FLOW 2015 Speaker Profiles
Robert A. (Bob) Metcalfe is a research scientist in the Aquatic Research and Monitoring Section, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry and Adjunct Professor, Environmental & Life Sciences Graduate Program, Trent University, Peterborough Ontario. He has also served as Director of the Institute for Watershed Science, Trent University. Bob has a Ph.D. in physical geography/hydrology and has been studying the effects of flow alteration by dams and waterpower facilities on physical riverine processes and river ecosystems since 2002. He is the lead author on the document Aquatic Ecosystem Assessments for Rivers, a framework to assess the effects of flow alteration on river ecosystems and has lead the development of the Streamflow Analysis and Assessment Software (SAAS), a tool used by agency staff and proponents to calculate and assess hydrological indicators as part of the framework. Bob has been a member of the Instream Flow Council since 2006, coauthored the current IFC strategic plan, and has been on the IFC Executive Committee and Region 5 Director since 2012.
Bastian Schmidt is an analytical ecologist with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. Based out of Trent University he has been working alongside government and academic aquatic research scientists since 2003. He holds a B.Sc. degree in Environmental Sciences from the University of Guelph and a GIS post-graduate certificate in Applied Geomatics from Sir Sandford Fleming College. His professional specialty is landscape-scale spatial analysis of river ecosystems, as well as stream flow and temperature time series analysis. His current projects include the creation of a provincial Aquatic Ecosystem Classification for Ontario, effects of network confluences and lakes on the habitat template of streams, and flow and temperature analysis and assessment methods, to name a few.
Tom Annear is the water management program supervisor for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and helped implement their instream flow program. He has led or assisted with studies that led to filing over 130 instream flow water rights and conducted or coordinated aquatic impact assessments for every major water development project in the state since 1983. He helped form and chairs the department’s water rights management team that addresses the acquisition, disposal, and management of water rights on Game and Fish Commission lands. Mr. Annear is a co-founder of the Instream Flow Council (IFC), served as that organization’s first president, and is an active member of the Executive Committee. He is the senior author of the book Instream Flows for Riverine Resource Stewardship (2004), is a co-author of the book Integrated Approaches to Riverine Resource Stewardship: Case Studies, Science, Law, People, and Policy (2008), and was the project leader for IFC’s International Instream Flow Program Initiative (2009) that assessed the status and effectiveness of state and provincial fish and wildlife agency instream flow programs in the U.S. and Canada. He has written numerous scientific publications and popular articles on river management; been an invited speaker at numerous national and international symposia; and helped address instream flow issues on a variety of projects in the U. S., Canada, and Europe.
Ian Chisholm supervises the Stream Habitat Program within the Division of Ecological and Water Resources, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. He earned his masters degree in Fisheries Science from the University of Wyoming in 1985. Since then, Ian has worked extensively to incorporate science and ecological principles into freshwater management, at every level, from field data collection, to policy, and management philosophy. The Stream Habitat Program (SHP) reflects these efforts and his leadership, focusing on everything from providing stream training courses, exploration of fish habitat associations, mussel surveys and propagation, stream geomorphology studies and restorations, to groundwater/surface water management, and developing and delivering an online watershed health assessment tool for resource managers . Ian is an active IFC member since its inception, having served on the IFC Steering Committee from 1995 to 1998, has served as Regional Director for the IFC, and chaired one of the two subcommittees that produced the book, Instream Flows for Riverine Resource Stewardship (2004), and is currently the Minnesota Governing Council Representative.
Nina Burkardt is a Research Social Scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Fort Collins, CO. She began her career as part of the Instream Flow Group of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, while in a Master’s program at Colorado State University (Political Science; Environmental Policy concentration; 1992). Her research focuses on negotiation, conflict resolution, and institutional analysis in the context of environmental management issues. She has a long-standing interest in water resource management and the social and political dynamics surrounding decisions about water use and allocation. As an Honorary Member of the Instream Flow Council, she was one of the authors of Instream Flows for Riverine Resource Stewardship (2004). Nina has taught Natural Resource Negotiation classes for federal, state, and local practitioners since 1992. She has published research papers in a number of journals, including Environmental Management, Water Resources Bulletin, Wildlife Society Bulletin, Environmental Practice, and Environmental Impact Assessment Review.
