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Kimberlie Perkins

Kimberlie Perkins is a Research Hydrologist for the USGS Water Resources Mission Area.

Education:

San Jose State University: M.S. in Geology, December 2005.         

University of California, Berkeley: B.S. in Soil Science, December 1996

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Research Experience:

1997- Present    Research Hydrologist, Water Mission Area, Earth Surface Processes Division, Water Cycle Branch, United States Geological Survey, Supervisor: Dr. John Nimmo

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Research Interests:

  • Land use changes and their hydrologic influence on ecosystems.
  • Understanding water flow and contaminant transport in the unsaturated zone using a combination of laboratory measurements,  field experiments, and modeling.
  • Aquifer recharge estimation techniques.
  • Laboratory measurement and modeling of unsaturated hydraulic properties of porous materials.
  • Development of physically-based models for estimating hydraulic properties without the need for direct measurement.
  • Field techniques for measuring and quantifying hydrologic processes.
  • Mechanisms and quantification of preferential flow in the unsaturated zone.

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Awards: 

USGS Star Award for outstanding performance received in 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2009. 2010, 2011, 2018

 San Jose State University Graduate Studies Scholarship 2003.



 

 

Science and Products

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Photo of a hillside after a fire

Characterizing high-resolution soil burn severity, erosion risk, and recovery using Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS)

The western United States is experiencing severe wildfires whose observed impacts, including post-wildfire floods and debris flows, appear to be increasing over time.
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California Water Science Center, Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center, National Innovation Center, Western Geographic Science Center
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Characterizing high-resolution soil burn severity, erosion risk, and recovery using Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS)

The western United States is experiencing severe wildfires whose observed impacts, including post-wildfire floods and debris flows, appear to be increasing over time.
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Image: Sunrise Over Haleakala National Park

Identifying the Risk of Runoff and Erosion in Hawaiʻi’s National Parks

Haleakalā National Park (HNP) and the surrounding landscape spans many different land cover types, some of which are undergoing vegetation changes that can reduce the amount of water that infiltrates into soil. Decreased soil infiltration can lead to the erosion of terrestrial habitats, increases in the amount of sediment entering aquatic habitats, and flooding of downstream areas as runoff incre
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Climate Adaptation Science Centers
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Identifying the Risk of Runoff and Erosion in Hawaiʻi’s National Parks

Haleakalā National Park (HNP) and the surrounding landscape spans many different land cover types, some of which are undergoing vegetation changes that can reduce the amount of water that infiltrates into soil. Decreased soil infiltration can lead to the erosion of terrestrial habitats, increases in the amount of sediment entering aquatic habitats, and flooding of downstream areas as runoff incre
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Hydraulic Property Data at the Santa Rosa Island Cloud Forest Restoration Site 2017-2019, Channel Islands National Park, California, USA

Santa Rosa Island, part of Channel Islands National Park off the coast of California, has a undergone a history of ecologic degradation due to introduced ungulate grazing for ranching (cattle and sheep) and hunting (deer and elk) purposes. Grazing in many parts of the island has resulted in widespread vegetation loss and subsequent erosion presumably causing changes in infiltration/runoff relation
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Water Resources
Filter Total Items: 32

Rapid-response unsaturated zone hydrology: Small-scale data, small-scale theory, big problems

The unsaturated zone (UZ) extends across the Earth’s terrestrial surface and is central to many problems related to land and water resource management. Flow of water through the UZ is typically thought to be slow and diffusive, such that it could attenuate fluxes and dampen variability between atmospheric inputs and underlying aquifer systems. This would reduce water resource vulnerability to cont
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Natural Hazards, Water Resources, Geologic Hazards Science Center, Geology, Energy & Minerals Science Center

Landscape level effects of invasive plants and animals on water infiltration through Hawaiian tropical forests

Watershed degradation due to invasion threatens downstream water flows and associated ecosystem services. While this topic has been studied across landscapes that have undergone invasive-driven state changes (e.g., native forest to invaded grassland), it is less well understood in ecosystems experiencing within-system invasion (e.g. native forest to invaded forest). To address this subject, we con
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Ecosystems, Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center

Evidence of preferential flow activation in the vadose zone via geophysical monitoring

Preferential pathways allow rapid and non-uniform water movement in the subsurface due to strong heterogeneity of texture, composition, and hydraulic properties. Understanding the importance of preferential pathways is crucial, because they have strong impact on flow and transport hydrodynamics in the unsaturated zone. Particularly, improving knowledge of the water dynamics is essential for estima
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Water Resources

Does the Darcy-Buckingham Law apply to flow through unsaturated porous rock?

