Joel Sholtes

  • Associate Teaching Professor
  • Colorado Mesa University – University of Colorado Boulder Partnership

Joel Sholtes, PhD, PE, teaches civil engineering specializing in water resources engineering: hydraulics, hydrology and water resource management at Colorado Mesa University. His professional and academic experiences focus on physical river processes (river hydraulics and fluvial geomorphology) with applications to stream rehabilitation, flood hazards, and river corridor land use and infrastructure management. He is currently investigating the hydrologic impacts of stream corridor restoration. Prior to teaching at CMU, Sholtes worked for the Bureau of Reclamation, Sedimentation River Hydraulics Group. He received his PhD in civil engineering from Colorado State University where he was an EPA STAR and NSF IGERT fellow.

Education

  • PhD, Civil and Environmental Engineering: Colorado State University
  • MA, Geography: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
  • BS, Environmental Science: Duke University

Selected Publications

Tranmer, A. W., Bertagnoli, A., Hurst, A., Ubing, C., Sholtes, J., & Tonina, D. (2025). Fluvial pools as reach-scale thermal regulators. Science of the Total Environment, 958, 177890. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.177890

Blazewicz, Michael & Jagt, Katie & Sholtes, Joel. (2020). Colorado Fluvial Hazard Zone Delineation Protocol v1.0. http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.10712.01284

Sholtes, J.S., Ubing, C., Randle, T. Fripp, J., and Cenderelli, D. (2018). Managing infrastructure in the stream environment. Journal of the American Water Resources Association. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1752-1688.12692

Sholtes, J.S. Yochum, S.E., Bledsoe, B.P., Scott, J.A. (2018). Longitudinal variability in channel response to floods. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/esp.4472

Sholtes, J.S. and B.P. Bledsoe (2016) Half-yield discharge: process-based metric for predicting bankfull discharge. Journal of Hydraulic Engineering. 04016017. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)HY.1943-7900.0001137

Sholtes, J.S., K. Werbylo, and B.P. Bledsoe (2014) A physical context for the theoretical approach of sediment transport magnitude-frequency analysis in alluvial channels. Water Resources Research. 50(10), 7900-7914. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2014WR015639

Sholtes, J.S. and M.W. Doyle. (2010) Impact of channel restoration on flood wave attenuation. Journal of Hydraulic Engineering. 137(2), 196-208. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)HY.1943-7900.0000294