Associate Director, Water Program
Freshwater
[email protected]
Rodd oversees TNC California’s Dynamic Water Management strategy focused on water management strategies designed to make sure nature and people get the water they need, when they need it, in an increasingly stressed and variable water environment. Specifically, Rodd focuses on developing and scaling approaches for delivering the water needed to create wetlands and river flows at the times migratory birds and fish need them the most in ways that work for people too. Rodd provides overall strategic leadership and support for a portfolio of demonstration projects, scientific research, tool development, and policy engagements. Prior to this, Rodd served as a Lead Scientist for TNC’s Land Program. In that role, he guided efforts focused on increasing the pace and scale of forest restoration in the Sierra Nevada and efforts to strategically restore agricultural lands coming out of production in the San Joaquin Valley.
Rodd has over 25 years of experience in natural resources conservation and wildlife research. Prior to joining TNC, Rodd served as Director of Conservation for Audubon California. Previous work includes field research on several bird species throughout the United States and Central America and serving as natural resources manager for the U.S. Navy. Rodd received a B.A. in environmental conservation at the University of Colorado, an M.S. in biology at California State University, Long Beach, and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis.
What Rodd is working on now:
We just completed a book with Island Press on TNC’s vision for increasing groundwater sustainability, recovering 20+ threatened and endangered species, and improving water and air quality by working with farmers to rewild retired farmlands in the San Joaquin Valley. https://islandpress.org/books/rewilding-agricultural-landscapes
H. Scott Butterfield, T. Rodd Kelsey, and Abigail K. Hart, Editors
As the world population grows, so does the demand for food, putting unprecedented pressure on agricultural lands. At the same time, climate change, soil degradation, and water scarcity mean that productivity of many of these lands is deteriorating. In many desert dryland regions, drinking wells…
Aviv Karasov‐Olson, Alicia K. Bird, Amy C. Collins, Emily E. Graves, Julea A. Shaw, Eric F. Tymstra, T. Rodd Kelsey, Mark W. Schwartz
Conservation biology is particularly susceptible to the knowledge‐implementation gap where academic pursuits do not always meet the needs of practitioners. Providing future practitioners with relevant training and experiences as graduate students can help narrow this gap. An example of one such experience was a partnership…
Benjamin P. Bryant, T R. Kelsey, Adrian L. Vogl, Stacey A. Wolny, Duncan J. MacEwan, Paul C. Selmants, Tanushree Biswas, H S. Butterfield
Irrigated agriculture has grown rapidly over the last 50 years, helping food production keep pace with population growth, but also leading to significant habitat and biodiversity loss globally. Now, in some regions, land degradation and overtaxed water resources mean historical production levels may need to…
Jonathan R. B. Fisher, Stephen A. Wood, Mark A. Bradford, Rodd Kelsey
Jonathan R. B. Fisher, Stephen A. Wood, Mark A. Bradford, Thomas Rodd Kelsey
Rodd Kelsey, Scott Butterfield, Abigail Hart, Ruthie Redmond, Hope Bigda-Peyton
This Policy Brief summarizes the results of a study on the potential for strategic habitat restoration in the San Joaquin Valley of California as an important part of reducing overall water demand to achieve groundwater sustainability under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). It also provides policy…
Gavin M. Jones, H. Anu Kramer, Sheila A. Whitmore, William J. Berigan, Douglas J. Tempel, Connor M. Wood, Brendan K. Hobart, Tedward Erker, Fidelis A. Atuo, Nicole F. Pietrunti, Rodd Kelsey, R. J. Gutierrez, M. Zachariah Peery
This study examined spotted owl habitat selection after the King Fire in California using satellite tracking of 26 different owls . The authors found that whether severe fire was "good" or "bad" for owls depended on patch size and configuration: owls selected smaller but avoided…
Sara M. Kross, Breanna L. Martinico, Ryan P. Bourbour, Jason M. Townsend, Chris McColl, T. Rodd Kelsey
