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Kate Ackerman

Kate Ackerman is a Geologist with the Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center Coastal and Estuarine Dynamics Group.

 

 

Education and Certifications

  • M.S. Geological Sciences, University of South Carolina

    B.A. with distinction, Earth Sciences, Boston University

Science and Products

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sunset over wetland

Estuarine Processes, Hazards, and Ecosystems

Estuarine processes, hazards, and ecosystems describes several interdisciplinary projects that aim to quantify and understand estuarine processes through observations and numerical modeling. Both the spatial and temporal scales of these mechanisms are important, and therefore require modern instrumentation and state-of-the-art hydrodynamic models. These projects are led from the U.S. Geological...
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Natural Hazards Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Chesapeake Bay Activities, Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center, Hurricane Sandy, USGS Science in Long Island Sound and its Watershed
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Estuarine Processes, Hazards, and Ecosystems

Estuarine processes, hazards, and ecosystems describes several interdisciplinary projects that aim to quantify and understand estuarine processes through observations and numerical modeling. Both the spatial and temporal scales of these mechanisms are important, and therefore require modern instrumentation and state-of-the-art hydrodynamic models. These projects are led from the U.S. Geological...
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USGS science for a changing world logo

Integration of National Soil and Wetland Datasets: A Toolkit for Reproducible Calculation and Quality Assessment of Imputed Wetland Soil Properties

Wetland soils are vital to the Nation because of their role in sustaining water resources, supporting critical ecosystems, and sequestering significant concentrations of biologically-produced carbon. The United States has the world’s most detailed continent-scale digital datasets for soils and wetlands, yet scientists and land managers have long struggled with the challenge of integrating these d
By
Community for Data Integration (CDI)
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Integration of National Soil and Wetland Datasets: A Toolkit for Reproducible Calculation and Quality Assessment of Imputed Wetland Soil Properties

Wetland soils are vital to the Nation because of their role in sustaining water resources, supporting critical ecosystems, and sequestering significant concentrations of biologically-produced carbon. The United States has the world’s most detailed continent-scale digital datasets for soils and wetlands, yet scientists and land managers have long struggled with the challenge of integrating these d
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Lifespan of marsh units in New York salt marshes

Lifespan of salt marshes in New York are calculated using conceptual marsh units defined by Defne and Ganju (2018) and Welk and others (2019, 2020a, 2020b, 2020c). The lifespan calculation is based on estimated sediment supply and sea-level rise (SLR) predictions after Ganju and others (2020). Sea level predictions are local estimates which correspond to the 0.3, 0.5, and 1.0 meter increase in Glo
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Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Geospatial characterization of salt marshes in Maine

This data release contains coastal wetland synthesis products for the state of Maine. Metrics for resiliency, including the unvegetated to vegetated ratio (UVVR), marsh elevation, tidal range, and lifespan, are calculated for smaller units delineated from a digital elevation model, providing the spatial variability of physical factors that influence wetland health. The U.S. Geological Survey has b
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Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Geospatial characterization of salt marshes in Connecticut (ver. 2.0, April 2024

This data release contains coastal wetland synthesis products for the state of Connecticut. Metrics for resiliency, including the unvegetated to vegetated ratio (UVVR), marsh elevation, tidal range, wave power, and exposure potential to environmental health stressors are calculated for smaller units delineated from a digital elevation model, providing the spatial variability of physical factors th
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Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Lifespan of Massachusetts salt marsh units

Lifespan of salt marshes in Massachusetts (MA) are calculated using conceptual marsh units defined by Ackerman and others (2022). The lifespan calculation is based on estimated sediment supply and sea-level rise (SLR) predictions after Ganju and others (2020). Sea level predictions are local estimates which correspond to the 0.3, 0.5, and 1.0 meter increase in Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL) scenario
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Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Geospatial characterization of salt marshes on the Eastern Shore of Virginia

This data release contains coastal wetland synthesis products for the Atlantic-facing Eastern Shore of Virginia (the data release for the Chesapeake Bay-facing portion of the Eastern Shore of Virginia is found here: https://doi.org/10.5066/P997EJYB). Metrics for resiliency, including unvegetated to vegetated ratio (UVVR), marsh elevation, and tidal range are calculated for smaller units delineated
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Chesapeake Bay Activities, Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Lifespan of Chesapeake Bay salt marsh units

Lifespan distribution in the Chesapeake Bay (CB) salt marsh complex is presented in terms of lifespan of conceptual marsh units defined by Ackerman and others (2022). The lifespan calculation is based on estimated sediment supply and sea-level rise (SLR) predictions after Ganju and others (2020). Sea level predictions are present day estimates at the prescribed rate of SLR, which correspond to the
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Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Chesapeake Bay Activities

Geospatial characterization of salt marshes in Chesapeake Bay

This data release contains coastal wetland synthesis products for Chesapeake Bay. Metrics for resiliency, including unvegetated to vegetated ratio (UVVR), marsh elevation, and tidal range are calculated for smaller units delineated from a digital elevation model, providing the spatial variability of physical factors that influence wetland health. The U.S. Geological Survey has been expanding natio
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Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Chesapeake Bay Activities, Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Geospatial Characterization of Salt Marshes for Massachusetts

