Karl Flessa

Professor of Geosciences, University of Arizona

E-mail: kflessa@email.arizona.edu
Phone: (520) 621-7336
Web: http://www.geo.arizona.edu/Flessa/

Research interests and background

Karl Flessa and his students have been conducting research on the Colorado River delta since 1992. They have documented the effects of upstream water diversions on the fauna of the river’s estuary and estimated flows necessary for their restoration. Flessa directed the NSF-supported Research Coordination Network: Colorado River Delta, the environmental monitoring program for the Ciénega de Santa Clara during the test run of the Yuma Desalting Plant, and is currently the co-Chief Scientist for the Minute 319 Monitoring Program for the Colorado River Delta. He was recently a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at Australia’s CSIRO, where he studied river management in the Murray-Darling Basin. He received his undergraduate degree at Lafayette College and his Ph.D. from Brown University.

Selected Colorado River Publications

Flessa, Karl, Eloise Kendy, Dra. Jesús Eliana Rodríguez Burgueño, and Karen Schlatter. 2018 (November 28). “Minute 319 Colorado River Limitrophe and Delta Environmental Flows Monitoring Final Report.” https://www.ibwc.gov/Files/Minute_319_Monitoring_Report_112818_FINAL.pdf

Flessa, K.W., E. Kendy, and K. Schlatter (editors). 2016. Minute 319 Colorado River Limitrophe and Delta Environmental Flows Monitoring. Interim Report. May 19. 78 p.
http://www.ibwc.state.gov/Files/Minutes%20319/2016_EFM_InterimReport_Min319.pdf
(Spanish version: http://www.gob.mx/cms/uploads/attachment/file/156631/IIMFADRC0516.pdf.)

Smith, J.A., Auerbach, D.A., Flessa, K.W., Flecker, A.S. and Dietl, G.P. 2016. “Fossil clam shells reveal unintended carbon cycling consequences of Colorado River management.” Royal Society Open Science, September, 2016. http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/3/9/160170

Bark, R.H., Robinson, C.J. and Flessa, K.W., 2016. “Tracking cultural ecosystem services: water chasing the Colorado River restoration pulse flow.” Ecological Economics 127:165-172.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800915304067

Flessa, K.W., E. Kendy, and K. Schlatter (editors). 2016. Minute 319 Colorado River Limitrophe and Delta Environmental Flows Monitoring. Interim Report. May 19. 78 p.
http://www.ibwc.state.gov/Files/Minutes%20319/2016_EFM_InterimReport_Min319.pdf
(Spanish version: http://www.gob.mx/cms/uploads/attachment/file/156631/IIMFADRC0516.pdf.)

Bark, R.H., Frisvold, G. and Flessa, K.W., 2014. “The role of economics in transboundary restoration water management in the Colorado River Delta.” Water Resources and Economics 8: 43-56. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212428414000516

Flessa, K.W., E.P. Glenn, O. Hinojosa-Huerta, C.A. de la Parra-Renteria, J. Ramirez-Hernandez, J.C. Schmidt, and F. Zamora-Arroyo. 2013. Flooding the Colorado River Delta: A landscape-scale experiment. EOS 94: 485-486. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013EO500001/pdf

Glenn, E.P.,K.W. Flessa, and J. Pitt. 2013. Restoration potential of the aquatic ecosystems of the Colorado River Delta, Mexico (Introduction to special issue on “Wetlands of the Colorado River Delta”). Ecological Engineering 59:1-6. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925857413001754

Cintra-Buenrostro, C.E., K.W. Flessa, and D.L. Dettman. 2012. Restoration flows for the Colorado River estuary, México: estimates from oxygen isotopes in the bivalve mollusk Mulinia coloradoensis (Mactridae: Bivalvia). Wetlands Ecology and Management 20: 313-327. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11273-012-9255-5

López-Hoffman, L., E.D. McGovern, R.G. Varady, and K.W. (editors). 2009. Conservation of
shared environments: Learning from the United States and Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. https://www.amazon.com/Conservation-Shared-Environments-Learning-Environmental/dp/0816528780

Selected Colorado River Presentations

“Possible Delta Solutions” at the Colorado River Conversations: Integrating Science and Identifying Solutions conference. Tucson, AZ; October 29, 2019.
https://ccass.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/CRCC_FinalAgenda_0.pdf

"Minute 319 and Minute 323 of the US-Mexico Water Treaty: When science matters and when it doesn’t” at the Sustainable Development for the Americas conference. Tucson, AZ; October 24, 2019. https://shepdiplomacy.arizona.edu/2019-conference/conference-agenda

“Establishing a Baseline With Science” at the Desert Waters International Symposium. Tucson, AZ; April 2, 2019.

“Looking back/looking forward: Minute 319/Minute 323” at the Lessons Learned Workshop. Mexicali, Mexico; October 24, 2018.

“Minute 319 and the Colorado River delta” at the Binational Water Relations at 75 Years: Retrospectives, Resilience, and U.S.-Mexico Border Water Resources Governance. Tucson, AZ; October 15, 2018. http://aquasec.org/events/workshops/binational-workshop-at-75-years/

“The Sum of the Parts: A Blueprint for Lower Basin Sustainability?” at the conference “Fighting Back on the Colorado River: Carving Out Progress on Multiple Fronts.” Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy and the Environment, University of Colorado; Boulder, CO; June 8, 2017. https://www.getches-wilkinsoncenter.cu.law/2017/06/11/martz-summer-conference-2017/.

“Transboundary environmental flows to the Colorado River Delta: When the past matters and when it doesn't” at the International Conference on Ecological Sciences. Marseille, France; October 26, 2016. https://sfecologie2016.sciencesconf.org/106008

“Two years after the flow: Hydrologic and ecological effects of the 2014 environmental flow to the Colorado River delta” at the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting. Denver, CO; Sept 26, 2016. https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2016AM/webprogram/Paper278839.html

Presenter at the Conservation Biology Program, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities: “A brief meeting of the waters: Science and policy of the first environmental flow to the Colorado River Delta” to the Conservation Biology Program, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities; February, 2016.