Robert Stallard
Staff Scientist
e-mail: STALLARD@si.edu
Address: e-mail: stallard@usgs.gov
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
ATT: Robert Stallard
9100 PANAMA CITY PL
Washington DC 20521-9100
Telephone: +507 212-8224
FAX: +507 212-8148
Publications
Publications by Robert Stallard in STRI Bibliography
Research Interests
I study of how land-cover and climate change affect water movement through soils, weathering, and erosion, and how these, in turn, affect the composition and dispersal of dissolved and solid phases in rivers and trace gases in the atmosphere. For 35 years, I have studied natural and human-altered landscapes, in the Americas, Southeast Asia, and Africa, including most of the Amazon, Orinoco, Mississippi and Panama Canal Basins. My work has innovated the linking of the composition of river-borne materials to geology, soils, landscape, and vegetation in humid-tropical river basins through field observation and through the development of hypothetical steady-state erosional models that relate the composition of solid erosion products to dissolved erosion products. I have pioneered the analysis of the technologically perturbed carbon cycle in light of the interlinked roles of soil-carbon accumulation, soil erosion, nutrient loading, and terrestrial sedimentation. In addition to being a Staff Scientist at STRI, I am primarily a Research Hydrologist and Biogeochemist in the National Research Program of the U.S. Geological Survey.
Current Research
Agua Salud Project
My work on the Agua Salud started in 1996 with funding through 1999 from USAID on the Canal Watershed Monitoring Project for which I was PI on the soils and hydrology component. In the Agua Salud Project, I focus on water and biogeochemical budgets, on hydrological-process analysis, and on landscape characterization for the purpose of designing robust hydrological models. At the most basic level, the Agua Salud Project seeks to quantify the effect of different land uses on (1) water quality, quantity, and temporal distribution; (2) carbon storage; and (3) biodiversity values. It will do this within focal research catchments in the Agua Salud and adjacent watersheds. These focal catchments serve as a research platform that will permit process-level studies to be linked with ecosystem dynamics and function.
Water, Energy, and Biogeochemical Budgets.
From 1991 to present, I worked on hydrology and biogeochemical budgets in Lutz Creek and the Conrad Trail Stream on Barro Colorado Island in parallel with work in eastern Puerto Rico funded by the US Geological Survey. This work involves a systematic comparison of small stream catchments to identify the processes that control stream composition and water discharge in natural and developed humid-tropical landscapes in island-arc terrains. To examine the influence of contrasting geology, I undertake short-term field studies in continental landscapes, such as in the Amazon region.
Carbon Cycle
I started working at STRI in 1984, and was funded by NASA to look at greenhouse gases from 1986-1990 in the Panama Canal Basin. This work inspired my work on terrestrial sedimentation and the carbon cycle. In contrast with soil-carbon accumulation and sequestration of carbon by vegetation, terrestrial sedimentation is one of the few components of the carbon cycle on land to have the potential for being a long-term carbon sink at a scale commensurate with technological carbon release. This work involves the whole planet.
Education and Degrees
1970-1974, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, B.S. Earth and Planetary Sciences, emphasis in Planetary Physics and Chemistry.
1975-1980, Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography, Ph.D., emphasis in Chemical Oceanography, with a thesis entitled "Major Element Geochemistry of the Amazon River System."
1980-1981, USGS-GD-Office of Marine Geology, Woods Hole, MA, National Research Council Post Doctoral Fellowship, research project on clay mineralogy.
Selected Bibliography
Stallard, R.F., 1988, Weathering and erosion in the humid tropics, in Lerman, A., and Meybeck, M., editors, Physical and Chemical Weathering in Geochemical Cycles: Dordrecht, Holland, Kluwer Academic Publishers, NATO ASI Series C: Mathematical and Physical Sciences 251, p. 225-246.
Johnsson, M.J., and Stallard, R.F., 1989, Physiographic controls on the composition of sediments derived from volcanic and sedimentary terrains on Barro Colorado Island, Panama: Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, v. 59, no. 5, p. 768-781.
Keller, M., Mitre, M.E., and Stallard, R.F., 1990, Consumption of atmospheric methane in soils of central Panama: Effects of agricultural development: Global Biogeochemical Cycles, v. 4, no. 1, p. 21-27.
Johnsson, M.J., and Stallard, R.F., 1990, Physiographic Controls on the Composition of Sediments Derived From Volcanic and Sedimentary Terrains on Barro-Colorado Island, Panama - Reply: Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, v. 60, no. 5, p. 799-801.
Larsen, M.C., Collar, P.D., and Stallard, R.F., 1993, Research plan for the investigation of water, energy, and biogeochemical budgets in the Luquillo Mountains, Puerto Rico, U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 92-150, 19 pages.
Keller, M., and Stallard, R.F., 1994, Methane emission by bubbling from Gatun Lake, Panama: Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 99, no. D4, p. 8307-8319.
