Scott Dusterhoff
Scott Dusterhoff, MS
Program Managing Director & Senior Scientist
Sediment
Resilient Landscapes Program
Shoreline Resilience
Watershed Science & Management
Scott Dusterhoff is a Senior Scientist and Managing Director of the Resilient Landscapes Program at the San Francisco Estuary Institute. He is an experienced geomorphologist with a background in fluvial geomorphology, watershed hydrology, and estuarine/tidal wetland dynamics. For more than two decades, Scott has been working in coastal and upland watersheds throughout California, Oregon, and Washington, as well as in the Mid-Atlantic, on projects that use in-depth scientific investigations to inform sustainable ecosystem management approaches. He specializes in understanding the impacts of land disturbance and flow regulation on geomorphic processes and aquatic habitat for a variety of endangered species. He has extensive experience using a combination of field-based data, numerical modeling, and geospatial tools to characterize fluvial and coastal sediment transport dynamics and hydrologic/hydraulic processes. Scott received a B.S in Geology from the University of Maryland and an M.S. in Environmental Sciences and Hydrology from the University of Virginia.
Related Projects, News, and Events
![Design by Linda Wanczyk](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/projects/RipZET_logo.png?itok=fB31s3dd&c=85137275936162996cea8f01c26ae59e)
The Riparian Zone Estimator Tool (RipZET) is a decision support tool developed by the San Francisco Estuary Institute and Aquatic Science Center for the California Riparian Habitat Joint Venture and the California Water Resources Control Board to assist in the visualization and characterization of riparian areas in the watershed context.
![](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/projects/Web_schematic_ss.png?itok=3QHKanpc&c=1f15ab645a4a38757532341c3d33851c)
Sediment Solutions is a timely and innovative project that builds on SFEI’s past work, operationalizing cutting-edge science to inform management approaches that take advantage of natural processes to provide more creek sediment to baylands, increase climate resilience, and enhance creek health. With study areas in North Bay, East Bay, and South Bay, the project will provide new guidance for management strategies that support flood risk management and ecosystem health benefits throughout the region.
![](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/news/richey%20Laguna_2019_DSCF8255.jpg?itok=7MlPvdzY&c=babf762f83964a60c2173d192cdf01ee)
The Laguna de Santa Rosa, an expansive freshwater wetland complex located in the Russian River watershed of Sonoma County, CA, is a vital ecological and cultural resource that has undergone considerable change over the past 150 years. Land conversion for agriculture and development have led to a decrease in habitat for native species within the Laguna and an increase in the delivery of streamflow, fine sediment, and nutrients to the Laguna.
![Laguna de Santa Rosa](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/projects/richey%20Laguna_2019_DSCF8255_0_0.jpg?itok=6e0Cx1od&c=463f29d8f49e48c5faaf8b19ccd96374)
The Laguna de Santa Rosa is an expansive freshwater wetland complex that hosts a rich diversity of plant and wildlife species, and is also home to a thriving agricultural community. Since the mid-19th century, modifications to the Laguna and its surrounding landscape have degraded habitat conditions for both wildlife and people.
![Photo by Shira Bezalel](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/projects/SBezalel-20190527-A7304620%20%282%29_6.jpg?itok=1iCx6o-_&c=47b507113799936d9509b7f95c2706de)
As baylands restoration and climate change alter the ecosystems of the Bay, novel restoration approaches are needed to meet growing challenges. Paramount among these challenges for the baylands is a projected lack of inorganic sediment to help wetland elevations keep pace with sea-level rise over the coming decades. One restoration approach that may address this challenge is to diversify the way that creeks are connected to baylands, returning those connections to the adaptive, resilient nodes of habitat complexity that they were historically.
![](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/projects/Cover%20Pages%20from%20SFEI_RMP_Update%202023_v13_101123%20130pm.png?itok=pgR4InCF&c=1f64562500333563b23eaead1616fa94)
The Regional Monitoring Program for Water Quality in San Francisco Bay is an innovative collaboration of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, the regulated discharger community, and the San Francisco Estuary Institute. It provides water quality regulators with the information they need to manage the Bay effectively. The RMP produces two types of summary reports: The Pulse of the Bay and the RMP Update. The Pulse focuses on Bay water quality and summarizes information from all sources.
![Conceptual diagram of sediment dynamics](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/projects/ConceptualUnderstanding_Subembayment_v1.jpg?itok=AhRKGb7t&c=9ef57db8101b5529f5a105a09d5412ae)
Sediment is a lifeblood of San Francisco Bay. It serves three key functions: (1) create and maintain tidal marshes and mudflats, (2) transport nutrients and contaminants, and (3) reduce impacts from excessive human-derived nutrients in the Bay. Because of these important roles, we need a detailed understanding of sediment processes in the Bay.
![Restoration Plan for the Laguna de Santa Rosa](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/news/Screenshot%202023-08-29%20094403.png?itok=gzlxlKmO&c=7a6d90ad56ba291a8e0d11823e15d338)
SFEI completed a Restoration Plan for the Laguna de Santa Rosa in the Russian River watershed. SFEI, Sonoma Water, and the Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation worked with technical advisors, stakeholders, tribal representatives, and local landowners to develop the Restoration Plan that provides a restoration planning framework and conceptual designs for multi-benefit habitat restoration projects that support people and wildlife.
