecting and reporting of water-temperature data on streams, lakes and reservoirs, estuaries, and ground water. Among the topics discussed are the selection of equipment and measuring sites, objectives and accuracy of measurements, and data processing and presentation. Background information on the influence of temperature on water quality and the factors influencing water temperature are also presented.

Techniques of Water-Resources Investigations↗
USGS1972

Comparison of evaporation computation methods, Pretty Lake, Lagrange County, northeastern Indiana

Evaporation from Pretty Lake has been computed for a 2%- year period between 1963 and 1965 by the use of an energy budget, mass-transfer parameters, a water budget, a class-A pan, and a computed pan evaporation technique. The seasonal totals for the different methods are within 8 percent of their mean and are within 11 percent of the rate of 79 centimeters (31 inches) per year determined from published maps that are based on evaporation-pan data. Period-by-period differences among the methods are larger than the annual differences, but there is a general agreement among the evaporation hydrographs produced by the different computation methods. The energy budget was an excellent means of computing unbiased evaporation data for periods of a month or longer from June through September. It is not reliable in the springtime, when Bowen ratios are large and when the large changes in stored energy may be hard to measure accurately owing to errors in the capacity table. The need for sophisticated equipment, frequent temperature surveys, and complex computations makes the energy budget the most expensive of the several methods used. Effective use was made of the Koberg method in estimating long-wave radiation when accurate instrument records were not available. Effects of sediment heating and cooling were computed to have influenced evaporation as much as 0.03 cm day" 1 (centimeters per day) just after the autumnal overturn. The change is significant during the fall, when the evaporation for Pretty Lake is low, and would be more significant in a shallow lake, where the heat storage by the sediment would be large in proportion to the storage by the water. The corrected fall in stage computed by the water-budget method agreed well with the evaporation rates computed by other methods during the dryer seasons. Decreased rates of fall in stage during the wet seasons indicated net inflow seepage that was estimated to be equivalent to a stage change of more than 0.2 cm day" 1 at some times. Evaporation data based upon class-A pan records and computed pan evaporation were too large early in the season and too small late in the season. The differences were caused by energy storage, which affected the lake evaporation as energy was stored in the spring and released late in the season. Energy-storage effects can be corrected, but the corrections require some of the same expensive data that were used in the energy budget. The mass-transfer system proved to be an effective low-cost means of computing evaporation, a means that is well suited to low evaporation rates. The mass-transfer coefficient was determined to be 0.00560 cm hr day- 1 mile" 1 mb" 1 (centimeter per day per millibar per mile/hour), the relative standard error of the energy-budget calibration being about 6 percent. Springtime and autumn evaporation rates computed by the mass-transfer method were slightly higher than rates computed by other methods, and summer rates from mass-transfer computations were slightly lower than rates computed by other methods. Anemometer stalling is believed to have caused unreliable mass-transfer evaporation data during two periods having very low wind velocities. Assuming that Pretty Lake is typical of the many small natural lakes in its region, it is concluded that in most cases the evaporation information needed for hydrologic studies can be provided with satisfactory accuracy by a combination of the mass-transfer method and one or two other methods, without the expense of a complex energy-budget study. The different methods, although poor, agree that evaporation when there is ice cover is generally small (less than 0.1 cm day" 1 ), but the evaporation rates during the few days just before freezeup or just after ice breakup are significant

Indiana↗