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Jeni Keisman, Ph.D.

Jeni Keisman is the Hydrologic Impacts Branch Chief for the United States Geological Survey Water Resources Mission Area Earth Systems Processes Division. 

Jeni Keisman is the Hydrologic Impacts Branch Chief for the WMA Earth Systems Processes Division. Her work has included explaining factors affecting trends in water quality and habitat conditions, analysis of water consumption for producing transportation fuels, research on nitrogen and phosphorus cycling in forests, and synthesis of scientific insights to inform future research directions and environmental management decisions. 

Professional Experience

  • Prior experiences include a fellowship at the DoE where she tackled projects related to the “Water-Energy Nexus”, a grantee position at the EPA analyzing attainment of Chesapeake Bay water quality standards, dissertation research on nutrient cycling under different tree species in temperate forests, and a stint in the private sector producing financial software to track corporate insider trading.

Education and Certifications

  • Ph.D.: Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University

  • M.S.: Sustainable Development & Conservation Biology, University of Maryland

  • B.A.: History from St. Mary’s College of Maryland

Science and Products

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Kayaking on the Potomac River

Chesapeake Science Partners Produce Tributary Summaries

Issue The Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) partnership is striving to improve water-quality conditions in the Bay and its tidal waters. The partnership needs to understand water-quality conditions in different tributaries to help assess the influence of nutrient-reduction practices and progress toward attaining water-quality standards.
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Core Science Systems Mission Area, Chesapeake Bay Activities
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Chesapeake Science Partners Produce Tributary Summaries

Issue The Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) partnership is striving to improve water-quality conditions in the Bay and its tidal waters. The partnership needs to understand water-quality conditions in different tributaries to help assess the influence of nutrient-reduction practices and progress toward attaining water-quality standards.
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Marshy Point, Chesapeake Bay

USGS leads STAC report on water clarity changes over the past 30 years in Chesapeake Bay

Water clarity is widely recognized as an important indicator of the health and trophic state of aquatic ecosystems and is a key management target given the limit it imposes on the growth of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV).
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Core Science Systems Mission Area, Chesapeake Bay Activities
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USGS leads STAC report on water clarity changes over the past 30 years in Chesapeake Bay

Water clarity is widely recognized as an important indicator of the health and trophic state of aquatic ecosystems and is a key management target given the limit it imposes on the growth of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV).
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Brook trout

USGS science informs revised water-quality restoration plans for the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed

Science Summary
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Chesapeake Bay Activities
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USGS science informs revised water-quality restoration plans for the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed

Science Summary
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USGS Earthmap Capacity Assessment Dataset

The U.S. Geological Survey provides a wide range of scientific information to an even wider group of stakeholders. Understanding what capacities are needed and if and or where these capacities exist across the USGS landscape is critical in moving science to the next level of use, implementation, and visualization. The concept behind the groups organized to conduct and interpret the survey that col

Animal Best Management Practice by Chesapeake Bay Watershed Region From 1985 to 2014

This metadata record covers 18 comma delimited files that support the USGS Scientific Investigations Report Manure and Fertilizer Inputs to Land in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, 1950-2014 by Jennifer Keisman, Olivia Devereux, Andrew LaMotte, and Andrew Sekellick. The data were created by running scenarios through the Chesapeake Bay Program Partnership Phase 5.3.2 Watershed Model for years between
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Chesapeake Bay Activities, Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Water Science Center
Filter Total Items: 20

Integrating principles and tools of decision science into value-driven watershed planning for compensatory mitigation

Several environmental policies strive to restore impaired ecosystems and could benefit from a consistent and transparent process — co-developed with key stakeholders — to prioritize impaired ecosystems for restoration activities. The Clean Water Act, for example, establishes reallocation mechanisms to transfer ecosystem services from sites of disturbance to compensation sites to offset aquatic res
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Water Resources Mission Area, South Atlantic Water Science Center (SAWSC)

Data synthesis for environmental management: A case study of Chesapeake Bay

Synthesizing large, complex data sets to inform resource managers towards effective environmental stewardship is a universal challenge. In Chesapeake Bay, a well-studied and intensively monitored estuary in North America, the challenge of synthesizing data on water quality and land use as factors related to a key habitat, submerged aquatic vegetation, was tackled by a team of scientists and resour
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Water Resources Mission Area

Nutrient improvements in Chesapeake Bay: Direct effect of load reductions and implications for coastal management

In Chesapeake Bay in the United States, decades of management efforts have resulted in modest reductions of nutrient loads from the watershed, but corresponding improvements in estuarine water quality have not clearly materialized. Generalized additive models were used to directly link river flows and nutrient loads from the watershed to nutrient trends in the estuary on a station-by-station basis
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Chesapeake Bay Activities

