The DOI matches its Crossref record.
Water-Quality Trends in the Nation's Rivers
Abstract
Water-quality records from two nationwide sampling networks now permit nationally consistent analysis of long-term water-quality trends at more than 300 locations on major U.S. rivers. Observed trends in 24 measures of water quality for the period from 1974 to 1981 provide new insight into changes in stream quality that occurred during a time of major changes in both terrestrial and atmospheric influences on surface waters. Particularly noteworthy are widespread decreases in fecal bacteria and lead concentrations and widespread increases in nitrate, chloride, arsenic, and cadmium concentrations. Recorded increases in municipal waste treatment, use of salt on highways, and nitrogen fertilizer application, along with decreases in leaded gasoline consumption and regionally variable trends in coal production and combustion during the period appear to be reflected in water-quality changes.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cited by
Eutrophication: impacts of excess nutrient inputs on freshwater, marine, and terrestrial ecosystems
Smith, V. H., Tilman, G. D., & Nekola, J. C. (1999) · Environmental Pollution · doi:10.1016/s0269-7491(99)00091-3 · Cited by 3,080
Eutrophication of U.S. Freshwaters: Analysis of Potential Economic Damages
Dodds, W. K., Bouska, W. W., Eitzmann, J. L., Pilger, T. J., Pitts, K. L., Riley, A. J., Schloesser, J. T., & Thornbrugh, D. J. (2009) · Environmental Science & Technology · doi:10.1021/es801217q · Cited by 1,576
Arsenic in Ground Water of the United States: Occurrence and Geochemistry
Welch, A. H., Westjohn, D. B., Helsel, D. R., & Wanty, R. B. (2000) · Groundwater · doi:10.1111/j.1745-6584.2000.tb00251.x · Cited by 893
Distribution of oxygen-18 and deuterium in river waters across the United States
Kendall, C., & Coplen, T. B. (2001) · Hydrological Processes · doi:10.1002/hyp.217 · Cited by 831
Hagy, J. D., Boynton, W. R., Keefe, C. W., & Wood, K. V. (2004) · Estuaries · doi:10.1007/bf02907650 · Cited by 623
Metadata
- Authors
- Smith, R. A., Alexander, R. B., & Wolman, M. G.
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 1987-03-27
- Volume
- 235
- Issue
- 4796
- Pages
- 1607-1615
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- OpenAlex
- W2069247693
- Cited by
- 471
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 68.23
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Water-Quality Trends in the Nation's Rivers. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1126/science.235.4796.1607
- The paper
- Smith, R. A., Alexander, R. B., & Wolman, M. G. (1987). Water-Quality Trends in the Nation's Rivers. Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.235.4796.1607
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
