Kelly Elder
Research Hydrologist at the Fort Collins Laboratory

e-mail: kelder[at]fs.fed.us
phone:970-498-1233

Personal Research Program

• Hydrology| Water & Watershed Processes
  • Water balance on a recovering clear-cut hillslope in a subalpine forest
  • Long-term hydrological recovery of clear-cuts in a subalpine forest
  • Consequences of beetle-induced tree mortality on basin runoff (see also: Water)
  • Consequences of post-beetle salvage operations on hillslope hydrology
  • Retrieval of snowpack properties using airborne Ku-band radar

Integrated/Interdisciplinary/Cooperative Research Program

1) Watershed Hydrology in Natural, Disturbed and Managed Systems

The central focus of my research is quantifying water balance in natural, disturbed and managed ecosystems. Basic hydrological abstractions such as precipitation, evapotranspiration, and runoff are still not well understood across spatial and temporal scales. Important processes operate across hillslope and continental scales and over time steps from minutes to centuries. Fire, invasives, and other natural disturbances affect watershed processes in sometimes predictable, but poorly quantified ways.  Management of basins also affects processes that control water quantity.

2) Research for Watershed Management

Recent Publications

2013

Hubbard, R.M., C.C. Rhoades, K. Elder, and J.F. Negron. 2013. Changes in transpiration and foliage growth in lodgepole pine trees following mountain pine beetle attack and mechanical girdling. Forest Ecology and Management 289: 312-317.

2012

Rhoades, Chuck; Chambers, Carl; Elder, Kelly; Pierson, Derek; Starr, Banning. 2012. Nutrient and carbon retention in riparian and hillslope forests after mountain pine beetle infestation and timber harvesting in Colorado (Abstract). In: Proceedings of the American Water Resources Association 2012 Summer Specialty Conference; Riparian Ecosystems IV: Advancing Science, Economics and Policy; June 27-29, 2012; Denver, Colorado. Online: http://www.awra.org/proceedings/Summer2012/Riparian/index.html

Vose, James M.; Ford, Chelcy R.; Laseter, Stephanie; Dymond, Salli; Sun, Ge; Adams, Mary Beth; Sebestyen, Stephen; Campbell, John; Luce, Charlie; Amatya, Devendra; Elder, Kelly; Heartsill, Tamara. 2012. Can forest watershed management mitigate climate change effects on water resources. In: Webb, Ashley A.; Bonell, Mike; Bren, Leon; Lane, Patrick N. J.; et. al., eds. 2012. Revisiting Experimental Catchment Studies in Forest Hydrology, Proceedings of a Workshop held during the XXV IUGG General Assembly in Melbourne, June–July 2011. IAHS Publ. 353:Oxfordshire, UK. 12-25.

2010

Dutra, Emanuel; Balsamo, Gianpaolo; Viterbo, Pedro; Miranda, Pedro M. A.; Beljaars, Anton; Schar, Christoph; Elder, Kelly. 2010: An improved snow scheme for the ECMWF land surface model: Description and offline validation. Journal of Hydrometeorology. 11: 899-916.

2009

Elder, Kelly; Cline, Don; Liston, Glen E.; Armstrong, Richard  2009.  NASA Cold Land Processes Experiment (CLPX 2002/03): Field measurements of snowpack properties and soil moisture.   Journal of Hydrometeorology. 10(1): 320-329..

Elder, Kelly; Cline, Don; Goodbody, Angus; Houser, Paul; Liston, Glen E.; Mahrt, Larry; Rutter, Nick  2009.  NASA Cold Land Processes Experiment (CLPX 2002/03): Ground-based and near-surface meteorological observations.   Journal of Hydrometeorology. 10(1): 330-337..

Yueh, Simon H.; Dinardo, Steve J.; Akgiray, Ahmed; West, Richard; Cline, Donald W.; Elder, Kelly  2009.  Airborn Ku-band polarimetric radar remote sensing of terrestrial snow cover. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing. 47(10): 3347-3364.

Cline, Don; Yueh, Simon; Chapman, Bruce; Stankov, Boba; Gasiewski, Al; Masters, Dallas; Elder, Kelly; Kelly, Richard; Painter, Thomas H.; Miller, Steve; Katzberg, Steve; Mahrt, Larry.  2009.  NASA Cold Land Processes Experiment (CLPX 2002/03): Airborne remote sensing.   Journal of Hydrometeorology. 10(1): 338-346..

Rutter, Nick; Essery, Richard; Pomeroy, John; Altimir, Nuria; Andreadis, Kostas; Baker, Ian; Barr, Alan; Bartlett, Paul; Boone, Aaron; Deng, Huiping; Douville, Herve; Dutra, Emanuel; Elder, Kelly; and others  2009.  Evaluation of forest snow processes models (SnowMKIP2).   Journal of Geophysical Research. 114: D06111, doi: 10.1029/2008JD011063..

Essery, Richard; Rutter, Nick; Pomeroy, John; Baxter, Robert; Stahli, Manfred; Gustafsson, David; Barr, Alan; Bartlett, Paul; Elder, Kelly  2009.  SNOWMIP2: An evaluation of forest snow process simulations.   Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 90(8): 1120-1135.

2007 and earlier

Trujillo, E., J. Ramirez and K. Elder, 2007, Topographic, meteorologic, and canopy controls on the scaling characteristics of the spatial distribution of snow depth fields, Wat. Res. Res., 43.

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Elder, K., K. Dwire, R. Hubbard, C. Rhoades, S. Ryan, M. Young, L. Porth, M. Dixon and A. Goodbody, 2006, Disturbance and water related research in the western United States, Proc. of Sec. Interagency Conf., Research in the Watersheds, May 16-18, 2006, Coweeta Hydrological Lab, Otto, North Carolina.

Liston, G. E., and K. Elder, 2006: A distributed snow-evolution modeling system (SnowModel). J. Hydromet., 7, 1259-1276.

Liston, G. E., and K. Elder, 2006: A meteorological distribution system for high-resolution terrestrial modeling (MicroMet). J. Hydromet., 7, 217-234.

Deems, J., S. R. Fassnacht, and K. Elder, 2006, Fractal distribution of snow depth from LiDAR data, J. Hydromet., 7, 285-297.

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Hubbard, R.M.; Ryan, M.G.; Elder, K.J.; Rhoades, C.C.  2005.  Seasonal patterns in soil surface CO2  flux under snow cover in 50 and 300 year subalpine forests.  Biogeochemistry.  73, 93-107.

Montesi, J., K. Elder, R. A. Schmidt, and R. Davis, 2004, Sublimation of intercepted snow within a subalpine canopy at two elevations, J. Hydromet., 5, 763-773.

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Brooks, P., D. McKnight, and K. Elder, 2004, Carbon limitation of soil respiration under winter snowpacks: potential feedbacks between growing season and winter carbon fluxes. Global Change Biology, 11, 231-238.

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Cline, D., K. Elder, B. Davis, J. Hardy, G.E. Liston, D. Imel, S.H. Yueh, A.J. Gasiewski, G. Koh, R.L. Armstrong, M. Parsons, Overview of the NASA cold land processes field experiment (CLPX-2002), Proc. Int. Symp., 2002 October 24-25, China, Soc. of Photo-Opt. Instrumentation Engineers, Vol. 4894: 361-372, 2003.

Research Scientists