Water & Earth Surface Processes

Discoveries and impact

  • Fundamental scaling laws for hydraulics structures and control devices 
  • Expanded renewable energy to fluvial and tidal environments 
  • Advances in connecting hydraulic conditions in lakes and rivers to the function of aquatic ecosystem.
  • Fundamental, theoretical, computational, and experimental, contributions, towards understanding the dynamics of earth surface processes.
  • Established linkages between changes of precipitation and global warming 
  • Improved understanding of the physical connections between surface soil moisture and infiltration fluxes on a global scale
  • Contributions toward understanding the effects of seasonal rainfall on ecosystem water availability and vegetation water use.

Our Research

  • Exploring how river channel networks determine the resilience of deltaic coastlines
  • Developing mathematical and computational models to define and track evolving boundaries between Earth's geomorphic regimes
  • Understanding changes of water cycle and improving its predictability using satellite data
  • Modeling sediment mass flux from grain dynamics to bedform kinematics
  • Understanding the role of turbulence in snow settling
  • Studying riverine and coastal erosion
  • Pursuing sustainable development, natural resources recovery and management, clean energy
  • Studying transport of sediment-bound carbon and contaminants
  • Studying spread of bacteria in soil and aquatic environments
  • Understanding feedback between plant water regulation and the water cycle
  • Understanding the role of hydrology in mediating carbon emissions from peatlands