Lance Gunderson was born and raised in southern Florida. He attended the University of Florida, receiving bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Botany and a Ph. D. in Environmental Engineering Sciences. He worked for over a decade as a botanist with the US National Park Service in the Big Cypress and the Everglades regions of southern Florida. He then worked for a decade as a research scientist in the Dept. of Zoology at the University of Florida. He was the founding chair of the Department of Environmental Studies at Emory University from 1999-2005. He has served as the executive director of the Resilience Network, as Vice Chair of the Resilience Alliance and on the Science Advisory Board of the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center, and Chair of the National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council Committee on Ecological Impacts of Road Density. He has authored or co-authored numerous books and journal articles, including: Panarchy: Understanding transformations in human and natural systems (Island Press 2002), and Identifying Legal, Ecological and Governance Obstacles and opportunities for Adapting to Climate Change (Sustainability 2014). He is also Co-Editor in Chief of the online journal Ecology and Society (www.ecologyandsociety.org). In 2007 he was named a Beijer Fellow, of the Beijer Institute for Ecological Economics Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, (www.beijer.kva.se).
Dudley Reiser is a fisheries scientist and President of R2 Resource Consultants and has more than 39 years’ experience designing, implementing, and managing fisheries and aquatic ecology projects, and habitat and instream flow assessments. He has been involved in numerous technical studies related to water rights and defining instream flow needs for fish and aquatic habitats, as well as water resource development projects including water supply and hydroelectric facilities. This included a study that resulted in development of the North Coast regional draft instream flow policy for California State Water Resources Control Board, as well as detailed studies related to three major state adjudications (two in Idaho and one in Oregon) involving instream flow and federal reserve water rights. Since 2012, he has been leading the instream flow studies as part of the FERC licensing activities for Alaska Energy Authority’s proposed Susitna-Watana Project in Alaska. Dr. Reiser has authored chapters in six books and numerous publications in peer reviewed journals. He is an American Fisheries Society Certified Fisheries Scientist, and has been an appointed member of Independent Science Panels dealing with critical regional fisheries issues.
Chandler Peter is the Regulatory Technical Specialist for the Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District, Regulatory Division. He has more than 25 years experience in aquatic resource regulation and analysis with the Corps, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He has overseen, directed, and supported the evaluation of numerous water resources with significant effects to aquatic resources, including major reservoir development, in the Rocky Mountain Region, state of Texas and other parts of the nation. He is a graduate of Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi where he earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biology.
Larry Wasserman (B.A., Biology, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1976; M.S., Fisheries, University of Washington, 1984) is Environmental Policy Director for the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, advocating for the protection of natural resources and specifically for the protection and restoration of fisheries habitat throughout the Tribes’ usual and accustomed fishing areas, with emphasis on the Skagit River watershed, which is the third largest river in the western United States and contains wild populations of all six species of Pacific salmon. In addition to his work with forest practices, water rights and land use, he served as a member of tribal negotiating teams involved in State-wide negotiations associated with instream flows, forest practices, and agricultural practices. Much of his work has been focused on developing mechanisms to protect Tribal natural resources, including work to ensure climate change is addressed in government decision-making. This work includes discussions and negotiations with elected leaders at the local, State and Federal levels, with local and statewide business, recreational, and environmental interests, and with other Tribes and Tribal organizations. This work includes the development of management strategies to protect and restore Tribal resources through collaborative as well as legal means.
Mr. Wasserman has partnered with authors on articles related to salmon and steelhead sustainability. His graduate work involved investigations of coho habitat in the Toutle River watershed immediately following the eruption of Mount St. Helens. In 2001 he and John Hollowed wrote “A Critique of the Washington States’ Instream Resource Protection Laws and Regulations,” a Center for Natural Resource Policy Report. His career has focused on science and policy of restoring and protecting salmon and steelhead in Washington State. As the Yakama Nation’s Environmental Services Director he oversaw environmental protection of fisheries resources for the Columbia River Watershed and its tributaries above Bonneville Dam within Washington State. Mr. Wasserman was a negotiator in the Timber, Fish and Wildlife Agreement, which was a negotiated agreement between the State of Washington, the Washington Forest Practices Association, Washington Farm Forestry Association, Washington State Indian Tribes, and several environmental organizations. This agreement resulted in increased protection for fisheries resources affected by Washington State’s Forest Practices rules. He was also involved in the establishment of the Hanford Reach National Monument on the Columbia River, which provided permanent protection for the last free flowing section of the Columbia River.
