Jennifer Murphy

Jenny is a hydrologist at the Lower Mississippi-Gulf Water Science Center. Much of her work focuses on characterizing and understanding water-quality trends in the Nations streams and rivers.  Jenny has been part of the National Water Quality Assessment Project's Surface Water Status and Trends Team since 2014 and played an important role is characterizing water-quality trends with the Weighted Regressions on Time, Season and Discharge (WRTDS) model at over 1,000 sites across the country using an extensive multi-agency dataset. Jenny's additional trends work includes looking at nitrate in the Mississippi River Basin, sediment in the lowermost Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers, and streamflow in the Southeastern U.S. as part of the RESTORE project. Additionally, Jenny has worked on projects ranging from the evaluation of best management practices in small agricultural drainages, to characterizing and understanding ecological flows, and estimating water use at thermoelectric powerplants.  Her current interests are in trend studies, causal attribution of these trends, and exploring the influence of streamflow on water quality.

EDUCATION

• B.A., Geology, 2006, Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin
• M.S., Earth and Environmental Science, 2011, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee

CURRENT & PAST PROJECTS

• NAWQA Surface Water Status and Trends team (Causal Analysis team lead)
• Evaluating agricultural best management practices in northwestern MS
• Ecological flows in the Cumberland and Tennessee River Basins
• Water-quality trends in the Mississippi River Basin 
• Streamflow trends in the Southeastern U.S. as part of the RESTORE project
• Water use at thermoelectric powerplants
• Water quality in the lowermost Mississippi and Atchafalya Rivers