P. Ryan Jackson, Hydrologist, USGS, Central Midwest Water Science Center, located in Urbana, Illinois.
Ryan received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2006 and was a Postdoctoral Scholar at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution from 2006-2008. Since joining the USGS in 2008, he has been primarily working on surface water investigations projects, though some of his time each year has been dedicated to Office of Surface Water (Hydroacoustics). While Ryan's job title is hydrologist, a more accurate and descriptive title would be Environmental and Ecological Hydrodynamicist (yes, it's a mouthful). He studies complex flows in rivers and lakes and how these flows relate to physical, chemical, and biological processes occurring in the surrounding environment and ecosystems. At the heart of many of Ryan's studies is the investigation of mixing and transport in surface water with the goal of understanding a system from a holistic perspective, which includes describing the role of hydrodynamics in driving water-quality distributions and ecological processes. Examples of such studies include fate and transport of contaminants in rivermouth mixing zones in the Great Lakes, assessment of spawning suitability of Great Lakes tributaries for invasive Asian carp, and the hydrodynamics around barges and potential for entrainment and transport of invasive fish in barge junction gap spaces.
Ryan's studies rely heavily on innovative applications of hydroacoustic and water-quality instrumentation. For example, some of his studies utilize an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) paired with traditional manned-boat instrument platforms for high-resolution, integrated synoptic surveys of water-quality distributions, bathymetry, and velocity of a study site. He has a passion for data analysis and visualization and use a variety of tools including Matlab, ArcGIS, and Adobe Illustrator to unlock and present the "story in the data". Since unpublished research benefits nobody, he actively strives to publish his studies in peer-reviewed journals, technical reports, conference papers, and data releases. Finally, Ryan shares many of the data processing and visualization tools that he develops through his research with others to provide transparency and standardization, improve efficiency, and minimize duplication of effort within the USGS and the broader research community. One example is the Velocity Mapping Toolbox (VMT), a suite of tools for processing and visualizing data from acoustic Doppler current profilers.
Science and Products
Waterbody Rapid Assessment Tool (WaterRAT): 3-dimensional Visualization of High-Resolution Spatial Data
Asian Carp Integrated Control and Containment: Brandon Road Lock and Dam
Asian Carp Risk Assessment and Life History: Assessment of Hydraulic and Water-Quality Influences on Waterways to Develop Control Options
Development of a FluEgg Model for the St. Croix River
Early Life History of Bighead, Silver, Black, and Grass Carps
Science and Products
- Science
Waterbody Rapid Assessment Tool (WaterRAT): 3-dimensional Visualization of High-Resolution Spatial Data
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are instruments that collect water-quality, depth, and other data in waterbodies. They produce complex and massive datasets. There is currently no standard method to store, organize, process, quality-check, analyze, or visualize this data. The Waterbody Rapid Assessment Tool (WaterRAT) is aPython application that processes and displays water-quality data withAsian Carp Integrated Control and Containment: Brandon Road Lock and Dam
Increased threat of Asian carp entering the Great Lakes and spreading to other basins such as the Upper Mississippi River and Ohio River basins, has led to increased prevention and control efforts since 2010. Successful management of this invasive species requires methods to contain future spread, reduce population levels, and minimize their effects. In collaboration with partners, USGS scientists...Asian Carp Risk Assessment and Life History: Assessment of Hydraulic and Water-Quality Influences on Waterways to Develop Control Options
USGS scientists monitored the distribution of the Asian carp populations within the pools of the Illinois River to help identify favorable habitats. Sharp contrasts in habitat, flow conditions, water quality, and food supply between the Marseilles and Dresden Island Pools and the Chicago Area Waterway System may be acting as controlling factors to the stalled upstream movement of Asian carp into...Development of a FluEgg Model for the St. Croix River
The USGS partnered with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to collect hydraulic and water chemistry data in the lower St. Croix River for development of a model that predicts the probability of successful egg hatching and survival of juvenile invasive carp over a range of water temperature and streamflow conditions.Early Life History of Bighead, Silver, Black, and Grass Carps
Grass, bighead, black, and silver carps spawn in turbulent rivers and their eggs develop and hatch while drifting downriver. The larvae also have a short period of developing in the drift, and then they must swim from the river and find appropriate low- or no-flow nursery areas. Rivers which are not long enough, turbulent enough, or without nursery areas in the correct locations are not likely to... - Data
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