Ryan Smith

Ryan Smith, Director of Water and Science, The Nature Conservancy of Texas
Ryan Smith has over twenty years of professional experience in freshwater conservation. His areas of expertise include environmental flows, freshwater ecology, groundwater/surface water science, conservation planning, ecological monitoring, and geospatial analysis. Ryan leads The Nature Conservancy of Texas’ water program and science team. The water program implements statewide freshwater conservation strategies in the areas of market-based approaches to flow restoration, water management and policy, sustainable agriculture, and watershed conservation. Ryan is also TNC’s Texas lead on the Sustainable Rivers Program, a partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers modifying dam operations to improve downstream ecosystems. He has directed placed-based applied freshwater conservation science work at TNC preserves and watershed projects in west Texas, the Devils River, the Hill Country and east Texas. Other recent projects include a hydrology study of the San Saba River, flow restoration target definition in support of the Texas Environmental Flow Information Toolkit, development of the Texas Water Explorer website, implementation of a freshwater monitoring framework for TNC projects, and evaluation of the benefits of source water protection programs. Ryan is a member of the Bay and Basin Expert Science teams for the Upper Rio Grande Basin and Nueces River and Corpus Christi and Baffin Bays. Before his time in Texas, Ryan worked for TNC’s global water and regional science teams where he supported freshwater projects across the U.S. and in Mexico and Central America. He has a M.S. in fisheries and wildlife sciences from Virginia Tech and a B.S. in fishery and wildlife biology from Colorado State University.