Assistant Professor,
Lafayette

740 High Street – # 319 AEC
Easton, PA  18042

610-330-3566 | kellehec@lafayette.edu

Defining a Water of the United States: Implications for Wetland Protections Across New York State

Abstract:

The definition of waters of the United States, or WOTUS, has seen extensive changes in recent years. These shifting definitions have implications for wetland protections. Using two endmember modifications to WOTUS definitions, the Clean Water Rule and the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, we applied a geospatial approach to assess wetland protections for over 253,000 wetlands across New York State. Our findings highlight the differences in wetland protections under past WOTUS definitions as a function of landscape position, size, and proximity to the river network, as well as how this varies across diverse regions of the state.

About the Speaker:

Christa Kelleher is an Assistant Professor at Lafayette College.  She earned her BS in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Lafayette College and her MS and PhD in the Department of Civil Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University.  After completing her dissertation, she spent time as a postdoctoral associate at Duke University and spent several years as a faculty member at Syracuse University before deciding to return to her alma mater.  Her research interests are at the interfaces between climate, hydrology, and human activity, particularly using observations and mathematical models to investigate the organization of hydrology and water quality across spatio-temporal scales.