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Kimberly Wickland

Kimberly Wickland is a Research Ecologist for the Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center.

I lead interdisciplinary studies that increase our understanding of the complexities of carbon cycling across terrestrial and aquatic environments; the impacts of climate, disturbance, and land use on coupled biogeochemical cycles; and the implications of changing carbon and nutrient dynamics for future climate and ecosystem conditions. My research covers a large range of ecosystems including wetlands, forests, tundra, lakes, streams, and rivers in temperate and high latitude regions. 

Professional Service

  • Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Coordinating Lead Author - IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories: Wetlands (2011-2014)
  • Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) Board of Directors, Member-at-Large (2014-2020)
  • ASLO Awards Committee Chair (2015-2019)
  • Associate Editor, Limnology and Oceanography (2015-2019)
  • Associate Editor, Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences (2018-present)

Academic Service

  • Graduate student Research Advisor (University of Colorado-Boulder: Geological Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Engineering)
  • Graduate Thesis Committee Member (University of Colorado-Boulder; Florida State University; Northern Arizona University; University of Wisconsin-Madison)
  • PhD Opponent (Stockholm University, Sweden; Uppsala University, Sweden)
  • PhD External Examiner (Memorial University, Newfoundland, Canada)
  • Postdoctoral Research Advisor (USGS Mendenhall Program; Marie Sklodovska Curie European Union Global Research Fellow Program)

 

Professional Experience

  • Research Ecologist, USGS (2001-present)

  • Biologist, USGS (1993-2001)

Education and Certifications

  • PhD (Geological Sciences), University of Colorado-Boulder (2006)

  • MA (Environmental, Population, and Organismic Biology), University of Colorado-Boulder (1997)

  • BA (Zoology), Miami University, Ohio (1992)

Honors and Awards

  • Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) Fellow (2017): For excellence in contributions to ASLO and the aquatic sciences.

  • US Department of Interior Unit Award for Excellence of Service (2017): Awarded to the USGS LandCarbon Team for work on biological carbon sequestration.

  • USGS Superior Service Award (2014): For work as a Coordinating Lead Author of the IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories: Wetlands.

  • US Department of Interior Partners in Conservation Award (2010): For cooperative work in association with the Indigenous Tribes/First Nations of the Yukon River Basin.

Science and Products

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Trout Creek flowing through scrubby forest and grassland

Water Quality Across Regional Stream Networks: The Influence of Land Cover and Land Use, Climate, and Biogeochemical Processing on Spatiotemporal Variance

Land cover and land use (LC/LU), climate, and biogeochemical processing are significant drivers of water quality in streams and rivers over broad scales of space and time. As LC/LU and climate continue to change we can expect changes in water quality. This project seeks to understand the drivers of spatial and temporal variability in water quality across scales using new and existing data to...
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Climate Research and Development Program
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Water Quality Across Regional Stream Networks: The Influence of Land Cover and Land Use, Climate, and Biogeochemical Processing on Spatiotemporal Variance

Land cover and land use (LC/LU), climate, and biogeochemical processing are significant drivers of water quality in streams and rivers over broad scales of space and time. As LC/LU and climate continue to change we can expect changes in water quality. This project seeks to understand the drivers of spatial and temporal variability in water quality across scales using new and existing data to...
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Example of thawing landscapes and thermokarst at our field sites

Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE)

ABoVE: Vulnerability of inland waters and the aquatic carbon cycle to changing permafrost and climate across boreal northwestern North America. Carbon released from thawing permafrost may fuel terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems or contribute to greenhouse gas emission, leading to a potential warming feedback and further thaw.
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Land Management Research Program, Alaska Science Center
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Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE)

ABoVE: Vulnerability of inland waters and the aquatic carbon cycle to changing permafrost and climate across boreal northwestern North America. Carbon released from thawing permafrost may fuel terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems or contribute to greenhouse gas emission, leading to a potential warming feedback and further thaw.
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Table Top Mountain and the West Twin Creek catchment

Nome Creek Experimental Watershed

The Nome Creek Experimental Watershed (NCEW) has been the site of multiple studies focused on understanding hydrology, biogeochemistry, and ecosystem changes related to permafrost thaw and fire in the boreal forest.
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Land Management Research Program, Alaska Science Center
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Nome Creek Experimental Watershed