Keith Clarke is currently the section head of a research group that aims to understand ecosystem and habitat change on fisheries resources. He works with Fisheries and Oceans Canada and is based in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. Current and past research interests have included the effects of forestry and hydroelectric development on salmonid resources through which he has been involved with ecological flow assessments. Recently he has been involved with two major science/policy initiatives within Canada. The first initiative, which will be the focus of his Flow 2015 talk, was to co-chair a national science advisory meeting that aimed to develop a national framework for assessing ecological flows to protect fisheries resources in Canada. Subsequent to the release of this flow advice, Canada introduced some changes to its Fisheries Act which will change the way it protects fish habitat. Mr. Clarke has been part of the team developing the science advice to implement these changes and it is through this lens that the ecological flow advice will be presented.
Dave Rosgen, Hydrologist/Geomorphologist, Ph.D., Principal of Wildland Hydrology in Fort Collins, Colorado, with field experience in river work spanning 50 years. Dave has designed and implemented over 70 large-scale river restoration projects. Dave developed a stream classification system, the BANCS streambank erosion model, the FLOWSED/POWERSED sediment transport models, the WARSSS methodology for cumulative watershed assessment, and a geomorphologic approach to Natural Channel Design restoration methodology. Dave utilizes his extensive experience to conduct short courses in watershed management, river morphology, restoration, and wildland hydrology applications. Dave has also authored two textbooks, Applied River Morphology (1996) and Watershed Assessment of River Stability and Sediment Supply (WARSSS) (2006) and over 70 reports and articles in research journals, symposia, and federal agency manuals.
Clair B. Stalnaker has been a key player in the instream flow arena for over 30 years – in research, method development and implementation, and policy. He organized and served as Leader of the Cooperative Instream Flow Service Group (and subsequent titles) under the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Geological Survey. The primary focus of this group was toward a holistic view of river science addressing the major components of instream flow management, namely hydrology, geomorphology, water quality, and aquatic biology and promoting instream flow regimes (incorporating intra- and inter-annual variability) rather than “minimum flows”. As a senior scientist with the U.S.G.S. he served as Chief of the River Systems Management Section, Midcontinent Ecological Science Center, Fort Collins, CO. He was Assistant Professor, Fisheries and Wildlife Science and Adjunct Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Utah State University from 1966 to 1976 and later as Adjunct Professor, Departments of Earth Resources and Fisheries and Wildlife, Colorado State University. He has authored publications focusing on the instream flow aspects of water allocation and river management. He was a member and contributor to two National Research Council committee reports: “Water Transfers in the West: Efficiency, Equity, and the Environment” and “Hydrology, Ecology, and Fishes of the Klamath River Basin”. He is an Honorary Life Member of the Instream Flow Council and was awarded the Instream Flow Council’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. Since 2004 he has served on the Science Advisory Board for the Trinity River Restoration Program, California. He remains involved with instream flow issues as a consultant and expert witness.
Kevin Mayes developed his interest for water and all things swimming growing up on the lakes and rivers in Oklahoma. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Oklahoma State University and then a Master’s in Aquatic Biology from Southwest Texas State University, San Marcos. Since 1989 he has worked for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department studying water quality and quantity needs across Texas, from prairie streams to rich spring-fed ecosystems in central Texas. Kevin currently coordinates the Department’s efforts in the implementation of the Texas Instream Flow Program, a multi-agency effort to determine environmental flow conditions needed to maintain a sound ecological environment in Texas’ rivers and streams. He provides technical guidance and expertise in evaluation of native fishes conservation, water development, and hydropower projects. Kevin represents Texas on the Instream Flow Council and is currently IFC President.
