Understanding the hydrologic implications of landscape structure and climate - Towards a unifying framework of watershed similarity

To what extent do landscape structure and climate control watershed hydrologic response? What useful relationships can we draw between hydrologic parameters and other natural properties. An understanding of these relationships is needed to develop a watershed classification system that is both relivent from a scientific and non-scientific perspective. These relationships can help answer fundamental hydrologic questions such as, "how fast does water move through a given system", "how important is evapotranspiration", and "what is the function of streams in a natural setting". In addition, this type of information can be used to build low-dimensional and falsifiable hydrologic models and to more reliably predict the response of ungauged basins. More details...

Impacts of Land-cover change in Southeastern Asia

This research looks at the local effects of landuse/landcover (LULC) on hydrology in a montane environment in mainland Southeastern Asia. This project is embedded in a larger study investigating the implications of LULC on regional moisture and energy fluxes at the global scale. More details...

Estimating Arizona's water reserves from space-born gravity observations

One of our major areas of research is to study gravity fluctuations to determine the changes in the amount of water in the Colorado River Basin . This large-spatial scale project will help with the prediction of water stores and water availability in the southwestern United States, especially in light of global climate changes. More details...

Towards improved management of water resources in Arizona: Science in support of improved management and policy

Sustainability implies a balance of supply and demand throughout basins and across scales, not just at at the outlet. Proper hydrologic decision-making and policy analysis requires that all available knowledge about the physical and behavioral aspects of the water resources system be brought to bear. More details...

Enhancing water supply reliability through improved predictive capacity and response

We demostrate potential strategies for enhanced use of climate change information data to improve the predictive capacity and reduce system vulnerability of Colorado River water. This project involves a multi-pronged approach to preparing for and responding to variable Colorado River supply reliability in Arizona More details...

How do Plants Control Soil Moisture?

Transpiration, root water uptake and hydraulic redistribution

This research is being performed at the Biosphere 2 facility, which is now administered by the University of Arizona. Our research focuses on understanding how moisture that is stored in the soil controls the partitioning of energy and water fluxes through the land surface More details...