Jeff Opperman
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jjopperman.bsky.social
Jeff Opperman
@jjopperman.bsky.social
Rivers, renewable revolution, and rock and roll.
Global Lead Freshwater Scientist for WWF
🐟💧☀️🎸🎶
Writer for Forbes.com Energy and Sustainability sections
Author, Floodplains
Posts my own.
🎶The lake it is said, never gives up its dead, when the gales of November come early🎶

The Edmund Fitzgerald sank 50 years ago, w/ 29 men on board.

Photo is the Arthur Anderson, the boat traveling w/ the EF thru the storm, the last to communicate w/ her & search for survivors

#WaterYear
November 10, 2025 at 11:46 AM
#WaterYear

Just landed in Rome and walking around the city at sunset, crossing the Tiber/Tevere
November 9, 2025 at 8:29 PM
Slowed down my typing…
November 8, 2025 at 10:07 PM
#WaterYear
Happy Birthday to Joni Mitchell, whose song "River" is just so beautiful..

On first listen, you may be lulled into thinking this beautiful ballad is a Christmas song. But listen closer and you’ll hear a woman lamenting that she’s torched the relationship...

youtu.be/OLHxxBTl71I?...
Joni Mitchell - River (Official Music Video)
YouTube video by Joni Mitchell
youtu.be
November 7, 2025 at 8:31 PM
November 6, 2025 at 4:55 PM
In Michelin star restaurants, the chef inspects every plate before it goes out to the floor. And, when he thinks it needs just a tad something more, he adds a little garnish

#GarWeek
#WaterYear

@solomonrdavid.bsky.social @garlab.bsky.social
November 5, 2025 at 6:55 PM
#WaterYear

for #GarWeek, an homage to the president who was born a few miles from where I live..

@solomonrdavid.bsky.social @garlab.bsky.social
November 4, 2025 at 8:52 PM
No room on my lap for my laptop.
November 3, 2025 at 4:04 PM
#WaterYear celebrates #GarWeek

and also celebrates @solomonrdavid.bsky.social for being such an effective communicator about, yes, gars, but really fish and freshwater ecosystems more broadly.

@garlab.bsky.social
November 3, 2025 at 3:52 PM
#WaterYear

After a super dry fall we finally got some soaking rain last week.

Fall and flows along Chagrin River.
November 2, 2025 at 4:50 PM
#WaterYear
Today is birthday of @lylelovett.bsky.social who sings about rivers frequently, particularly the Brazos. Here’s his Texas River song about the Pecos, Nueces, Guadalupe, Brazos, Red, Wichita, etc.

“There’s many a river that waters the land” indeed

open.spotify.com/track/6GO0XT...
Texas River Song
open.spotify.com
November 1, 2025 at 8:07 PM
Happy Halloween from #WaterYear.

here's Wren from about 2008 wearing various items from her Halloween costume collection to create this hybrid: Dorothy the Damselfly, emerging from Chagrin River
October 31, 2025 at 4:47 PM
#WaterYear
Photo from almost exactly 16 years ago of my 5-year old daughter in a "Born in USA" cover pose for a Springsteen & rivers essay I'd written.

Today she's home for a few days from her college *senior year* and she's kindly agreed to join me for Springsteen movie "Deliver Me from Nowhere"
October 30, 2025 at 5:19 PM
#WaterYear drops of Fall
October 29, 2025 at 11:44 PM
#WaterYear

Fall along the Chagrin River in the South Chagrin Reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks
October 28, 2025 at 8:47 PM
With new Springsteen movie, "Deliver Me From Nowhere" out, here's a #WaterYear trip down memory lane. Prob 15 yrs ago I wrote a Springsteen-and-water themed essay & got my kids to pose in front of a river so I could use headline "this river was born to run" (as they imitate imagery of Born in USA)
October 27, 2025 at 8:07 PM
Reposted by Jeff Opperman
How vulnerable are riparian trees to drought? Using groundwater and satellite data from a California waterhsed, our new paper found that trees by drying rivers lost up to 5 weeks of growing season, suggesting they’re nearing critical groundwater limits.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Groundwater and Remotely Sensed Phenology Reveal Vulnerability of Riparian Trees to Drought
We asked how vulnerable riparian trees are to droughts, examining their water use and growing season timing and duration via groundwater data and satellite imagery. Drought shortened the growing seas...
doi.org
October 27, 2025 at 4:16 PM
#WaterYear celebrates 200th anniv of completion of Erie Canal. When Ohio & Erie Canal was completed 7yrs later, connecting CLE to OH River, Lake Erie became hub of waterway connecting NYC & New Orleans, linking east coast to middle of country at time before railroads & when roads were terrible
October 26, 2025 at 8:17 PM
Art for #WaterYear

Pablo Picasso was born on this day in 1881. Here are three of his river-themed paintings:

1. Crossing the Seine on the Upper Deck
2. The River at Notre Dame
3. The Reservoir, Horta de Ebro
October 25, 2025 at 9:53 PM
Vibrant fall colors around a small pond in Geauga County, OH...

#WaterYear
October 25, 2025 at 9:37 PM
Another #WaterYear photo celebrating "Take Me Outside" week. When Luca would catch-and-release fish, Wren worried about the time the fish spent out of water. So, as something of a stopwatch-& gesture of interspecies solidarity-she would put her head in the water for the time a fish was out of water
October 24, 2025 at 3:39 PM
This week is "Take me Outside" week, so #WaterYear is looking back to when the kids were little, searching for crayfish in the Chagrin River.
October 23, 2025 at 8:17 PM
#WaterYear

Hungarian composer Franz Lizst was born on this day in 1811.

He had a few compositions about water, including "Les jeux d'eau à la Villa d'Este" or "the Fountains of the Villa d'Este."

Photo is "fountains of the Spanish Steps" (Paola & Wren, 2010)

open.spotify.com/track/25pCHf...
October 22, 2025 at 11:06 PM
#WaterYear
Jay "Ding" Darling was born on this day in 1876. He won 2 Pulitzers for his political cartoons, including some influential about conservation (see next). He was a leader in the early conservation movement, including a founder of the @nationalwildlife.bsky.social. Darling Refuge in FL
October 21, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Halloween approaches. Here’s a jump scare for your enjoyment.
October 21, 2025 at 3:51 PM