Kristina Hopkins
Biography
Krissy Hopkins studies the impacts of urbanization on rivers and streams, focused on understanding how the intensity and type of development impacts water quality and quantity. This includes examining the impacts of different types of stormwater management strategies, both conventional and infiltration-based (i.e., green infrastructure), on watershed hydrology and nutrient fluxes. Her work also focuses on translating ecosystem functions into ecosystem services and values by applying ecosystem services approaches to floodplain systems and green stormwater infrastructure.
Krissy received an undergraduate degree in biology/environmental science and geography from Syracuse University in 2007. She completed her Ph.D. in geology at the University of Pittsburgh in 2014 and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) in Annapolis, Maryland. She joined the U.S. Geological Survey in 2016 as a Research Physical Scientist.
CURRENT RESEARCH FOCUS
- Assessing hydrologic, chemical, and geomorphic changes associated with urban development.
- Assessing the effectiveness of urban stormwater management practices.
- Developing geospatial tools to map stream channel and floodplain characteristics at regional scales.
- Quantifying and valuing the ecosystem services that floodplains provide to people.
EDUCATION
Ph.D. 2014, Geology and Environmental Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
Dissertation: From small watersheds to regions: Variation in hydrologic response to urbanization
B.S. 2007 Biology/Environmental Science (2nd Major Geography), Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2017 - Present, Research Physical Scientist, South Atlantic Water Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Raleigh, NC.
2016 - 2017, Research Physical Scientist, Eastern Geographic Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA.
2014 - 2016, Postdoctoral Fellow, National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, University of Maryland, Annapolis, MD.
Science and Products
New dataset available on stream and floodplain geometry to inform restoration decisions
Issue: The need for stream mapping
The physical shape of streams and floodplains can provide information about how water, sediment, and other matter moves through the landscape. Streams can have deep channels (tall streambanks) disconnected from the floodplain or wide shallow channels that easily spill over the banks into the floodplain during high flows. Mapping where...
New Insights on using Green Stormwater Infrastructure to Reduce Suburban Runoff
The Issue with Runoff
Across the United States, suburban development is replacing agricultural and forested lands. In urban and suburban areas, large amounts of stormwater runoff are generated from rooftops and roadways during rain events. Runoff is quickly piped to streams and rivers, leading to flash flooding, stream bank erosion, and damages to stream health....
SPARROW Modeling for North Carolina Watersheds
In North Carolina, excessive nutrient and sediment loadings have contributed to the degradation of surface-water quality across the state as a result of agricultural activities and population growth increases. To further understand the influences of human activities and natural processes on surface-water quality, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) developed the SPARROW (SPAtially Referenced...
Understanding the Effects of Stormwater Management Practices on Water Quality and Flow
Urban development can have detrimental impacts on streams including altering hydrology, increasing nutrient, sediment, and pollutant loadings, and degrading biological integrity. Stormwater Best Management Practices (BMPs) can be used to mitigate the effects of urban development by retaining large volumes of stormwater runoff and treating runoff to remove pollutants. This project focuses on...
Quantifying Floodplain Ecological Processes and Ecosystem Services in the Delaware River Watershed
Floodplain and wetland areas provide critical ecosystem services to local and downstream communities by retaining sediments, nutrients, and floodwaters. The loss of floodplain functionality due to land use conversion and degradation reduces the provisioning of these services. Assessing, quantifying, and valuing floodplain ecosystem services provide a framework to estimate how floodplain...
Physico-chemical characteristics and sediment and nutrient fluxes of floodplains, streambanks, and streambeds in the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware River watersheds
Dataset includes site averages of measurements of floodplain and streambank sediment physico-chemistry and long-term (dendrogeomorphic) vertical and lateral geomorphic change, and reach scale floodplain width, streambank height, channel width, and streambed particle size. This information was used to calculate fluxes of sediment, fine sediment, sediment-C, sediment-N, and sed
Geomorphometry for Streams and Floodplains in the Chesapeake and Delaware Watersheds
Geomorphometry for Streams and Floodplains in the Chesapeake and Delaware Watersheds was generated as part of the project Quantifying Floodplain Ecological Processes and Ecosystem Services in the Delaware River Watershed funded through the William Penn Foundation's Delaware Watershed Research fund. This dataset contains geomorphometry for streams and floodplains in the Chesapeake and Delaware...