This data release contains coastal wetland synthesis products for Massachusetts. Metrics for resiliency, including unvegetated to vegetated ratio (UVVR), marsh elevation, and tidal range are calculated for smaller units delineated from a digital elevation model, providing the spatial variability of physical factors that influence wetland health. The U.S. Geological Survey has been expanding nation
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Natural Hazards Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Coastal wetlands of the Blackwater region, Chesapeake Bay, Maryland

This data release contains coastal wetland synthesis products for the geographic region of Blackwater, Chesapeake Bay, Maryland. Metrics for resiliency, including unvegetated to vegetated ratio (UVVR), marsh elevation, and others, are calculated for smaller units delineated from a digital elevation model, providing the spatial variability of physical factors that influence wetland health. The U.S.
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Natural Hazards Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Chesapeake Bay Activities, Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Coastal wetlands of eastern Long Island, New York (ver. 2.0, March 2024)

This data release contains coastal wetland synthesis products for the geographic region of eastern Long Island, New York, including the north and south forks, Gardiners Island, and Fishers Island. Metrics for resiliency, including unvegetated to vegetated ratio (UVVR), marsh elevation, and mean tidal range, are calculated for smaller units delineated from a Digital Elevation Model, providing the s
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Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center, USGS Science in Long Island Sound and its Watershed
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Using geospatial analysis to guide marsh restoration in Chesapeake Bay and beyond

Coastal managers are facing imminent decisions regarding the fate of coastal wetlands, given ongoing threats to their persistence. There is a need for objective methods to identify which wetland parcels are candidates for restoration, monitoring, protection, or acquisition due to limited resources and restoration techniques. Here, we describe a new spatially comprehensive data set for Chesapeake B
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Neil K. Ganju, Kate Ackerman, Zafer Defne
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Chesapeake Bay Activities, Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Development and application of Landsat-based wetland vegetation cover and unvegetated-vegetated marsh ratio (UVVR) for the conterminous United States

Effective management and restoration of salt marshes and other vegetated intertidal habitats require objective and spatially integrated metrics of geomorphic status and vulnerability. The unvegetated-vegetated marsh ratio (UVVR), a recently developed metric, can be used to establish present-day vegetative cover, identify stability thresholds, and quantify vulnerability to open-water conversion ove
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Neil K. Ganju, Brady Couvillion, Zafer Defne, Kate Ackerman
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Chesapeake Bay Activities, Wetland and Aquatic Research Center , Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Historical influence of soil and water management on sediment and carbon budgets in the United States

[No abstract available]
Authors
E.T. Sundquist, K.V. Ackerman, R.F. Stallard, N.B. Bliss

Rapid assessment of U.S. forest and soil organic carbon storage and forest biomass carbon sequestration capacity

This report provides results of a rapid assessment of biological carbon stocks and forest biomass carbon sequestration capacity in the conterminous United States. Maps available from the U.S. Department of Agriculture are used to calculate estimates of current organic carbon storage in soils (73 petagrams of carbon, or PgC) and forest biomass (17 PgC). Of these totals, 3.5 PgC of soil organic carb
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Eric T. Sundquist, Katherine V. Ackerman, Norman B. Bliss, Josef M. Kellndorfer, Matt C. Reeves, Matthew G. Rollins
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Water Resources Mission Area, Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center

RESIS-II: An Updated Version of the Original Reservoir Sedimentation Survey Information System (RESIS) Database

The Reservoir Sedimentation Survey Information System (RESIS) database, originally compiled by the Soil Conservation Service (now the Natural Resources Conservation Service) in collaboration with the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, is the most comprehensive compilation of data from reservoir sedimentation surveys throughout the conterminous United States (U.S.). The database is a cumulative
Authors
Katherine V. Ackerman, David M. Mixon, Eric T. Sundquist, Robert F. Stallard, Gregory E. Schwarz, David W. Stewart

An introduction to global carbon cycle management

Past and current human activities have fundamentally altered the global carbon cycle. Potential future efforts to control atmospheric CO2 will also involve significant changes in the global carbon cycle. Carbon cycle scientists and engineers now face not only the difficulties of recording and understanding past and present changes but also the challenge of providing information and tools for new m
Authors
Eric T. Sundquist, Katherine V. Ackerman, Lauren Parker, Deborah N. Huntzinger
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Water Resources Mission Area

Comparison of two U.S. power-plant carbon dioxide emissions data sets

Estimates of fossil-fuel CO2 emissions are needed to address a variety of climate-change mitigation concerns over a broad range of spatial and temporal scales. We compared two data sets that report power-plant CO 2 emissions in the conterminous U.S. for 2004, the most recent year reported in both data sets. The data sets were obtained from the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administrati
Authors
K.V. Ackerman, E.T. Sundquist
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Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Research needs for finely resolved fossil carbon emissions

Scientific research on the global carbon cycle has emerged as a high priority in biogeochemistry, climate studies, and global change policy. The emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) from fossil fuel combustion is a dominant driver of the current net carbon fluxes between the land, the oceans, and the atmosphere, and it is a key contributor to the rise in modern radiative forcing. Contrary to a commonl
Authors
K. Gurney, W. Ansley, D. Mendoza, G. Petron, G. Frost, J. Gregg, M. Fischer, Diane E. Pataki, K. Ackerman, S. Houweling, K. Corbin, R. Andres, T.J. Blasing

Science and Products