Research

Photo: Bumping Lake with Mt. Rainier in the background. Photo Credit: Washington Dept. of Ecology

My research as an interdisciplinary water scientist centers on understanding the influence of land use and land management on hydrologic processes and human well-being.  Conceptually, humans influence their environment, and in turn, the environment influences humans.  To better understand these processes, I use techniques that include field and computational hydrology, geophysics, climate simulations, and social-ecological approaches.

I was previously in Bart Nijssen’s Computational Hydrology lab at University of Washington as a postdoc and am currently completing this research. During my time in graduate school, I had some great mentors along the way, including my Master’s advisor Alex Fremier, my Ph.D. advisor Tim Link, as well as my IGERT Sagebrush Team lead J.D. Wulfhorst.  I’ve also received support from Robert Heinse who has been on both my Masters and Ph.D. committees, and Mark Seyfried out of the USDA ARS in Boise. Links to further description of projects I’ve led or participated in are listed below, and publications are listed below the projects.

Research Projects:

• Climate change impacts on streamflow and stream temperature in the Southeastern U.S.
• Land use and ecosystem services in the tropics
• Incorporating social impacts into the federal land management process
• Juniper ecohydrology
• Climate change impacts in Idaho and the Western U.S.

Publications:

• 7. Niemeyer, R.J., T.E. Link, M.S. Seyfried, and R. Heinse. 2017. Climate moderates potential shifts in streamflow from changes in pinyon-juniper woodland cover across the western U.S. Hydrological Processes DOI: 10.1002/hyp.11264.
• 6. Niemeyer, R.J., R. Heinse, T.E. Link, M.S. Seyfried, P.Z. Klos, C. Williams, and T. Nielson. 2017. Spatiotemporal soil and saprolite moisture dynamics across a semi-arid woody plant gradient. Journal of Hydrology 544: 21-35. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2016.11.005.
• 5. Bentley, A.L., J.D. Holbrook, R.J. Niemeyer, A.A. Suazo, J.D. Wulfhorst, K.T. Vierling, B.A. Newingham, T.E. Link, J.L. Rachlow. 2016. A social-ecological impact assessment for public land management: application of a conceptual and methodological framework. Ecology and Society 21(3):9.
• 4. Niemeyer, R.J., T.E. Link, M.S. Seyfried, and G.L. Flerchinger. 2016. Surface water input from snowmelt and rain throughfall in western juniper: Potential impacts of climate change and shifts in semi-arid vegetation. Hydrological Processes 30(17): 3046–3060.
• 3. Klos, P. Z., J. Abatzoglou, J. Blades, M.A. Clark, M. Dodd, T. Hall, A. Haruch, P. Higuera, J.D. Holbrook, V.S. Jansen, K. Kemp, A. Lankford, A. Lamar, T.E. Link, T. Magney, A.J.H. Meddens, L. Mitchell, B. Moore, P. Morgan, B.A. Newingham, R.J. Niemeyer, B. Soderquist, A.A. Suazo, K.T. Vierling, V. Walden, and C. Walsh. 2015. Indicators of climate change in Idaho: An assessment framework for coupling biophysical change and social perception. Weather, Climate, and Society Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 7(3):238-254.
• 2. Niemeyer, R.J., A.K. Fremier, R. Heinse, W. Chavez-Human and F.A.J. DeClerck. 2014. Woody Vegetation Increases Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity in Dry Tropical Nicaragua. Vadose Zone Journal 13(1):1-11.
• 1. Fremier, A.K., F.A.J. DeClerck, N.A. Bosque-Pérez, N. Estrada Carmona, R. Hill, T. Joyal, L. Keesecker, P.Z. Klos, A. Martinez-Salinas, R.J. Niemeyer, A. Sanfiorenzo, K. Welsh and J.D. Wulfhorst. 2013. Understanding Spatiotemporal Lags in Ecosystem Services to Improve Incentives. BioScience, 63(6):472-482.

Photo: Adventures in science! Zion and I convinced Lucy and Becca, our respective partners, to go on a “super double date”, where we did three days of fieldwork at Reynolds Creek. Here we are establishing an Electrical Resistivity Tomogrpahy (ERT) survey at the juniper site. L to R: Me, Becca, Lucy, Zion.