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Dr. Todd Steissberg is a Research Environmental Engineer at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC). Dr. Steissberg leads the Ecohydrology Team at ERDC’s Environmental Laboratory that, in collaboration with other federal and academic partners (USACE-HEC, USACE-ERDC-CHL, Portland State University, ASU, USGS, USBR, and others), develops and applies water quality and environmental systems models for rivers, reservoirs, and watersheds. The objective of his research is to provide interdisciplinary teams with the tools and methods needed to perform integrated watershed-scale environmental impact assessments, improve water quality management and real-time operations, and design and implement ecosystem restoration projects that incorporate natural and nature-based features (NNBF) to improve the health and resiliency of ecosystems and communities.
Dr. Steissberg obtained his B.S. in Civil Engineering from Washington State University. He earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from University of California, Davis, while serving as a NASA Earth System Science fellow at NASA/JPL, researching remote sensing of physical limnology and water quality processes. As a Postdoctoral Researcher at the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center, he developed methods to characterize the spatial-temporal variability of water quality using satellite and field measurements. Dr. Steissberg lead development and application of water quality models and geospatial tools as a Senior Hydraulic Engineer at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Hydrologic Engineering Center (USACE-HEC), transitioning to ERDC in 2019, to expand this work to address complex issues in water quality, ecosystem restoration, and environmental resiliency and adaptation of freshwater and coastal ecosystems, civil works infrastructure, and military installations.
Dr. Steissberg is the lead developer of ERDC’s CE-QUAL-W2 model and the Corps Library for the Environmental Analysis and Restoration of Watersheds (ClearWater). He continues to lead development and application of water quality capabilities for the widely used hydraulic and hydrologic (H&H) models developed by the USACE Hydrologic Engineering Center (HEC-RAS, HEC-ResSim, and HEC-HMS), and his team is developing new water quality and vegetation modeling capabilities for the ERDC Coastal and Hydraulic Laboratory’s (CHL) Gridded Surface Subsurface Hydrologic Analysis (GSSHA) program.
Engineering With Nature® is the intentional alignment of natural and engineering processes to efficiently and sustainably deliver economic, environmental, and social benefits through collaboration.