Land Use Land Cover for Selected Basins in Clarksburg, Montgomery County, MD
This dataset contains digitized land use/land cover (LULC) for the years 2011, 2015, and 2017. The dataset contains 1-meter resolution raster maps for each year covering the geographic area for six watersheds within and near the Clarksburg Special Protection Area located in Montgomery County, Maryland, USA. The area includes LULC within 500-foot buffered watersheds. Watershed bounda
Streamflow and precipitation event statistics for treatment, urban control, and forested control watersheds in Clarksburg, MD USA (2004-2018)
This dataset describes streamflow and precipitation event statistics for four watersheds located in Clarksburg, Maryland, USA. Streamflow and precipitation events were identified from fourteen years of sub-daily (5- and 15-minute) monitoring data spanning October 1, 2004 through September 30, 2018. A 6-hour inter-event window was used to define discrete streamflow and precipitation ev
Difficult Run Floodplain Sediment and Nutrient Retention Ecosystem Service Datasets, Fairfax County, Virginia
Datasets used to quantify and value the ecosystem service of sediment and nutrient retention for floodplains within the Difficult Run watershed located in Fairfax County, Virginia. Geospatial datasets include a digital elevation model (DEM), a hydrologically conditioned DEM, output from the USGS Stream Channel and Floodplain Metric Toolbox, and field data sets used to develop regressi
Water quality data for urban (centralized versus distributed stormwater management) and forested reference watersheds in Clarksburg, MD (2004-2016)
Data were obtained in order to evaluate differences among watersheds that vary in stormwater management practice arrangement by assessing differences in baseflow nutrient fluxes and stormflow export of suspended sediments and total particulate phosphorus. The study area is located the Piedmont in Clarksburg, Montgomery, County Maryland. Watersheds included a forested watershed (For-MD),
Piloting urban ecosystem accounting for the United States
In this study, we develop urban ecosystem accounts in the U.S., using the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EEA) framework. Most ecosystem accounts focus on regional and national scales, which are appropriate for many ecosystem services. However, ecosystems provide substantial services in cities,...
Heris, Mehdi; Bagstad, Kenneth J.; Rhodes, Charles R.; Troy, Austin; Middel, Ariane; Hopkins, Kristina G.; Matuszak, John Mapping stream and floodplain geomorphic characteristics with the Floodplain and Channel Evaluation Tool (FACET) in the Mid-Atlantic Region, United States
Quantifying channel and floodplain geomorphic characteristics is essential for understanding and modeling sediment and nutrient dynamics in fluvial systems. The increased availability of high-resolution elevation data from light detection and ranging (lidar) has helped improve methods for extracting these metrics at a greater accuracy across...
Metes, Marina; Hopkins, Kristina G.; Ahmed, Labeeb; Lamont, Samuel; Claggett, Peter R.; Noe, Gregory B. Hydrologic signals and surprises in U.S. streamflow records during urbanization
Urban development has been observed to lead to variable magnitudes of change for stormflow volume and directions of baseflow change across cities. This work examines temporal streamflow trends across the flow duration curve in 53 watersheds during periods of peak urban development, which ranged from 1939 to 2016. We used U.S. Geological Survey...
Bhaskar, Aditi S.; Hopkins, Kristina G.; Smith, Brianne K; Stephens, Tim A; Miller, Andy J 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...
Noe, Gregory B.; Cashman, Matthew J.; Skalak, Katherine; Gellis, Allen; Hopkins, Kristina G.; Moyer, Douglas L.; Webber, James S.; Benthem, Adam; Maloney, Kelly O.; Brakebill, John; Sekellick, Andrew; Langland, Michael J.; Zhang, Qian; Shenk, Gary Wynee; Keisman, Jennifer L.D.; Hupp, Cliff R. Stormwater control impacts on runoff volume and peak flow: A meta-analysis of watershed modelling studies
Decades of research has concluded that the percent of impervious surface cover in a watershed is strongly linked to negative impacts on urban stream health. Recently, there has been a push by municipalities to offset these effects by installing structural stormwater control measures (SCMs), which are landscape features designed to retain and...
Bell, Colin D.; Wolfand, Jordyn M.; Panos, Chelsea L.; Bhaskar, Aditi S.; Gilliom, Ryan L.; Hogue, Terri S.; Hopkins, Kristina G.; Jefferson, Anne J. Seasonal drivers of chemical and hydrological patterns in roadside infiltration-based green infrastructure
Infiltration-based green infrastructure has become a popular means of reducing stormwater hazards in urban areas. However, the long-term effects of green infrastructure on the geochemistry of roadside environments are poorly defined, particularly given the considerable roadside legacy metal contamination from historic industrial activity and...
Mullins, Angela R.; Bain, Daniel J; Pfeil McCullough, Erin; Hopkins, Kristina G.; Lavin, S.; Copeland, Erin
Sustaining Environmental Capital Initiative summary report
Federal agencies need credible scientific information to determine the production and value of ecosystem services in an efficient and timely manner. The U.S. Geological Survey addresses this scientific information need through the Sustaining Environmental Capital Initiative project. The project has relied on U.S. Geological Survey expertise...
