Dr. Charles Lane

Dr. Charles Lane is an independent senior scientist and research ecologist. His work focuses on quantifying the watershed-scale biogeochemical and hydrological functions of wetlands and streams using spatial, statistical, and process-based models. He held multiple scientific leadership positions during a 23-yr career with the US EPA, Office of Research and Development, including Science Lead for the Watershed Integrity Research Project (>100 active personnel) and the Wetland Ecosystem Services Research Program. While at EPA, Dr. Lane organized and chaired international conferences including the 6th Interagency Conference on Research in the Watersheds and the Third International Symposium on Ecology and Biodiversity in Rivers of Northeast Asia and North America. He led the competitively funded 20-person thinktank-workgroup assessing wetland connectivity to downstream waters and co-led the headwater streamflow modeling of downstream effects workgroup. Dr. Lane also conducted collaborative, field-based research across North America and internationally with colleagues from both the Russian Academy of Science and the Chinese Ministry of Forestry. He has >100 peer-reviewed publications with >7000 citations and has received numerous awards for scientific achievement. Dr. Lane received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Systems Ecology from the University of Florida and his B.A. in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He serves on the Galápagos Conservancy Board of Directors and is an editor at Wetland Ecology and Management. He and his family live in southeastern Wisconsin.

Dr. Lane’s Environmental Science Impact Fellowship will advance innovative research on wetlands and headwater stream functions at local-to-watershed scales. He will engage with collaborators and stakeholders across North America to determine how to best manage vulnerable waters (non-floodplain wetlands, inland freshwater wetlands not adjacent to river networks, and headwater streams) for downstream water quantity, water quality, and other critical ecosystem services in working landscapes. The work, supported by EPN, will include collaborative state-by-state regulatory gap analysis (following the US Supreme Court Sackett decision), predictive macroecological modeling of resource extents circa 2050/2100, quantification of biogeochemical and hydrological functioning in vulnerable waters over time, and structural analyses including wetland historical extents and headwater typology/flow dynamic relationships across the conterminous United States (CONUS). Dr. Lane will also conduct strategic watershed vulnerability and functional forecasting for headwater stream and aquatic system resiliency under climate-change scenarios across CONUS. The work will: use publicly available data, be rigorously conducted, be collaboratively reviewed and vetted by existing academic and federal scientific teams, be shared with local-regional-national stakeholders, and be peer-reviewed and communicated in high-impact scientific journals.