Agriculture-dominated landscapes harbor significantly diminished biodiversity. Woody vegetation along field margins can provide farmers with ecosystem services and benefit biodiversity. However, when crops are damaged by the biodiversity harbored in such vegetation, farmers are reluctant to incorporate field margin habitat onto their land and may…
Gorm E. Shackelford, Rodd Kelsey, William J. Sutherland, Christina M. Kennedy, Stephen A. Wood, Sasha Gennet, Daniel S. Karp, Claire Kremen, Nathaniel E. Seavy, Julie A. Jedlicka, Kelly Gravuer, Sara M. Kross, Deborah A. Bossio, Andrés Muñoz-Sáez, Deirdre G. LaHue, Kelly Garbach, Lawrence D. Ford, Mark Felice, Mark D. Reynolds, Devii R. Rao, Kathleen Boomer, Gretchen LeBuhn, Lynn V. Dicks
Agricultural management practices impacts not only on crops and livestock, but also soil health, water quality, wildlife, and ecosystem services. There is abundant, but disconnected, scientific evidence for the impacts of different practice. But this evidence is often not used in decision making by farmers or…
Heather Tallis, Katharine Kreis, Lydia Olander, Claudia Ringler, David Ameyaw, Mark E Borsuk, Diana Fletschner, Edward Game,, Daniel O Gilligan, Marc Jeuland, Gina Kennedy, Yuta J Masuda, Sumi Mehta, Nicholas Miller, Megan Parker, Carmel Pollino, Julie Rajaratnam, David Wilkie, Wei Zhang, Selena Ahmed, Oluyede C Ajayi, Harold Alderman, George Arhonditsis, Ines Azevedo, Ruchi Badola, Rob Bailis, Patricia Balvanera, Emily Barbour, Mark Bardini, David N Barton, Jill Baumgartner, Tim G Benton, Emily Bobrow, Deborah Bossio, Ann Bostrom, Ademola Braimoh, Eduardo Brondizio, Joe Brown, Benjamin P Bryant, Ryan SD Calder, Becky Chaplin-Kramer, Alison Cullen, Nicole DeMello, Katherine L Dickinson, Kristie L Ebi, Heather E Eves, Jessica Fanzo, Paul J Ferraro, Brendan Fisher, Edward A Frongillo, Gillian Galford, Dennis Garrity, Lydiah Gatere, Andrew P Grieshop, Nicola J Grigg, Craig Groves, Mary Kay Gugerty, Michael Hamm, Xiaoyue Hou, Cindy Huang, Marc Imhoff, Darby Jack, Andrew D Jones, Rodd Kelsey, Monica Kothari, Ritesh Kumar, Carl Lachat, Ashley Larsen, Mark Lawrence, Fabrice DeClerck, Phillip S Levin, Edward Mabaya, Jacqueline MacDonald Gibson, Robert I McDonald, Georgina Mace, Ricardo Maertens, Dorothy I Mangale, Robin Martino, Sara Mason, Lyla Mehta, Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Barbara Merz, Siwa Msangi, Grant Murray, Kris A Murray, Celeste E Naude, Nathaniel K Newlands, Ephraim Nkonya, Amber Peterman, Tricia Petruney, Hugh Possingham, Jyotsna Puri, Roseline Remans, Lisa Remlinger, Taylor H Ricketts, Bedilu Reta, Brian E Robinson, Dilys Roe, Joshua Rosenthal, Guofeng Shen, Drew Shindell, Ben Stewart-Koster, Terry Sunderland, William J Sutherland, Josh Tewksbury, Heather Wasser, Stephanie Wear, Chris Webb, Dale Whittington, Marit Wilkerson, Heidi Wittmer, Benjamin DK Wood, Stephen Wood,, Joyce Wu, Gautam Yadama and Stephanie Zobrist
Although environmental conservation, human health, and sustainable development challenges are interconnected, approaches to these challenges and the evidence used remain disconnected. Creating integrated solutions across these sectors will require better alignment of the methods used to assess the problems and quantifying success. In this review,…
Gorm E. Shackelford, Rodd Kelsey, Lynn V. Dicks
As California and other major agricultural regions around the world tackle the challenge of increasing the sustainability of agriculture to improve environmental health, cover crops are increasingly viewed as an important practice to protect soils and contribute to climate change mitigation. In this analysis, the authors…
M. Prunicki, R. Kelsey, J. Lee, Z. Xiaoying, H. Smith, F. Haddad, J. Wu, K. Nadeau
Forests of the Sierra Nevada and across the western U.S. are experiencing an unprecedented increase in the size and severity of wildfire along with widespread tree mortality due to drought and insect outbreaks. These developments not only threaten lives and communities but also seriously compromise…
Chris Elphick, T. Rodd Kelsey, Catherine Hickey, Khara Strum, Paul Buttner, Monica Iglecia
Wetland birds, especially Sandhill Cranes, are heavily dependent on irrigated farmlands in the Central Valley of California after widespread conversion of natural habitats. TNC and its partners have had great success working with farmers to design and implement compatible management practices that make sure farms,…
Kristen Sesser, Monica Iglecia, Matthew Reiter, Khara Strum, Catherine Hickey, Rodd Kelsey, Daniel Skalos
