Kimberly Van Meter

Dr. Kimberly Van Meter is a water system scientist who studies the many ways in which human activity is affecting water quality and water availability across a range of different landscapes. She uses remote sensing, large-scale data analysis, and process-based modeling approaches to explore the influences of climate, land use, and management practices on water quality, especially in large agroecosystems. Her work on the build-up of legacy nutrients in agricultural landscapes has been foundational to developing a new understanding of the long time trajectories needed to improve water quality. Dr. Van Meter is also deeply interested in the effects of a changing climate on the North American Great Lakes, especially with regard to changing water levels and the effects of these changes on Great Lakes coastal wetlands. Recently, she has begun work on a NASA-funded project related to targeted restoration of wetlands in human-impacted landscapes. In this work, she is using a multi-scalar approach to better predict how wetland restoration can increase the removal of excess nutrients and thus reduce downstream nitrate and phosphorus loads. In another project, she is exploring the effects of reservoirs and small mill dams in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed on water quality. She is especially interested in questions related to the effects of aging dam infrastructure and dam removal on downstream water quality. In all of her work, Dr. Van Meter is interested in bettering our understanding of the effects of land-use change on water availability and water quality, and in exploring the sometimes unexpected social and environmental tradeoffs associated with attempts to improve environmental outcomes.