Susan Paulsen

Principal
Exponent

Dr. Paulsen's expertise includes hydrodynamics, surface water and groundwater hydrology, aquatic chemistry, and the environmental fate of a range of organic and inorganic constituents. She has provided expert analysis and testimony on matters involving the Clean Water Act, state water quality regulations, hydraulics and hydrology, sediment transport, and changes in geomorphology. Dr. Paulsen is the author of multiple reports describing the history and development of water quality regulations and has provided testimony on regulatory issues, water quality, water rights, and water management.

Dr. Paulsen has designed and managed modeling studies to evaluate transport and mixing, including the siting and design of diffusers, and has evaluated water quality impacts of stormwater runoff, irrigation, wastewater and industrial process water treatment facilities, and desalination brines. She has participated in multi-disciplinary studies of the fate and transport of a wide range of pollutants, including DDT, PCBs, PAHs, copper, lead, selenium, and indicator bacteria in surface waters, groundwater, and/or sediments.

Dr. Paulsen has extensive knowledge of California water supply issues, including expertise in California's Bay-Delta estuary, the development of alternative water supplies, integration of groundwater basins into supply and storage projects, and California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). She also has broad expertise with water quality regulation through the Clean Water Act and state regulations in California, Washington, Hawaii, and other states, and has worked on temperature compliance models, NPDES permitting, permit compliance and appeals, third-party citizens' suits, and TMDL development. She has evaluated the importance of background and natural sources on storm water and receiving-water quality, the development of numeric limits for storm flows and process-water discharges, and factors affecting storm flow volumes and flow rates.