Jeff Opperman
Jeff Opperman
© The Nature Conservancy


The Global Freshwater Team
Jeff Opperman 
Senior Advisor for Sustainable Hydropower
Global Freshwater Team

 

As The Nature Conservancy’s Senior Advisor for Sustainable Hydropower, Jeff Opperman works to promote ecologically sustainable water management in river basins with hydropower infrastructure.  Through this work, Jeff has provided strategic and scientific assistance to environmental flow assessments for several rivers in the U.S. and for the Patuca River in Honduras. Jeff serves on the governing board of the Low Impact Hydropower Institute and on the Technical Advisory Committee of the California Energy Commission’s Instream Flow Assessment Program. He also works to advance floodplain conservation and restoration and recently served on an Independent Review Panel that provided recommendations for floodplain management to California’s Department of Water Resources.   

Prior to joining the Conservancy, Jeff coordinated watershed assessment and riparian restoration projects, developed workshops and educational materials on stream management for landowners, and served as a consultant on environmental policy for foundations and conservation organizations. Jeff received a B.S. in biology from Duke University, a Ph.D. in ecosystem science from the University of California, Berkeley, and conducted post-doctoral research at the University of California, Davis studying floodplain ecology. His research interests include stream ecology, large wood and fish habitat, fish utilization of floodplains, and riparian restoration. Jeff’s research papers have been published in journals such as BioScience, Ecological Applications, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, North American Journal of Fisheries Management, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, Restoration Ecology, and Environmental Management.