Bethany Neilson

Water

Director, Utah Water Research Laboratory

Contact Information

Office Location: UWRL 303, ENGR 223
Phone: 435-797-7369 or 435-797-2772
Email: bethany.neilson@usu.edu
Additional Information:

Educational Background

PhD, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Utah State University, 2006 Dissertation

Dynamic Stream Temperature Modeling: Understanding the Causes and Effects of Temperature Impairments and Uncertainty in Predictions

MS, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Utah State University, 2001 Thesis

Critical Assessment of Guidance and Technical Support, and Bayesian Decision Networks for Total Maximum Daily Loads

BS, Environmental Engineering, Utah State University, 1998

Biography

I am a Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and I have a dual appointment with the Utah Water Research Laboratory (UWRL). I am currently serving as the CEE Water Division Head and the director of the Logan River Observatory.

Teaching Interests

My teaching has focused on heat and mass transport and as well as general hydrology. I have taught the undergraduate heat and mass transport class (CEE 3670 Transport Phenomena) that focuses on fundamentals and a more applied graduate level Surface Water Quality Modeling class (CEE 6740) that implements these fundamentals in the context of surface water quality models. I also teach the undergraduate Engineering Hydrology class (CEE 3430) that focuses on hydrologic fundamentals while trying to help students understand how these concepts tie back to water, heat, and mass movement in local watersheds.

Research Interests

My research is primarily focused on the collection of data sets fundamental to numerical modeling and identification of dominant heat and mass fate and transport mechanisms. Much of my research has focused on quantifying groundwater/surface water interactions and the associated influences on instream water quality and temperature regimes. These efforts have spanned desert rivers, arctic river systems, low gradient agricultural rivers, high gradient mountain streams, and highly regulated river reaches. More recent research efforts have expanded to landscape processes and connections to riverine environments. Current research includes understanding the role of groundwater/surface water exchanges on instream temperatures and carbon fluxes in areas of continuous permafrost; instream temperature, nutrient, and habitat responses to the development of beaver dam complexes; groundwater/surface water exchange influences on heat and nutrient transport in highly regulated river reaches; and temperature controls in regulated canyon-bound rivers. However, a key focus of my current research is understanding the complexities of mountain hydrology in the context of the Logan River watershed. Due to the large amount of data collected as part of the Logan River Observatory (https://lro.usu.edu), there are a variety of ongoing research projects in the area. In the karst, mountainous portion of the watershed, projects include understanding groundwater exchanges and influences on longitudinal solute trends, investigating methods for quantifying snow depth variability by combining bare-earth and snow-on LiDAR data, and combining processed-based snow modeling and machine learning models to predict baseflow variability. In the valley portion of the watershed, efforts include quantification and classification of lateral inflows from urban and agricultural portions of the watershed and temperature responses to various riparian and water management scenarios. Additional efforts include quantification of micro-plastic transport from pristine portions of the watershed to urban centers.