Profile:

Maxfield holds a Bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University in Geography with a minor in Political Science. He also holds a Master’s degree in International Affairs from Universidad Externado de Colombia. His experience includes working as a GIS analyst and as a University Administrator of an Academic Exchange Program.

---

NERTO Research Project Title:

Linking Climate Forecasts to Streamflow and Ecosystem Services: Social and Economic Uses of Seasonal Precipitation

---

NERTO Project Details :

NERTO Synopsis: The project will develop approaches to model how climate variability and non-stationarities affect streamflow and aquatic habitat conditions in the western United States. Further, this project will analyse how improved climate forecasts can contribute to ecosystem management and human use of water. These approaches will then be used to develop assess policy options to reduce the risk of water shortages (for human and ecosystem uses) and investigate the monetary value of better climate and precipitation prediction ability. The project will be structures as a case study of one or more watershed sin the western United States that contain Endangered Species Act (ESA)-listed populations of Pacific salmonid species. The project will inform management of protected fish populations covered by the NOAA Fisheries' responsibilities under the ESA.

---

NERTO Outcomes:

I have become more proficient in programming and data analysis. I made significant advances in my project. I was involved in enriching field research activities. I presented an abstract to the AMS conference in 2019.

---

Value of NERTO to the Line Office:

This project helped NMFS develop approaches to modelling how climate variability and non-stationaries affect stream flow and aquatic habitats in the western United States.

---

NERTO Skills:

I became proficient with programming with R, using statistical analysis tools and mapping.