Stallard, R.F., 1995, Relating chemical and physical erosion, in White, A.F., and Brantley, S.L., editors, Chemical Weathering Rates of Silicate Minerals: Washington, D.C., Mineralogical Society of America, Reviews in Mineralogy 31, p. 543-564, 583 pages.
Stallard, R.F., 1995, Tectonic, environmental, and human aspects of weathering and erosion: A global review using a steady-state perspective: Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, v. 12, p. 11-39.
Stallard, R.F., 1998, Terrestrial sedimentation and the carbon cycle: Coupling weathering and erosion to carbon burial: Global Biogeochemical Cycles, v. 12, no. 2, p. 231-252.
Kinner, D.A., and Stallard, R.F., 1999, The hydrologic model TOPMODEL, in Panama Canal Watershed Monitoring Project, editor, Report of the Panama Canal Watershed Monitoring Project, p. Chapter II.9, 8 volumes, 21 CD-ROMs.
Stallard, R.F., 1999, Erosion and the effects of deforestation in the Panama Banal Basin, in Panama Canal Watershed Monitoring Project, editor, Report of the Panama Canal Watershed Monitoring Project, p. Chapter II.8, 8 volumes, 21 CD-ROMs.
Stallard, R.F., García, T., and Mitre, M., 1999, Hidrologia y Suelos, in Heckadon-Moreno, S., Ibáñez-D., R., and Condit, R., Editors, La Cuenca del Canal: Deforestación Contaminación y Urbanización: Panama, Intituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales, p. 57-83, 120.
Stallard, R.F., 2000, Tectonic processes and erosion, in Jacobson, M.C., Charleson, R.J., Rodhe, H., and others, editors, Earth System Science: From Biogeochemical Cycles to Global Change: San Diego, California, Academic Press, p. 195-229.
Condit, R., Robinson, W.D., Ibáñez D., R., and others, 2001, The status of the Panama Canal Watershed and Its biodiversity at the beginning of the 21st Century: Bioscience, v. 51, no. 5, p. 389-398.
Ibáñez D., R., Condit, R., Angehr, G.R., and others, 2002, An ecosystem report on the Panama Canal: Monitoring the status of the forest communities and the watershed: Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, v. 80, p. 65-95.
Svenning, J.-C., Kinner, D.A., Stallard, R.F., and others, 2003, Determinism in plant community structure across a tropical forest landscape: Ecology, v. in review.
Kinner, D.A., and Stallard, R.F., 2004, Identifying storm flow pathways in a rainforest catchment using hydrological and geochemical modelling: Hydrological Processes, v. 18, p. 2851-2875.
Godsey, S., Elsenbeer, H., and Stallard, R.F., 2004, Overland Flow Generation in Two Lithologically Distinct Rainforest Catchments: Journal of Hydrology, v. 295, no. 1-4, p. 276-290.
Svenning, J.C., Kinner, D.A., Stallard, R.F., and others, 2004, Ecological Determinism in Plant Community Structure Across a Tropical Forest Landscape: Ecology, v. 85, no. 9, p. 2526-2538.
Kinner, D.A., Mitasova, H., Stallard, R.F., and others, 2005, GIS-Based stream and network analysis for the upper Río Chagres Basin, Panama, in Harmon, R.S., editor, The Río Chagres, Panama: A Multidisciplinary Profile of a Tropical Watershed: Dordtrecht, The Netherlands, Springer, Water Science and Technology Library 52, p. 83-95.
Stallard, R.F., and Kinner, D.A., 2005, Estimation of Landslide Importance in Hillslope Erosion in the Panama Canal Watershed, in Harmon, R.S., Editor, The Río Chagres, Panama: A Multidisciplinary Profile of a Tropical Watershed: Dordrecht, The Netherlands, Springer, Water Science and Technology Library 52, p. 281-296, 354.
Svenning, J.-C., Engelbrecht, B.M.J., Kinner, D.A., and others, 2006, The relative roles of environment, history, and local dispersal in controlling the distributions of common tree and shrub species in a tropical forest landscape, Panama: Journal of Tropical Ecology, v. 22, p. 575-586.
John, R., Dalling, J.W., Harms, K.E., and others, 2007, Soil nutrients influence spatial distributions of tropical tree species: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, v. 104, no. 3, p. 864-869.
Barthold, F.K., Stallard, R.F., and Elsenbeer, H., 2008, Soil nutrient-landscape relationships in a lowland tropical rainforest in Panama: Forest Ecology Anad Management, v. 255, p. 1135-1148.
Ogden, F.L., Stallard, R.F., Elsenbeer, H., and others, 2010, Panama Canal Watershed Experiment: Agua Salud Project, in Garcia, P.M., editor, International Specialty Conference and 8th Caribbean Islands Water Resources Congress on Tropical Hydrology and Sustainable Water Resources in a Changing Climate, Rio Grande, Puerto Rico, TPS-10-2.
Stallard, R.F., Ogden, F.L., Elsenbeer, H., and others, 2010, Panama Canal Watershed Experiment: Agua Salud Project: Water Resources Impact, v. 12, no. 6, p. 17-20.