Resumes: Donald M. Anderson
Region 6 Water Resources, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service,
134 Union Blvd., Lakewood, Colorado 80228 USA
(303)236-4484 (w)(303)777-7633 (h)
donald_anderson --at-- fws.gov
AREAS OF EXPERTISE
- Hydrologic modeling and impacts assessment
- Water resources management for ecological benefits
- Riparian habitat physical processes
- Erosion and sediment control
- Technical report writing and editing
- Workshop organization
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Regional Hydrologist
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS)
134 Union Boulevard, Lakewood, Colorado 80228-1807
December 2000 - Present
I provide key hydrologic and planning support for a variety of Ecological Services activities in the eight-state Mountain-Prairie Region, primarily activities related to USFWS participation in the cooperative three-state (Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming) Platte River Recovery Program. My Platte River Program-related activities include:
- Adaptive management plan development -- assisting with development of an adaptive management plan for the first 13-year increment of the Platte River Recovery Program.
- Normative flow analysis -- implemented a pre- and post-reservoir flow analysis using the Indicators of Hydrologic Alteration (IHA) software package, for use in developing instream flow recommendations.
- Pulse flow analyses -- spearheaded a detailed study of operational flexibilities, including modified reservoir operations, that may be available to the Program to achieve pulse flows of desired magnitude, duration, and frequency.
- EIS analysis of proposed Program -- worked with a team of personnel from USFWS and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to prepare the environmental impact statement for the proposed Recovery Program (published 2006), incorporating detailed hydrologic analyses of existing and proposed water-use activities, including their effects on flow distributions, sediment mobilization, water quality, and riparian habitat conditions.
- Endangered Species Act (ESA) consultations -- regularly review proposed projects and land use changes in the Platte River basin to assess likely hydrologic and habitat effects locally and downstream.
Associate Scientist
Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES)
Campus Box 216, Boulder, Colorado 80309
May 1997 - June 1998, and February 1999 - December 2000
Involved in a wide range of hydrological/climatological research and research support activities with the CIRES research institute, including:
- Research into the dynamics of the North American Monsoon and associated watershed-scale hydrologic responses in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico;
- Customized software development (using C/C++, Fortran, and IDL) for hydrology and climatology research using remotely-sensed satellite data to investigate large-scale hydrologic and climate processes;
- Technical consultant in the development of the University of Colorado's "Western Water Assessment" NOAA research initiative.
Hydrologist
Wright Water Engineers, Inc.
2490 West 26th Avenue, Suite 100A, Denver, Colorado 80211
June 1998 - February 1999
As a staff hydrologist and GIS specialist, I took on a wide variety of hydrologic consulting assignments in Colorado, including:
- Developed 100-year-flood estimates for high-elevation, snowmelt-dominated drainages in Colorado;
- Helped develop a city ordinance (in partnership with the Silverthorne, Colorado planning department and the local land development community) to protect key community wetland resources in a high-elevation environment;
- Evaluated the potential water quality and streamflow impacts of proposed artificial snowmaking activities in a subalpine watershed;
- Provided technical support, debugging, troubleshooting and documentation for an ArcView interface to the HEC-RAS urban flood model;
- Modeled and mapped spatially-distributed hillslope erosion and sediment deposition dynamics at the Rocky Flats site in Colorado;
- Performed paleo-hydrologic field research at Mesa Verde National Park.
Senior GIS/RS Specialist
Information Systems Solutions International, Inc. (ISSI)
999 Eighteenth Street, Suite 1250 STW, Denver, Colorado 80202
September 1996 - May 1997
Responsible for coordinating the activities of a four-person GIS and remote sensing contract team, including project tracking, client coordination, and staff hiring. Implemented a variety of GIS support activities for EPA Region 8 using Arc/Info, ArcView, and ERDAS, including:
- Analysis and modeling of biological site risks at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal superfund site;
- Interpolation and analysis of soil contamination data;
- Production of publication-quality GIS maps of 15 layers of information for the Clear Creek, Colorado, "State-of-the-Watershed" Report.
Hydrologist and GIS Specialist
National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center, National Weather Service
1735 Lake Drive West, Chanhassen, Minnesota 55317
August 1994 - September 1996
As a physical scientist with the National Weather Service (NWS) Office of Hydrology, I was involved in a variety of activities to support NWS river forecast centers across the United States, including:
- Assisted with the refinement of snow accumulation and ablation models for the mountainous regions of the western United States and Canada;
- Responsible for the compilation, maintenance, and documentation of raster and vector geospatial data sets for the Center's hydrologic modeling and spatially-distributed snow estimation products;
- Co-developed the Integrated Hydrologic Analysis and Basin Boundary System (IHABBS) software system, which operates on gridded DEM and vectorized river reach data, and is currently being implemented at various NWS river forecast centers;
- Developed continuously-running Arc/Info macro to convert raw raster data and associated header information into snow data plot files and thematic map images for automated Web site distribution (www.nohrsc.nws.gov).
Land Use Hydrology Researcher and Modeler
Department of Earth Resources, Colorado State University, Fort Collins
August 1992 - August 1994
- Conducted watershed-scale studies of long-term historic and present-day erosion and sediment delivery on St. John Island (U.S. Virgin Islands) for the U.S. National Park Service while pursuing a Master's degree in watershed science. Established the first quantitative estimates of erosion and sediment delivery associated with specific land use activities on the island, and developed recommendations for sediment control practices to protect sensitive marine resources. Developed GIS-supported models of surface hydrology, saturation source area dynamics, slope stability, and soil erosion. Results were published as a 153-page Park Service technical publication in 1994.