Beverly H. van Buuren is a nationally-recognized expert in quality assurance for the environmental sciences. Since 1998, she has partnered with government, academia, special interests, and the private sector to create, assess, and optimize their data collection efforts. The scope of these efforts includes fish population, food web, chemistry, field measurements, toxicity testing, instream flow, bioassessment, and algae. Ms. van Buuren works on behalf of new and existing programs, creating infrastructure, managing data, and assessing performance. Of particular importance has been her ability to unify disparate organizations, field and laboratory procedures, and study designs to create technically sound, comparable data packages for use in environmental decision-making. She has developed large-scale quality assurance programs for the State of California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife, State Water Resources Control Board, and the CalFED Bay-Delta Science Program.
Dennis Riecke received a BS degree in Fishery Biology and Aquatic Science from the University of Southwestern Louisiana in 1982 and a MS degree in Fisheries Management from Mississippi State University in 1985. He has worked as a District Fisheries Biologist for the Kansas Fish and Game Commission, as an Aquaculture Research Associate in Louisiana and for the past 26 years for the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks (MDWFP) as a fisheries biologist and a fisheries coordinator. His current duties include serving as Environmental Coordinator, representing MDWFP on the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality permit board; providing technical information on farm pond and aquatic plant management; helping communities enroll existing water bodies in a community fisheries program; commercial fishing issues; drafting or revising state laws and fisheries regulations; aquatic invasive species; and instream flow issues.
Ron Ptolemy is a registered professional biologist employed with the Ecosystems Branch of the Ministry of Environment, Victoria. He has provided data synthesis and models to management biologists and resource managers based on four decades of stock assessment integrated with specialized habitat surveys from across British Columbia. Ron works mainly on fluvial impact assessment, habitat restoration, habitat suitability curves, hydrology, inventory training, fish population dynamics, stream carrying capacity, fisheries assessment and sustainable water management. He now acts as the Province’s expert on fish flow needs and monitoring for BC Hydro’s Water Use Plan, independent power developments, and various local water-basin planning such as the Okanagan Lake Action Planning and Sooke Reservoir Expansion. His stream roots, first-hand knowledge and passion originate from fishing Vancouver Island streams since high school.
Todd Richards has been a fisheries biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife since 1992. His primary responsibilities include statewide fish community assessment, streamflow policy development and research, and aquatic habitat restoration. His educational background includes a B.S. in Wildlife Management from the University of Maine and an M.S. in Fisheries Science from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He served as the Instream Flow Council president from 2012-2014.
Andrew Paul has been working as an aquatic ecologist within western Canada for over 20 years. His work has encompassed the fields of conservation biology, community restoration, non-native species invasions, population ecology and river ecology. Andrew believes strongly in using quantitative techniques to aid in understanding ecological patterns or processes and has worked with the Theoretical Population Dynamics Group (University of Amsterdam), the Fisheries Centre (University of British Columbia) and continues to collaborate with ecologists at the universities of Alberta, Lethbridge and Calgary. Currently, Andrew works as the Provincial Environmental Flow Specialist for the Alberta Government.
Brian Richter has been a global leader in water science and conservation for more than 25 years. He is the Chief Scientist for the Global Freshwater Program of The Nature Conservancy, where he promotes sustainable water use and management with governments, corporations, and local communities. Brian has developed numerous scientific tools and methods to support river protection and restoration efforts, including the Indicators of Hydrologic Alteration software that is being used by water managers and scientists worldwide, and has written two books: Rivers for Life: Managing Water for People and Nature with Sandra Postel (Island Press, 2003) and Chasing Water: A Guide for Moving from Scarcity to Sustainability (Island Press, 2014).
Jonathan Kennen is the Lead Scientist for the Ecological Water Science component of the U.S. Geological Survey National Water Census (NWC) and is the Biological Specialist for the New Jersey Water Science Center. His ongoing research addresses integrated, multidisciplinary hydroecological investigations at the state, regional, and national level. Jonathan was a coauthor of the publication which introduced the Ecological Limits of Hydrologic Alteration (ELOHA) and was co-developer of the Hydroecological Integrity Assessment Process for determining suitable flows for streams. In support of his work on determining suitable environmental flows, he has studied the responses of fish and invertebrates to naturally and artificially modified flow regimes, urban land use effects, and climate change throughout the eastern United States. As part of the NWC, Jonathan is helping to develop tools and technical information to support stakeholder water availability and ecological water needs. Currently, this includes developing a hydrologic foundation of baseline hydrographs at ungaged locations, classifying rivers and streams into distinctive flow regime types, and the development of a user-driven and web-available hydroecological toolbox that serves streamflow statistics and biological data to stakeholders in support of flow-ecology modeling.
