Erin Hestir is a post-doctoral researcher in the CSTARS lab. Her research interests include coastal, estuarine, riverine and wetland hydrology and ecogeomorphology. She is interested in using remote sensors, including hyperpsectral, multi-spectral, and LiDAR to develop remote sensing products to characterize ecosystem variability and for investigations into current, historic, and potential vegetation distribution, water quality, and landform dynamics. Her research goal is to leverage geospatial technologies and in situ investigations to study interactions between vegetation and sediment transport, and characterizing how vegetation influences physical pattern and process in local and regional landscapes.
Currently Erin is investigating methods to map and monitor water turbidity and toxic blue-green algal blooms in the Sacramento and San-Joaquin River Delta in California. She is using field optical sensors, Landsat, and spectroscopic imagery to model the optical properties of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers.
Erin recently finished her dissertation “Trends in Estuarine Water Quality and Submerged Aquatic Vegetation.” The goal of her project was to characterize how submerged aquatic vegetation impacts aquatic habitat through alterations in hydrodynamics and turbidity. Her research identified trends in submerged aquatic vegetation distribution and water turbidity in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta of California, part of the largest estuary in the Western United States.
- Curriculum vitae
- Erin’s Projects
- An Observed Step Change in Delta Turbidity Following 1982-1983 El Nino Floods
- Monitoring and mapping plant ecophysiology and vegetation succession in a flooded island using airborne imaging spectroscopy
- Turbidity declines and submerged aquatic vegetation expansion in a tidal river delta
- Using remote-sensing products to identify velocity thresholds on submerged aquatic vegetation cover in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
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