The Nome Creek Experimental Watershed (NCEW) has been the site of multiple studies focused on understanding hydrology, biogeochemistry, and ecosystem changes related to permafrost thaw and fire in the boreal forest.
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Total mercury, bulk density, percent organic matter, and percent organic carbon measured in permafrost cores from the interior and northern slope of Alaska and previously published studies

This data release contains two datasets (see child items below). The first dataset, "MasterDB-csv-published-final.csv", includes 11,000 published measurements of sediment total mercury (STHg, nanograms per gram of soil, dry), bulk density (BD, grams per cm3 of soil, dry), percent of soil organic matter (%OM, loss on ignition, LOI), percent of soil organic carbon (%SOC, calculated using the Redfi

Discrete and high frequency water quality data for Allequash Creek, Wisconsin, WY 2019-2021

This data set is a compilation of discrete and high frequency water quality data from sites on Allequash Creek in Wisconsin, and within the Allequash Creek watershed, for the water years (WY) 2019-2021.
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Water Resources Mission Area

Wetland Stream Water Quality Data for West Twin Creek, AK, Allequash Creek, WI, and Big Thompson River, CO, 2010-2020

This dataset includes discrete water quality and discharge data for three streams that flow through wetlands. There are two measurement and sampling locations on each stream: one immediately upstream from the wetland and one immediately downstream from the wetland. Measurements and sample collection occurred in 2010 and 2011 at West Twin Creek, AK; in 2019 and 2020 at Allequash Creek, WI; and in 2
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Water Resources Mission Area, Climate Research and Development Program

Water quality and gas fluxes of Interior Alaska (2014-2018)

This product consists of multiple tabular datasets and associated metadata of water quality information related to rivers, streams, and lakes in the Yukon River watershed between 2014 and 2018. This data release is apart of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) funded Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) and is an assessment of water quality and greenhouse gas fluxes w
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Water Resources Mission Area

Dissolved organic carbon and nitrogen release from boreal Holocene permafrost and seasonally frozen soils of Alaska

Permafrost (perennially frozen) and active-layer (seasonally thawed) soils varying in soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) content and radiocarbon age were collected from three sites in interior Alaska to determine potential release of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), total dissolved N (TDN), dissolved organic nitrogen (DON), and dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) upon thaw. Soil cores were cut into 15
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Water Resources Mission Area
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Filter Total Items: 64

High Voltage: The molecular properties of redox-active dissolved organic matter in northern high-latitude lakes

Redox-active functional groups in dissolved organic matter (DOM) are crucial for microbial electron transfer and methane emissions. However, the extent of aquatic DOM redox properties across northern high-latitude lakes and their relationships with DOM composition have not been thoroughly described. We quantified electron donating capacity (EDC) and electron accepting capacity (EAC) in lake DOM fr
Authors
Martin R. Kurek, Fenix Garcia-Tigreros, Natalie A. Nichols, Gregory K. Druschel, Kimberly Wickland, Mark M. Dornblaser, Robert G. Striegl, Sydney F. Niles, Amy M. McKenna, Pieter J.K Aukes, Ethan D. Kyzviat, Chao Wang, Laurence C. Smith, Sherry L. Schiff, David Butman, Robert G.M. Spencer
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Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center

Watershed carbon yield derived from gauge observations and river network connectivity in the United States

River networks play a critical role in the global carbon cycle. Although global/continental scale riverine carbon cycle studies demonstrate the significance of rivers and streams for linking land and coastal regions, the lack of spatially distributed riverine carbon load data represents a gap for quantifying riverine carbon net gain or net loss in different regions, understanding mechanisms and fa
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Han Qiu, Xuesong Zhang, Anni Yang, Kimberly Wickland, Edward G. Stets, Min Chen
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Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center

Dissolved carbon export by large river systems is influenced by source area heterogeneity

Rivers and streams export inorganic and organic carbon derived from contributing landscapes and so downstream carbon fluxes are important quantitative indicators of change in ecosystem function and for the full accounting of terrestrial carbon budgets. Carbon concentration-discharge (C-Q) relationships in rivers provide important information about carbon source and behavior in watersheds and are u
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Edward G. Stets, Robert G. Striegl, Kimberly Wickland, Mark Dornblaser, Sydney Foks
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Water Resources Mission Area

