Tamara Wilson
Leader, Innovator, Strategic Planner, and Physical Scientist. Currently spearheading the development of an external university grant program to train and recruit the next generation critical minerals workforce.
Land change and water use in California
Water shortages in California are a growing concern amidst ongoing drought, earlier spring snowmelt, projected future climate warming, and currently mandated water-use restrictions. Modeling results show that only if currently mandated 25% reductions in municipal water use are continuously implemented, would water demand in 2062 balance to water use levels in 2012.
Threats to protected areas
Protected areas will likely undergo shifts in ecological composition in coming decades given the coupled threats of land use and climate change. By assessing the land use threats facing species and/or ecosystems we can assist land managers in preserving biodiversity into the future and prioritizing at-risk lands for land acquisition or other nature based solutions.
Ecological Forecasting
We modeled dynamic scenarios of climate, land use, cropland and wetland habitat change across the Central Valley of California to help optimize water allocations for multiple ecosystem benefits, producing annual mapped forecasts and long-term projections of the spatial and temporal availability of managed wetland habitat in this critical migratory corridor.
Tamara’s broad research interests include how land use change, both historic and projected, influence regional environmental processes and resource availability and how nature-based solutions can address natural hazards. Her scenario research identifies land change impacts and feedbacks on protected areas, water availability, ecosystems, and habitat sustainability.
Her graduate training at the University of Arizona was in the fields of biogeography, climatology, climate change, paleoclimate, and paleoecology. With her experience examining natural archives of paleo-environmental landscape change, she was able to make the leap to utilizing modern remote sensing based records to examine human-derived landscape level changes and their associated impacts on natural resources. Her recent work utilizes historic land change records to inform model scenarios of future land change and their potential impacts on natural resources, including habitat and water availability.
As Deputy Director of the National Innovation Center, Tamara worked to expand the reach of the center, helping forge new and exciting partnerships between USGS scientists and other public, private, academic, and non-profit parties. She has developed regional and national communication pipelines as well as coordinating science seminars and workshops to introduce the latest technological advancements in earth science and explore their use in the federal science portfolio.
Science and Products
California land-change projections
Threats to protected areas
Land change and water use in California
Land Use and Climate Change Team
Science and Products
California land-change projections
Threats to protected areas
Land change and water use in California
Land Use and Climate Change Team
*Disclaimer: Listing outside positions with professional scientific organizations on this Staff Profile are for informational purposes only and do not constitute an endorsement of those professional scientific organizations or their activities by the USGS, Department of the Interior, or U.S. Government