Over 50% of waterbird habitat in the Central Valley of California is provided by flooded agricultural land. Each year non-breeding waterbird habitat decreases in the late winter as flooded agricultural fields are drained after waterfowl hunting season in late-January to prepare for the next crop.…
Rodd Kelsey, Abby Hart, H. Scott Butterfield, Dan Vink
Restoring habitat in retired farmland could reduce water demand and provide ecosystem services for farmers and local communities. In some areas of California, as a result of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), it is likely that large amounts of agricultural land will need to…
Chris Lortie, Alex Filazzola, Rodd Kelsey, Abigail Hart, Scott Butterfield
Over the past 100 years, California's Central Valley has undergone a massive transformation from desert to a mosaic of farmland and urban development. This transformation has also meant many desert species have lost habitat. Now, new groundwater regulations are calling for the retirement of more…
H. Scott Butterfield, Rodd Kelsey, Abigail Hart, Tanushree Biswas, Mark Kramer, Dick Cameron, Laura Crane, Erica Brand
California's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) established a framework for sustainable, local groundwater management. SGMA requires groundwater-dependent regions to halt overdraft and bring basins into balanced levels of pumping and recharge. As a result, agricultural land retirement is on the rise in the San Joaquin Valley, California’s largest agricultural region and home to…
Rodd Kelsey, Edward Smith, Tanushree Biswas, Chris McColl, Kristen Wilson, Dick Cameron
This report provides a systematic regional-scale assessment of biodiversity, fire regime change, and fire risk to infrastructure of forested watersheds across the Sierra Nevada and prioritizes watersheds for forest restoration where the greatest risk reduction to biodiversity and human infrastructure can be achieved. For priority…
Sacha K. Heath, Candan U. Soykan, Karen L. Velas, Rodd Kelsey, Sara M. Kross
This paper discusses the potential for on-farm habitats along field margins as a conservation strategy within intensively cultivated landscapes. Specifically, the study examined the effects of woody field margin vegetation on winter and breeding season avian communities within diverse farm fields of California's Central Valley,…
Emma C. Underwood, Rachel A. Hutchinson, Joshua H. Viers, T. Rodd Kelsey, Trisha Distler, Jaymee Marty
This paper discusses and provides modeled estimates of the biodiversity and ecosystem service outcomes of three different future land use scenarios, compared to current land uses, in a cultivated landscape of the Central Valley in California. Specifically, it quantifies the impacts to greenhouse gas emissions,…
Kristen E. Dybala, Neil Clipperton, Thomas Gardali, Gregory H. Golet, Rodd Kelsey, Stefan Lorenzato, Ronald Melcer, Jr., Nathaniel Seavy, Joseph G. Silveira, Gregory S. Yarris
Quantitative population objectives are necessary to achieve conservation goals of secure or robust wildlife populations, however, existing methods for setting them often require extensive species population viability data, which are often unavailable. This paper presents an alternative method that uses key milestones a population would be expected to…
Kristen E. Dybala, Neil Clipperton, Thomas Gardali, Gregory H. Golet, Rodd Kelsey, Stefan Lorenzato, Ron Melcer, Jr., Nathaniel E. Seavy, Joseph G. Silveira
The Conservancy and partners are working to establish riparian ecosystems that provide sufficient habitat to support genetically robust, self-sustaining, and resilient bird populations in California's Central Valley. In this study, researchers selected 12 riparian landbird focal species as indicators of riparian ecosystem health and are…
Kristen Wilson, Erik Lowe, Stacey Wolny, Barry Nickel , Rodd Kelsey
This study demonstrates how science-based planning with stakeholder input can improve and direct conservation investments across existing state and jurisdictional boundaries. The authors set out to help direct the type, amount, and location of conservaiton investments in the Truckee River watershed in the Sierra Nevada…
Sara M. Kross, T. Rodd Kelsey, Chris J. McColl, Jason M. Townsend
Globally, loss of biodiversity and impacts to natural services and human health have been driven to a significant degree by loss of natural habitats due to agricultural land conversion and management practices. As a result, there is growing need and demand for designing or restoring…
Daniel Karp, Sasha Gennet, Rodd Kelsey