Capacity assessment for Earth Monitoring, Analysis, and Prediction (EarthMAP) and future integrated monitoring and predictive science at the U.S. Geological Survey

Executive SummaryManagers of our Nation’s resources face unprecedented challenges driven by the convergence of increasing, competing societal demands and a changing climate that affects the stability, vulnerability, and predictability of those resources. To help meet these challenges, the scientific community must take advantage of all available technologies, data, and integrative Earth systems mo
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Water Resources Mission Area, Science Analytics and Synthesis (SAS) Program, Energy Resources Program, Geology, Energy & Minerals Science Center, Wetland and Aquatic Research Center , Oregon Water Science Center, Southwest Biological Science Center, Oklahoma-Texas Water Science Center, Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center

Nitrogen in the Chesapeake Bay watershed—A century of change, 1950–2050

ForewordSustaining the quality of the Nation’s water resources and the health of our diverse ecosystems depends on the availability of sound water-resources data and information to develop effective, science-based policies. Effective management of water resources also brings more certainty and efficiency to important economic sectors. Taken together, these actions lead to immediate and long-term e
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Water Resources Mission Area, Chesapeake Bay Activities, Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Water Science Center, New York Water Science Center, Pennsylvania Water Science Center, South Atlantic Water Science Center (SAWSC), Utah Water Science Center, Virginia and West Virginia Water Science Center

Nutrient trends and drivers in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed

The Chesapeake Bay Program maintains an extensive nontidal monitoring network, measuring nitrogen and phosphorus (nutrients) at more than 100 locations on rivers and streams in the watershed. Data from these locations are used by United States Geological Survey to assess the ecosystem’s response to nutrient-reduction efforts. This fact sheet summarizes recent trends in nitrogen and phosphorus in n
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Chesapeake Bay Activities, Pennsylvania Water Science Center, Virginia and West Virginia Water Science Center

Potomac tributary report: A summary of trends in tidal water quality and associated factors

The Potomac Tributary Report summarizes change over time in a suite of monitored tidal water quality parameters and associated potential drivers of those trends for the time period 1985 – 2018, and provides a brief description of the current state of knowledge explaining these observed changes. Water quality parameters described include surface total nitrogen (TN), surface total phosphorus (TP), s
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Chesapeake Bay Activities

Nutrient limitation of phytoplankton in Chesapeake Bay: Development of an empirical approach for water-quality management

Understanding the temporal and spatial roles of nutrient limitation on phytoplankton growth is necessary for developing successful management strategies. Chesapeake Bay has well-documented seasonal and spatial variations in nutrient limitation, but it remains unknown whether these patterns of nutrient limitation have changed in response to nutrient management efforts. We analyzed historical data f
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Chesapeake Bay Activities

Ecological forecasting—21st century science for 21st century management

Natural resource managers are coping with rapid changes in both environmental conditions and ecosystems. Enabled by recent advances in data collection and assimilation, short-term ecological forecasting may be a powerful tool to help resource managers anticipate impending near-term changes in ecosystem conditions or dynamics. Managers may use the information in forecasts to minimize the adverse ef

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Ecosystems Mission Area, Water Resources Mission Area, Wildlife Program (unpublished), Contaminant Biology, Environmental Health Program, Science Analytics and Synthesis (SAS) Program, Eastern Ecological Science Center, Fort Collins Science Center, Kansas Water Science Center, Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Water Science Center, National Wildlife Health Center, New Jersey Water Science Center, Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Southwest Biological Science Center, Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center, Upper Midwest Water Science Center

Sediment dynamics and implications for management: State of the science from long‐term research in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, USA

This review aims to synthesize the current knowledge of sediment dynamics using insights from long‐term research conducted in the watershed draining to the Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the U.S., to inform management actions to restore the estuary and its watershed. The sediment dynamics of the Chesapeake are typical of many impaired watersheds and estuaries around the world, and this syn
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Climate Research and Development Program, Chesapeake Bay Activities, Florence Bascom Geoscience Center, Pennsylvania Water Science Center

Long-term annual aerial surveys of submersed aquatic vegetation (SAV) support science, management, and restoration

Aerial surveys of coastal habitats can uniquely inform the science and management of shallow, coastal zones, and when repeated annually, they reveal changes that are otherwise difficult to assess from ground-based surveys. This paper reviews the utility of a long-term (1984-present) annual aerial monitoring program for submersed aquatic vegetation (SAV) in Chesapeake Bay, its tidal tributaries, an

A Generalized Additive Model approach to evaluating water quality: Chesapeake Bay Case Study

Nutrient-reduction efforts have been undertaken in recent decades to mitigate the impacts of eutrophication in coastal and estuarine systems worldwide. To track progress in response to one of these efforts we use Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) to evaluate a diverse suite of water quality constituents over a 32-year period in the Chesapeake Bay, an estuary on the east coast of the United States
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Chesapeake Bay Activities

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