For more than a century, the United States Geological Survey, or the USGS, has served as the nation's largest earth science research agency. Today, the USGS continues its long-standing tradition of providing reliable, impartial scientific information about the earth and its resources...to help America respond effectively to a changing world. A primary objective of the USGS is to collect and make available scientific data that enable decision-makers to create sound environmental and economic policies. USGS researchers blend expertise from several scientific areas to answer complicated questions that affect all people. The USGS, with expertise in biology, mapping, geology, geography, water, and computer information systems merges scientific expertise to answer our nation's questions about natural resources. The USGS plans and uses scientific methods that bring together data from many different areas of science. This integrated science approach makes it possible to solve issues too complex for any one area of science. Integrated science studies involving geology, water, geography, mapping, and biology are at the heart of USGS activities. Such coordinated research efforts enable the USGS to deal effectively with diverse issues, such as restoring lands around abandoned mines, tracking urban dynamics in large metropolitan areas, and monitoring changes in fragile ecosystems such as the Florida everglades. The everglades...a south Florida ecosystem seriously threatened by human activities. The USGS is working to restore environmental balance in the everglades. Knowledge gained from both biological and earth science research is vital to USGS scientists attempting to distinguish between natural and human-induced changes in this unique ecosystem. One of the basic problems is if you have scientists working essentially in a vacuum, or with little communication, then you cannot make as much progress, because each one has to understand the other. So the integrated aspect of the program is to make sure that everybody is working together as a team. Maps have long been synonymous with the USGS. Cartographers and scientists from a variety of disciplines work together to collect and compile data about our planet's natural and human-made features. They then use computers and other technologies to create both graphic and electronic, or digital, maps and images. Such state-of-the-art map products are essential tools for solving today's complex environmental and economic problems. These problems are being addressed today in large urban growth areas, such as the San Francisco bay. Many of the issues that are faced in urban environments involve things like a loss of wildlife habitat, or a fragmentation of wildlife, which directly relates to biologic studies. Geologic hazards must take into consideration the location of people and where people may or may not be moving in the future. And water quality is severely impacted and changed by what's happening on the land. The USGS studies many geologic processes that affect human interaction with the earth. One such study involves the cleanup of federal lands affected by abandoned hardrock mining activities. The USGS abandoned mine lands initiative first identifies contaminated sites. Cleanup efforts are then based on the effects individual abandoned mine lands have on water resources. Two watersheds, the boulder river basin, in southwest Montana, and the upper animas river basin in southwest Colorado, are serving as the first study areas. Mining has a large legacy in the western u.s., and it's impacted probably 40% of the watersheds in the western states. And drinking water supplies are a precious resource. This is largely an arid region. Cleaning up and making clean water supplies available to the public and preserving recreation and aquatic habitats is, of course, a very important resource in the west for economic development. As you can see, no single branch of science can provide all the answers to the diverse scientific issues we face in today's complex society. That's why USGS scientists from many different disciplines work together to understand ecosystems such as the seemingly rugged, but surprisingly sensitive, Mojave desert. We can provide advice on what features might be most appropriate to map in a particular area. We can combine the information we have with the soils data, the hydrologic data, or the geological data for interpretation so that we can do a better job of interpreting some of the complex features of the landscape. Understanding how human uses affect national treasures like the Mojave Desert. Modeling water flow across the everglades. Monitoring urban changes in the San Francisco bay area. Cleaning up abandoned mine lands in America's west. These are just a few examples of how the USGS uses integrated science to better understand by combining expertise from a variety of scientific disciplines such as geology, mapping, water, and biology. The USGS is making a difference in the quality of life of all Americans.