- As a research associate with the Island Resources Foundation, I authored the 53-page Guidelines for Sediment Control in the Insular Caribbean in 1994. This guidebook, targeted toward site development practices, was funded and published by the United Nations Environment Program for use throughout the Caribbean (http://cep.unep.org/information-services/cep-technical-reports/).
ADDITIONAL FIELD EXPERIENCE
Ecuador Water Resources Training and Project Evaluations (2004)
As team leader for an International Technical Assistance Program team (U.S. Department of the Interior and U.S. Agency for International Development), coordinated on-site technical assistance and training to various Ecuadorian organizations, including the Ministry of the Environment and several non-governmental entities, addressing potential impacts of water-related development activities (e.g., dams, diversions, changes in land use, and extractive uses of water) on the physical, hydrological, and biological environment.
Choluteca River Watershed Management Project, Honduras (1982-1984)
Coordinated soil conservation, reforestation, agro-forestry and "appropriate technology" projects to protect the rural headwaters of the watershed serving the capital city of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Provided training to rural farmers and farming cooperatives in the buffer zone surrounding La Tigra National Park cloud forest (and also in drier regions of southern Honduras) addressing soil conservation and reforestation principles and practices.
Lacamas Lake Watershed Management Project, Clark County, Washington (1987-89) Inventoried stream corridor conditions, land use practices, and landowner interests in the 41,000-acre Lacamas Lake drainage basin to identify and prioritize nonpoint water pollution cleanup opportunities in the watershed. Using inventory data, worked with local communities to develop detailed lake restoration strategies, now being implemented in the basin with the support of the City of Camas, Clark County, and the Washington State Department of Ecology.
Ground Water Protection Plan Development, Clark County, Washington (1988-89)
Developed data collection plans, data management procedures, and public outreach activities to evaluate and establish measures to protect the ground water resources of Clark County. Employed PC Arc/Info to map, manage, analyze and report on geologic, hydrologic, and land use data for the 500-square-mile study area. Coordinated project oversight by nine local jurisdictions and other public and private organizations participating in the $1.5 million effort. Received USGS training on the conceptual design of the MODFLOW ground water model, and worked with USGS to coordinate ground water investigations in Clark County.
EDUCATION
- M.S. Watershed Science, August 1994, Colorado State University. Graduate research: interfacing GIS with watershed hydrology models. Recipient of Colorado Graduate Fellowship (1992) and Boyne Graduate Scholarship (1993).
- B.S. Soil Science, B.S. Geology, "with highest honors", June 1982, Oregon State University.
LANGUAGES
- Spanish (fluent written and oral)
- French (basic conversational and reading comprehension skills)
COMPUTER SKILLS
- Programming languages: C (6 years professional experience), Fortran, C++, IDL, Unix shell scripts, VBA, SQL, HTML, CGI.
- GIS and image processing software: Arc/Info (5 years professional experience), ArcView, Erdas, IDL, GRASS, Idrisi.
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
- Technical Reviewer, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (1997-present), and the Australian Journal of Soil Research (1998).
- Advisor, James Creek Turbidity Study Advisory Committee, Jamestown, Colorado (2000).
- Citizen's Advisory Board, Give to the Earth Foundation, Minneapolis, Minnesota (1995-1998).
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Anderson, D.M., and M.R. Rodney. (Accepted for publication). Characterization of hydrologic conditions to support Platte River species recovery efforts. Submitted to the Journal of the American Water Resources Association.
Stroup, D., M. Rodney and D. Anderson. 2002. Draft Flow Characterizations for the Platte River Basin in Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska. Platte River Recovery Program EIS Office, Lakewood, Colorado. 21 pp. plus appendices.
MacDonald, L.H., R.W. Sampson, and D.M. Anderson. 2001. Road surface runoff and erosion at the plot and segment scales, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 26(3): 251-272.
Berg, W.K, D.M. Anderson and J.J. Bates. 2000. Satellite observations of a Pacific moisture surge associated with flash flooding in Las Vegas, Geophysical Research Letters, 27: 2553-2556.
Anderson, D.M. and MacDonald, L.H. 1998. Modeling road surface sediment production using a vector geographic information system. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 23(1):95-107.
MacDonald, L.H., D.M. Anderson and W.E. Dietrich. 1997. Paradise threatened: land use and erosion on St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Environmental Management, 21(6):851-863.
Anderson, D.M. May1996. GIS and snow monitoring at the National Weather Service. GIS World, Fort Collins , Colorado, pp. 40-43.
Hartman, R.K., A.A. Rost and D.M. Anderson. 1996. Spatial distribution of snow water equivalent observations in mountainous terrain. Third International Conference/Workshop on Integrating GIS and Environmental Modeling, National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis, Santa Fe, New Mexico, January 23, 1996. CD-ROM.
Anderson, D.M. 1994. Guidelines for Sediment Control Practices in the Insular Caribbean. Caribbean Environment Progress Technical Report No. 32, United Nations Environment Programme, Kingston, Jamaica. 63 pp. Available on-line at (http://cep.unep.org/information-services/cep-technical-reports/)
Anderson, D.M. 1994. Analysis and Modeling of Erosion Hazards and Sediment Delivery on St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Technical Report NPS/NRWRD/NRTR-94/34, National Park Service Water Resources Division, Fort Collins, Colorado. 153 pp.
