Breck Bowden

Dr. Bowden is the Robert and Genevieve Patrick Professor in Watershed Science and Planning Emeritus in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont.

Until his retirement in 2022, Dr. Bowden was the Director of the Vermont Water Resources in Lake Studies Center and the Lake Champlain Sea Grant program and led the Vermont component of the Northeastern States Research Cooperative. Throughout his career, Bowden’s research interests focused on interactions among land use, land cover, and water resources. He has conducted research on wetland, terrestrial, and aquatic ecosystems in temperate, tropical, and Arctic biomes. He has been involved with strategic planning in universities and in government agencies. He founded the Water Resources Management undergraduate and graduate programs at the University of New Hampshire and helped to establish the Natural Resources MS and PhD programs there. Bowden established the national Integrated Catchment Management Program at Landcare Research in New Zealand as the lead Project Manager and Team Leader. From 1986 until 2022, he was a member of core research team for the Arctic Long-Term Ecological Research Program based at the Toolik Field Station on the north slope of Alaska and from many years coordinated the stream ecological research component of this large, long-term, collaborative research program. He continues to be interested in the effects of stream network structure on biogeochemical processing in stream ecosystems and on the use of next-generation, high-frequency sensors to explore whole watershed dynamics. Bowden has contributed substantially to national and international programs that seek to integrate science in resource management decision making, including the NSF Long-Term Ecological Research Program (LTER) program, the National Environmental Observatory Network (NEON), the National Institute for Water Resources (NIWR), the Sea Grant Association (SGA), and the Lake Champlain Basin Program (LCBP). Bowden received his B.S. with majors in Zoology and Chemistry from the University of Georgia (1973) and his M.Sc. (1974) and Ph.D. (1982) from North Carolina State University.

For additional information about Breck see…

Resume (2 pages)
Statement of Experience (5 pages)
Full Professional Inventory (65 pages)