![Photo by Robert Janover, courtesy Sonoma Land Trust](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/projects/DSC00418_edited.jpg?itok=vKUbfVVz&c=c779769f9f09d307a1f2d06dc1f6689c)
Historically, the Petaluma River Baylands were home to a large, complex, and biologically diverse landscape of tidal habitats, including marshes, mudflats, and open water. Some of the historical tidal marshes of the Petaluma River Baylands remain to this day, including the largest intact tidal marsh plain in the San Francisco Estuary. However, much of the historical bayland landscape has been diked and drained for agricultural purposes and urban development. Today, the Petaluma River Baylands face increasing challenges due to climate change and rising sea levels.
![Steelhead trout photo courtesy of Oregon State University via Wikimedia Commons.](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/projects/OSU%20Steelhead_0.jpg?itok=MqP1ctLa&c=67e2c8a4799db977540fce556ec6bf62)
SFEI worked with Valley Water and the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board to convene and facilitate a Technical Review Panel (TRP) as part of a Regional Temperature Study focused on assessing protective temperatures for Central California Coast steelhead.
![Photo Credits: Micha Salomon (L), Dee Shea Himes (R)](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/projects/HealthyWatershedsResilientBaylands.jpg?itok=3nbBLx57&c=63c841a77d60371fb78dcb9fab0438de)
Through the EPA-funded Healthy Watersheds Resilient Baylands project, SFEI and sixteen partner organizations are developing multi-benefit tools to enhance climate change resilience in San Francisco Bay. Healthy Watersheds Resilient Baylands has two major components: Multi-benefit Urban Greening and Tidal Wetlands Restoration. Through both components, we have developed strategies that inform policy, planning, and design of innovative implementation projects.
![](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/projects/Figure1.jpg?itok=Kp8BvMFI&c=51f551013325ba5dfe9269e21b48d6c3)
Through an EPA-funded Wetland Development Grant, Permit Sonoma, County of Sonoma (County), in coordination with the Sonoma Ecology Center (SEC), the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI), and a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), developed the Sonoma County Riparian Corridor Mapping Pilot Study (Pilot Study). The Pilot Study is Permit Sonoma’s initial step in the development of an automated GIS method to update its riparian mapping database countywide using LiDAR derived stream data.
SFEI is working with the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board and a team of technical advisors on a pilot effort to develop a classification scheme for Bay Area creeks and rivers that are managed for flood conveyance (i.e., flood control channels). Focused primarily within Sonoma and Santa Clara Counties, this pilot effort investigates relationships between local stream health indicators and flood control channel composition and management activities.
![](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/projects/Russian-River-Watershed-Projects-v2_map.png?itok=mFCXUU3g&c=c6748ea34f81b3ce5b6c7f85cb2b7913)
Our projects in the Russian River Watershed help us to understand our past, understand our present, and envision our future. Learn more about what SFEI is doing in partnership with others to advance our scientific understanding of this valuable landscape.
![](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/news/Sediment%20for%20Survival%20title%20page%20for%20web.jpg?itok=OySjbTn9&c=2c112be9407b1c7923a374c2df8f00ff)
SFEI worked with local, state, and federal science experts to develop the new Sediment for Survival report. The report provides a regional sediment strategy aimed at examining the future of sediment in the Bay and informing sediment management for the resilience of tidal marshes and tidal flats to climate change.
The release of “Towards a Coarse Sediment Strategy for the Bay Area” represents a step forward towards beneficially reusing coarse flood control channel sediment by outlining reuse challenges, and identifying incentives for participation and potential solutions.
![Coyote Creek near Embedded Way. Photo by SFEI.](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/projects/ccneet.png?itok=pEAifZcx&c=5c68eb142217e3ec041c899005f3677c)
The Coyote Creek Native Ecosystem Enhancement Tool (CCNEET, neet. ecoatlas.org) is an online decision-support tool to identify opportunities to improve ecological conditions. CCNEET was inspired by the need for a watershed approach to environmental resource management. Available ecological and environmental information is synthesized by objectives, management questions, and enhancement actions to identify and justify potential habitat improvements along the creek corridor. The overarching goal of CCNEET is to help coordinate habitat conservation and enhancement along so that multiple projects and limited funding can result in meaningful ecological improvement.
![](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/Head-of-Tide-Figure-2.1-Plan-view-Conceptual-model_0_0.jpg?itok=gktbb7IH&c=4afa70575135db14a0cf87feae46b220)
SFEI completed a pilot study focused on creating a framework for a rapid protocol that can be used to delineate the current and future head of tide zone for San Francisco Bay tributaries using both “desktop” and field investigations.
![](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/projects/ResilienceByDesignLogo_600x460.png?itok=FxPhGmCg&c=fc29f6f01de9801d02cc0ccaf7745b83)
The challenges of accelerating sea level rise and aging shoreline infrastructure are creating a once-in-a-century opportunity to redesign the Bay shore. Originally constructed with little regard for the Bay, the future shoreline can more successfully integrate the natural and built environments to make a healthier shore for both the Bay and local communities. New shoreline design approaches must incorporate the complex ecological and physical processes of our urbanized estuary while anticipating the future challenges of climate change and extreme weather.
![](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/projects/ResilienceAtlas2.jpg?itok=M4rmWO96&c=a8dbb0b414dc07e30c12067478153a04)
The Resilience Atlas is a compilation of cutting-edge science, creative visions and relevant spatial data to support planners, designers, policy-makers, and residents in the creation of the healthy cities, shorelines and surrounding landscapes of the future. The main goal of the Resilience Atlas is to make the science of resilience more accessible to help communities successfully adapt and thrive in the face of climate change and other challenges.
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