Hydrologic and landscape controls on dissolved organic matter composition across western North American Arctic lakes

Northern high-latitude lakes are hotspots for cycling dissolved organic carbon (DOC) inputs from allochthonous sources to the atmosphere. However, the spatial distribution of lake dissolved organic matter (DOM) is largely unknown across Arctic-boreal regions with respect to the surrounding landscape. We expand on regional studies of northern high-latitude DOM composition by integrating DOC concent
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Martin R. Kurek, Fenix Garcia-Tigreros, Kimberly Wickland, Karen E. Frey, Mark Dornblaser, Robert G. Striegl, Sydney F. Niles, Amy M. McKenna, Pieter J.K Aukes, Ethan D. Kyzviat, Chao Wang, Tamlin M. Pavelsky, Laurence C. Smith, Sherry L. Schiff, David Butman, Robert G.M. Spencer
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Water Resources Mission Area

Bioavailability of dissolved organic matter varies with anthropogenic landcover in the Upper Mississippi River Basin

Anthropogenic conversion of forests and wetlands to agricultural and urban landcovers impacts dissolved organic matter (DOM) within streams draining these catchments. Research on how landcover conversion impacts DOM molecular level composition and bioavailability, however, is lacking. In the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB), water from low-order streams and rivers draining one of three dominan
Authors
Derrick R. Vaughn, Anne M. Kellerman, Kimberly Wickland, Robert G. Striegl, David C. Podgorski, Jon R. Hawkings, Jaap H. Nienhuis, Mark M. Dornblaser, Edward G. Stets, Robert G.M. Spencer
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Water Resources Mission Area

Sentinel responses of Arctic freshwater systems to climate: linkages, evidence, and a roadmap for future research

While the sentinel nature of freshwater systems is now well recognized, widespread integration of freshwater processes and patterns into our understanding of broader climate-driven Arctic terrestrial ecosystem change has been slow. We review the current understanding across Arctic freshwater systems of key sentinel responses to climate, which are attributes of these systems with demonstrated and s
Authors
Jasmine E. Saros, Christoper D. Arp, Frederic Bouchard, Jerome Comte, Raoul-Marie Couture, Joshua F. Dean, Melissa Lafreniere, Sally MacIntyre, Suzanne McGowan, Milla Rautio, Clay Prater, Suzanne E. Tank, Michelle A. Walvoord, Kimberly Wickland, Dermot Antoniades, Paola Ayala-Borda, Joao Canario, Travis W. Drake, Diogo Folhas, Vaclava Hazukova, Henriikka Kivila, Yohanna Klanten, Scott Lamoreux, Isabelle Laurion, Rachel M. Pilla, Jorien E. Vonk, Scott Zolkos, Warwick Vincent
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Water Resources Mission Area

A process-model perspective on recent changes in the carbon cycle of North America

Continental North America has been found to be a carbon (C) sink over recent decades by multiple studies employing a variety of estimation approaches. However, several key questions and uncertainties remain with these assessments. Here we used results from an ensemble of 19 state-of-the-art dynamic global vegetation models from the TRENDYv9 project to improve these estimates and study the drivers
Authors
Guillermo Murray-Tortarolo, Benjamin Poulter, Rodrigo Vargas, Daniel B. Hayes, Anna M. Michalak, Christopher J. Williams, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Jonathan Wang, Kimberly Wickland, David Butman, Hanqin Tian, Stephen Sitch, Pierre Friedlingstein, Michael O'Sullivan, Peter Briggs, Vivek Arora, Danielle Lombardozzi, Atul Jain, Wenping Yuan, Roland Seferian, Julia Nabel, Andrea Wiltshire, Almuth Arneth, Sebastian Lienerte, Sonke Zaehle, Vladislov Bastrikov, Daniel Goll, Nicholas Vuichard, Anthony P. Walker, Etushi Kato, Yue Xu, Zhen Zhang, Abishek Chaterjee, Werner A. Kurz
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Water Resources Mission Area