Angela Arthington is a world leader and researcher on environmental flow protection and restoration, river and watershed ecology, and the ecology of river fishes. Her recent book, Environmental Flows: Saving Rivers in the Third Millennium (2012), serves as a valuable landmark reference and guidebook to watershed ecology and management, with emphasis on the overriding influence of hydrological patterns and variability. She is Professor Emeritus in the Australian Rivers Institute at Griffith University, her academic home since 1975. She has had a lead role in the development and application of several environmental flow methods, including the Environmental Limits of Hydrologic Alteration (ELOHA), and has worked extensively in Australia’s arid Murray-Darling basin, in tropical Queensland rivers, and in southern African rivers.
Dave Murray is a principal and water resources lead for Kerr Wood Leidal (KWL) a prominent western Canada water infrastructure engineering consulting company. Dave is a professional engineer in British Columbia and Alberta and a certified professional in erosion and sediment control. Throughout his 28 year career he has focused on sustainable water management planning and design and is currently National President Elect for the Canadian Water Resources Association (CWRA), which promotes Effective Water Management through Sustainability. Dave has been involved in numerous award winning enhancement projects such as Daylighting Thain Creek (2000) in North Vancouver and the Stoltz Bluff Stabilization (2007) on the Cowichan River on Vancouver Island. Dave has spent most of his career working with local governments, provincial governments, First Nations and Industrial clients in the areas of flood protection planning, design and construction of mitigation with a focus on bioengineering and stream enhancement. The journey of his career has taken him from municipal employee to trusted advisor consultant where he has observed the “Hydro-illogical Cycle” at work and what he likes to call the “Political Return Period” for flood risk planning. He is a strong advocate for risk-based solutions and policy in Canada for managing our water resources rather than a simple one size fits all standard. The risk-based approach can allow our limited resources to be used to make the greatest positive impact to protect streams and public safety.
Stuart Orr’s work explores the role of the private sector with regard to development and specifically water-related issues. He has published mainly on water measurement, agricultural policy and water-related risk with some specific work on food, water and energy in relation to biofuels and dam development. As well as supporting water and business related forums such as the UN CEO Water Mandate and the World Economic Forum, he sits on a number of sustainability boards and initiatives, and oversees a growing team within the World Wildlife Federation dedicated to implementing water stewardship projects with the private sector in a number of key river basins. Stuart earned an MSc in Environment and Development from the School of International Development at the University of East Anglia, and is currently based in Switzerland.
Michael Spencer has worked at the interface between business, nature and society for the past 20 years. He is Chair of the global Alliance for Water Stewardship and Secretary of Water Stewardship Australia. He is a former Head of Marketing and Communication at the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) International and was the founding CEO of the FSC in Australia. He was the first Head of Corporate Citizenship at National Australia Bank, served as Vice President Communication at BHP Billiton and Senior Advisor to the Premier of Victoria. He is a Fellow in the Department of Business Law and Taxation at Monash University, teaches financial communication at RMIT University, is Director of two private companies and President of the Strathbogie Ranges Conservation Management Network.
Robin Gregory is a Senior Researcher at Decision Research and Director of Value Scope Research, a small consulting firm. Robin is also an adjunct professor in the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia. Selected courses he has taught include, environmental risk management, decision analysis, and stakeholder participation and conflict resolution. He leads research projects and workshops for government, industry, and First Nations on structured decision making, risk management, the conduct of deliberative groups, and techniques for eliciting preferences and addressing difficult tradeoffs. Robin has authored over 85 peer-reviewed articles, numerous book chapters and the book: Structured decision making: A practical guide to environmental management choices (Wiley-Blackwell 2012).