The Darcy–Buckingham (DB) law, critical to the prediction of unsaturated flow, is widely used but has rarely been experimentally tested, and therefore may not be adequate in certain conditions. Failure of this law would imply that the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity is not constant for a given water content, as assumed in nearly all subsurface flow models. This study aims to test the DB law on
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Water Resources

Local to landscape-level controls of water fluxes through Hawaiian forests: Effects of invasive animals and plants on soil infiltration capacity across substrate and moisture gradients

Given the potential effect of invasive plants and animals to water fluxes through forests, the invasive-driven degradation of native ecosystems is a topic of great concern for many downstream land and water managers. The infiltration rate determines the partitioning between runoff and infiltration into soil in Hawaiian forests and beyond. Thus, to explore the ecohydrological effects of plant and a
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Ecosystems, Water Resources, Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center, Pacific Islands Water Science Center

UZIG research: Measurement and characterization of unsaturated zone processes under wide-ranging climates and changing conditions

Unsaturated zone properties and processes are central to understanding the interacting effects of land-use change, contamination, and hydroclimate on our ability to grow food, sustain clean water supplies, and minimize loss of life and property. Advances in unsaturated zone science are being achieved through collaborations across traditional boundaries where information from biological, physical,
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Toxic Substances Hydrology, Upper Midwest Water Science Center

Episodic master recession evaluation of groundwater and streamflow hydrographs for water-resource estimation

Hydrograph analysis tools using a master recession curve (MRC) can produce many types of hydrologically important watershed-response quantifications, including aquifer recharge and stormflow characterization. An MRC is the relation between the value of a measured response R and its rate of change with time, dR/dt, occurring on the falling limb when there is no infiltration or other water input. We
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Water Resources

Ecohydrologic changes caused by hydrologic disconnection of ephemeral stream channels in Mojave National Preserve, California

Emplacement of highways and railroads has altered natural hydrologic systems by influencing surface-water flow paths and biotic communities in Mojave National Preserve. Infiltration experiments were conducted along active and abandoned channels to evaluate changes in hydrology and related effects on plant water availability and use. Simulated rainfall infiltration experiments with vegetation monit
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Water Resources, Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center

Vegetation influences on infiltration in Hawaiian soils

Changes in vegetation communities caused by removing trees, introducing grazing ungulates, and replacing native plants with invasive species have substantially altered soil infiltration processes and rates in Hawaii. These changes directly impact run-off, erosion, plant-available water, and aquifer recharge. We hypothesize that broad vegetation communities can be characterized by distributions of
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Water Resources, Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center

Preferential flow, diffuse flow, and perching in an interbedded fractured-rock unsaturated zone

Layers of strong geologic contrast within the unsaturated zone can control recharge and contaminant transport to underlying aquifers. Slow diffuse flow in certain geologic layers, and rapid preferential flow in others, complicates the prediction of vertical and lateral fluxes. A simple model is presented, designed to use limited geological site information to predict these critical subsurface proc
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Water Resources

Measurement of unsaturated hydraulic properties and evaluation of property-transfer models for deep sedimentary interbeds, Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho

Operations at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) have the potential to contaminate the underlying Eastern Snake River Plain (ESRP) aquifer. Methods to quantitatively characterize unsaturated flow and recharge to the ESRP aquifer are needed to inform water-resources management decisions at INL. In particular, hydraulic properties are needed to parameterize distributed hydrologic models of unsatura
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Water Resources, Idaho Water Science Center

Assessing effects of native forest restoration on soil moisture dynamics and potential aquifer recharge, Auwahi, Maui

Understanding the role of soils in regulating water flow through the unsaturated zone is critical in assessing the influence of vegetation on soil moisture dynamics and aquifer recharge. Because of fire, introduced ungulates and landscape-level invasion of non-native grasses, less than 10% of original dry forest (~730 mm precipitation annually) still exists on leeward Haleakalā, Maui, Hawaiian Isl
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Water Resources
Image: Auwahi Reforestation Area, Maui
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Image: Auwahi Reforestation Area, Maui
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