The importance of lake emergent aquatic vegetation for estimating Arctic-boreal methane emissions

Areas of lakes that support emergent aquatic vegetation emit disproportionately more methane than open water but are under-represented in upscaled estimates of lake greenhouse gas emissions. These shallow areas are typically less than ∼1.5 m deep and can be detected with synthetic aperture radar (SAR). To assess the importance of lake emergent vegetation (LEV) zones to landscape-scale methane emis
Authors
Ethan D. Kyzivat, Laurence C. Smith, Fenix Garcia-Tigreros, Chang Huang, Chao Wang, Theodore Langhorst, Jessica V. Fayne, Merritt E. Harlan, Yuta Ishitsuka, Dongmei Feng, Wayana Dolan, Lincoln H. Pitcher, Kimberly Wickland, Mark Dornblaser, Robert G. Striegl, Tamlin M. Pavelsky, David E. Butman, Colin J. Gleason
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Water Resources Mission Area, Cooperative Research Units

Heterogeneous patterns of aged organic carbon export driven by hydrologic flow paths, soil texture, fire, and thaw in discontinuous permafrost headwaters

Climate change is thawing and potentially mobilizing vast quantities of organic carbon (OC) previously stored for millennia in permafrost soils of northern circumpolar landscapes. Climate-driven increases in fire and thermokarst may play a key role in OC mobilization by thawing permafrost and promoting transport of OC. Yet, the extent of OC mobilization and mechanisms controlling terrestrial-aquat
Authors
Joshua C. Koch, Matthew Bogard, David Butman, Kerri Finlay, Brian A. Ebel, Jason James, Sarah Ellen Johnston, Torre Jorgenson, Neal Pastick, Rob Spencer, Rob Striegl, Michelle A. Walvoord, Kimberly Wickland
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Water Resources Mission Area, Alaska Science Center

Lagged wetland CH4 flux response in a historically wet year

While a stimulating effect of plant primary productivity on soil carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions has been well documented, links between gross primary productivity (GPP) and wetland methane (CH4) emissions are less well investigated. Determination of the influence of primary productivity on wetland CH4 emissions (FCH4) is complicated by confounding influences of water table level and temperature on
Authors
Jessica Turner, Ankur R. Desai, Jonathan Thom, Kimberly Wickland
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Water Resources Mission Area

Anthropogenic landcover impacts fluvial dissolved organic matter composition in the Upper Mississippi River Basin

Landcover changes have altered the natural carbon cycle; however, most landcover studies focus on either forest conversion to agriculture or urban, rarely both. We present differences in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations and dissolved organic matter (DOM) molecular composition within Upper Mississippi River Basin low order streams and rivers draining one of three dominant landcovers (f
Authors
Derrick R. Vaughn, Anne M. Kellerman, Kimberly Wickland, Robert G. Striegl, David C. Podgorski, Jon R. Hawkings, Jaap Nienhuis, Mark Dornblaser, Edward G. Stets, Robert GM Spencer
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Water Resources Mission Area, Climate Research and Development Program, Land Change Science Program

USGS permafrost research determines the risks of permafrost thaw to biologic and hydrologic resources

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in collaboration with university, Federal, Tribal, and independent partners, conducts fundamental research on the distribution, vulnerability, and importance of permafrost in arctic and boreal ecosystems. Scientists, land managers, and policy makers use USGS data to help make decisions for development, wildlife habitat, and other needs. Native villages and cities
Authors
Mark P. Waldrop, Lesleigh Anderson, Mark Dornblaser, Li H. Erikson, Ann E. Gibbs, Nicole Herman-Mercer, Stephanie R. James, Miriam C. Jones, Joshua C. Koch, Mary-Cathrine Leewis, Kristen L. Manies, Burke J. Minsley, Neal J. Pastick, Vijay Patil, Frank Urban, Michelle A. Walvoord, Kimberly P. Wickland, Christian Zimmerman
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Natural Hazards Mission Area, Water Resources Mission Area, Climate Research and Development Program, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Land Change Science Program, Volcano Hazards Program, Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center , Geology, Geophysics, and Geochemistry Science Center, Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, Volcano Science Center

Science and Products