Conservation Science

Bart Wickel, Ph.D.

Senior Conservation Hydrologist

Areas of Expertise: Hydrology, Remote Sensing, GIS, Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation

Bart Wickel
© WWF

Bart Wickel joined WWF in January 2007 to support the freshwater conservation group in hydrology, and GIS related issues. Throughout the years he has worked extensively on both eco-hydrological questions and the implementation of remote sensing as a tool in hydrological and ecosystem studies. Within his work at WWF, he aspires to integrate more hydrological aspects into freshwater biodiversity conservation.

Before joining WWF he worked for 2 years with the National Commission for Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO) in Mexico City as an integrated expert in technical cooperation with the Center for International Migration (CIM-GTZ) in Germany. With CONABIO, which hosts a MODIS direct readout station, he worked on the development of projects for ecosystem observation, near-real time forest fire detection and eco-hydrology with mainly MODIS-EOS data.

For his Ph.D. research with the Center for Development research (ZEF) of the University of Bonn, Germany, and in cooperation with EMBRAPA- Belem, Brazil he conducted a 2 year hydrological field study in the headwaters of the eastern Amazon region. The objective of that study was to evaluate the impacts of agricultural landuse on the water and nutrient cycle. His Masters research with the Free University in Amsterdam, The Netherlands consisted of various geomorphological, geological and hydrological field projects throughout Spain, Italy and France and two final projects. The first project was focused on the interaction of tropical vegetation and fog (cloud forest) at the Luquillo National Forest on Puerto Rico in cooperation with the Institute for Tropical Forestry (IITF). The second project was focused on the evaluation of the then recently launched RADARSAT-satellite for soil moisture detection over the Southern Great Plains in Oklahoma with the USDA Hydrology Lab. in Beltsville MD.

Email: bart.wickel@wwfus.org

WWF Experts

Dr. Eric Dinerstein
Chief Scientist and Vice President
Conservation Science

"We must decide how many of Earth's 15,000,000 species receive a ticket on the ark to the next century. By protecting forests, deserts, grasslands, coral reefs, lakes, rivers and streams, WWF commits to guaranteeing their safe passage."