El Yunque Peak as seen across the Mameyes River valley. El Yunque National Forest, Puerto Rico.
Robert F Stallard
Robert Stallard has been at the USGS since 1987 and is now a Scientist Emeritus in the Hydro-Eco Interactions Branch of the Earth Systems Processing Division of the USGS Water Resources Mission Area.
Robert Stallard has been at the USGS since 1987 and is now a Scientist Emeritus in the Hydro-Eco Interactions Branch of the Earth Systems Processing Division of the Water Mission Area. He studies how land-cover and climate change affect water movement through soils, weathering, and erosion, and how these, in turn, affect the composition and dispersal of dissolved and solid phases in rivers and trace gases in the atmosphere. Areas of expertise include surface-water hydrology, major element and nutrient biogeochemistry, soil formation and sediment genesis, vegetation-landscape interaction, carbon-cycle characterization on land and in the ocean, and assessment of land-use and climate change. His work has included the study of natural and human-altered landscapes, in the Americas, Southeast Asia, and Africa, including large parts of the Amazon, Orinoco, Mississippi, and Panama Canal Basins and eastern Puerto Rico.
Most of his current efforts are committed to a multi-catchment investigations designed to distinguish the roles of vegetation, climate, and land-cover change and to put this in a hydrologic and biogeochemical framework as well as to examine ecosystem costs and services focusing on water, carbon, and biodiversity. Two projects currently consume most of his USGS time: (1) Work related to the Luquillo USGS Water, Energy, and Biogeochemical Budget (WEBB) Project in eastern Puerto Rico and parallel work in Panama, which has as a goal the comprehensive assessment of catchment hydrology and biogeochemistry in a hydrologically energetic landscapes. (2) The Agua Salud Project in the Central Panama Canal Basin examines the manifold effects of different styles of reforestation as compared to mature forested and deforested catchments. The project started in 2008 and involves 13 small watersheds with different land covers.
EDUCATION
- National Research Council Post-Doctoral Fellowship: 1981, At the U.S. Geological Survey - Office of Marine Geology, Woods Hole, MA. Clay mineralogy of the Amazon River system.
- Ph.D., Chemical Oceanography: 1980, Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography. Ph.D. thesis entitled "Major Element Geochemistry of the Amazon River System."
- B.S., Earth & Planetary Sciences: 1974, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Emphasis in Planetary Physics and Chemistry.
Science and Products
Geospatial data for Luquillo Mountains, Puerto Rico: Mean annual precipitation, elevation, watershed outlines, and rain gage locations
El Yunque Peak as seen across the Mameyes River valley. El Yunque National Forest, Puerto Rico.
The Mameyes River in flood. Eastern Puerto Rico.
The Mameyes River in flood. Eastern Puerto Rico.
An example of a deforested slope in the Cayaguas watershed, eastern Puerto Rico. Such areas are more susceptible to landslides.
An example of a deforested slope in the Cayaguas watershed, eastern Puerto Rico. Such areas are more susceptible to landslides.
Extreme rainstorms drive exceptional organic carbon export from forested humid-tropical rivers in Puerto Rico
The influence of land cover and storm magnitude on hydrologic flowpath activation and runoff generation in steep tropical catchments of central Panama
Precipitation characteristics and land cover control wet season runoff source and rainfall partitioning in three humid tropical catchments in central Panama
Assessing plot-scale impacts of land use on overland flow generation in Central Panama
Clarifying regional hydrologic controls of the Marañón River, Peru through rapid assessment to inform system-wide basin planning approaches
Reassessing rainfall in the Luquillo Mountains, Puerto Rico: Local and global ecohydrological implications
Land use history and population dynamics of free-standing figs in a maturing forest
Formation of the Isthmus of Panama
Comments to Middle Miocene closure of the Central American Seaway
Understanding natural capital
Introduction to watershed ecosystem services: Chapter 1
Implications of climate and land use change
Science and Products
Geospatial data for Luquillo Mountains, Puerto Rico: Mean annual precipitation, elevation, watershed outlines, and rain gage locations
El Yunque Peak as seen across the Mameyes River valley. El Yunque National Forest, Puerto Rico.
El Yunque Peak as seen across the Mameyes River valley. El Yunque National Forest, Puerto Rico.
The Mameyes River in flood. Eastern Puerto Rico.
The Mameyes River in flood. Eastern Puerto Rico.
An example of a deforested slope in the Cayaguas watershed, eastern Puerto Rico. Such areas are more susceptible to landslides.
An example of a deforested slope in the Cayaguas watershed, eastern Puerto Rico. Such areas are more susceptible to landslides.