Huber, Christopher; Meldrum, James R.; Schuster, Rudy M.; Ancona, Zachary H.; Bagstad, Kenneth J.; Beck, Scott M.; Carlisle, Daren; Claggett, Peter R.; Franco, Fabiano; Galbraith, Heather S.; Haefele, Michelle; Hoelting, Kristin R; Hogan, Dianna M.; Hopkins, Kristina G.; Kern, Tim; Lawrence, Collin B.; Lischka, Stacy; Loomis, John B.; Mueller, Julie M.; Noe, Gregory B.; Pindilli, Emily J.; Quay, Brian; Semmens, Darius J.; Sinclair, Wilson; Spooner, Daniel E.; Voigt, Brian; St. John White, Barabara Changes in event‐based streamflow magnitude and timing after suburban development with infiltration‐based stormwater management
Green stormwater infrastructure implementation in urban watersheds has outpaced our understanding of practice effectiveness on streamflow response to precipitation events. Long‐term monitoring of experimental urban watersheds in Clarksburg, Maryland, USA, provided an opportunity to examine changes in event‐based streamflow metrics in two treatment...
Hopkins, Kristina G.; Bhaskar, Aditi S.; Woznicki, Sean; Fanelli, Rosemary Mixed-chemical exposure and predicted effects potential in wadeable southeastern USA streams
Complex chemical mixtures have been widely reported in larger streams but relatively little work has been done to characterize them and assess their potential effects in headwaterstreams. In 2014, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) sampled 54 Piedmont streams over ten weeks and measured 475 unique organic compounds...
Bradley, Paul M.; Journey, Celeste A.; Berninger, Jason P.; Button, Daniel T.; Clark, Jimmy M.; Corsi, Steven R.; DeCicco, Laura A.; Hopkins, Kristina G.; Huffman, Bradley J.; Nakagaki, Naomi; Norman, Julia E.; Nowell, Lisa H.; Qi, Sharon L.; Van Metre, Peter C.; Waite, Ian R. A method to quantify and value floodplain sediment and nutrient retention ecosystem services
Floodplains provide critical ecosystem services to local and downstream communities by retaining floodwaters, sediments, and nutrients. The dynamic nature of floodplains is such that these areas can both accumulate sediment and nutrients through deposition, and export material downstream through erosion. Therefore, estimating floodplain sediment...
Hopkins, Kristina G.; Noe, Gregory B.; Franco, Fabiano; Pindilli, Emily J.; Gordon, Stephanie; Metes, Marina; Claggett, Peter R.; Gellis, Allen; Hupp, Cliff R.; Hogan, Dianna M. Influence of governance structure on green stormwater infrastructure investment
Communities are faced with the challenge of meeting regulatory requirements mandating reductions in water pollution from stormwater and combined sewer overflows (CSO). Green stormwater infrastructure and gray stormwater infrastructure are two types of water management strategies communities can use to address water pollution. In this study, we...
Hopkins, Kristina G.; Grimm, Nancy B.; York, Abigail M. Research note: Mapping spatial patterns in sewer age, material, and proximity to surface waterways to infer sewer leakage hotspots
Identifying areas where deteriorating sewer infrastructure is in close proximity to surface waterways is needed to map likely connections between sewers and streams. We present a method to estimate sewer installation year and deterioration status using historical maps of the sewer network, parcel-scale property assessment data, and pipe material....
Hopkins, Kristina G.; Bain, Daniel J.
Floodplain and Channel Evaluation Tool (FACET)
The Floodplain and Evaluation Tool (FACET) is an open-source python tool that maps the floodplain extent and derives reach-scale summaries of stream and floodplain geomorphic measurements from high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs).
Stream Channel and Floodplain Metric Toolbox
The Stream Channel and Floodplain Metric Toolbox was developed to demonstrate the feasibility of mapping fluvial geomorphic features from high-resolution bare-earth elevation data.
Floodplain Ecosystem Service Mapper Released
The Floodplain Ecosystem Service Mapper is a web application that displays field site data and lidar-derived floodplain and stream channel geomorphic metrics in the Delaware River and Chesapeake Bay watersheds.
Green Stormwater Infrastructure to Reduce Suburban Runoff
A new study finds that a high density of green stormwater infrastructure can provide enhanced mitigation of peak flows and runoff volumes compared to large, detention-based stormwater control practices.
Listen in on SAWSC Scientist's Lunchtime Discovery Lecture at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences
SAWSC research physical scientist Dr. Krissy Hopkins gave a Lunchtime Discovery Lecture at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences on August 14, 2019.
Geomorphological Features of North Carolina Dataset Released
Three statewide datasets were compiled to provide information on geomorphological features in North Carolina. Datasets include state-wide coverages of geomorphon common forms, landscape openness, and slope area index. Datasets were generated from light detection and ranging (lidar) derived digital elevation models at 10 ft. or 30 ft. resolution.