Thomas Hardy holds a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering, B.S. and M.S. degrees in Biology and a B.S. in Secondary Education. He is a Professor in the Department of Biology at Texas State University and holds the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment (MCWE) Endowed Professorship for Environmental Flows and is the Chief Science Officer at MCWE. Dr. Hardy was the Director of the Institute for Natural Systems Engineering for 21 years and the Associate Director of the Utah Water Research Laboratory for 10 years at Utah State University. He is also the Past-President of the Ecohydraulics Section of the International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research. Dr. Hardy oversees a wide array of multidisciplinary research on the development, testing, validation, and application of assessment methodologies in aquatic systems. His research spans use of unmanned autonomous vehicles for remote sensing and image processing, aquatic ecosystems modeling, aquatic vegetation and macroinvertebrate dynamics, river and reservoir water quantity modeling and distributed watershed modeling. He is also active in the evaluation of fresh water inflows on bay and estuary health and recreation based impacts to aquatic macrophytes and macroinvertebrate communities. He is an internationally recognized expert in instream flow assessments.
Tom Payne started his involvement in fisheries resources with Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in fisheries biology from Humboldt State University. After a brief stint in the private sector conducting toxicity bioassays, he started work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service helping Native American tribes with implementation of new fisheries management responsibilities under the Boldt and related court decisions in Washington and California. In a few years, Tom was assigned to be the Washington State coordinator for FERC hydropower licensing activities, where he first received training in the Instream Flow Incremental Methodology. In 1982, Tom moved back to his hand-built redwood house in Arcata and started a fisheries consulting business. Specializing in hydropower and water rights, he participated in well over five hundred instream flow studies using many different environmental flow approaches. Projects included fish population sampling, habitat mapping, hydraulic measurements, habitat use analyses, computer programing, water temperature modeling, license applications, agency negotiations, and expert witness testimony. Now with Normandeau Associates, Tom often conducts professional training in environmental flow, has made numerous presentations before professional societies, written several papers on the topic of instream flow, and is on his third version of environmental flow analysis software.
William J. Miller, President and Senior Aquatic Ecologist at Miller Ecological Consultants, Inc, has over 35 years experience in fisheries, instream flow, and aquatic ecology studies. He has worked extensively throughout the western U.S. Dr. Miller’s experience includes research and evaluations for several threatened, endangered, and candidate aquatic species in the Columbia River, Colorado River, Missouri River and Platte River basins. He has extensive experience in designing and conducting studies using the Instream Flow Incremental Methodology (IFIM), instream water temperature modeling and developing and implementing ecological models for aquatic systems. Dr. Miller is a former member of the USFWS Instream Flow Group. He is co-author on the Stream Network Temperature Model, Instream Flow Information Paper 16. Dr. Miller developed a GIS based methodology for determining flow/habitat relationships for aquatic species using 2 dimensional hydraulic modeling and habitat evaluations.
Dorian Turner has 10 years of experience working in fisheries and aquatic science in western Canada. He currently works with BC Hydro in Generation Operation and Maintenance as a biologist in the Bridge River area, British Columbia. Dorian completed Master’s research which investigated the influence of uncertainties in an instream flow assessment method that is based on physical habitat (the British Columbia Instream Flow Methodology).
James Peterson is the Assistant Unit Leader and Associate Professor of Oregon Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at Oregon State University. His research centers on multi-scale modeling of aquatic populations, monitoring and population estimation, and their application to natural resource decision-making. He also recently published a book titled “Decision making in natural resource management: a structured, adaptive approach” that was recently recognized as one of the best professional and scholarly publications in Environmental Science in 2013 by the Association of American Publishers.
Christopher Estes is an Aquatic Habitat and Resources Scientist and has been contributing to international instream flow and water level conservation science, technical, legal and policy solutions for the past 40+ years. He currently consults on instream flow and water level conservation projects and serves on national and international advisory panels in addition to active participation in professional organizations. He is the founder and former Chief of the Statewide Aquatic Resources Coordination Unit for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. He has authored and coauthored numerous instream flow and water level conservation related publications. Christopher played a key role in the development of the 2006 National Fish Habitat Action Plan (NFHAP) adopted by the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, U.S. Department of Interior and U.S. Department of Commerce. He continues to support implementation of NFHAP by the National Fish Habitat Board, its Science and Data Committee, and Fish Habitat Partnerships. He has participated in the governance of the Instream Flow Council (IFC) as a Director at Large through its Executive Committee from its formation to the present. He co-chaired the National Instream Flow Assessment (NIFPA) project that lead to the formation of the IFC. Christopher was awarded the IFC Making A Difference Award in 2008 and an IFC Honorary Lifetime Membership in 2011.
Last Updated May 3, 2019