How does the slowest moving and hardest to see component of the terrestrial water cycle shape our watershed?

Groundwater Surface Water Interactions

We explore connections between groundwater and surface water, and the partitioning of precipitation into runoff and recharge. We also study the feedbacks between shallow groundwater and plant transpiration and irrigation demand.

How can we build more resilient and sustainable systems?

Humans and the hydrologic cycle

If we better understand interactions between human and natural systems we can leverage feedbacks and synergies for long term sustainability. We study the ways that human activities reshape watersheds and the feedbacks between human decision making and natural processes.

Hydrologic Simulation and Forecasting at the national scale.

Scaling up processed based simulations and translating to operations

We help develop the first high resolution national model of the US that directly simulates hydrologic processes from the bedrock to the treetops. We are also working to train machine learning emulators of the process based simulations to exponentially speed up simulation and build tools that are useful to water managers. In addition to providing scientific insights, we view these tools as important community resources and work to develop platforms to make simulations accessible to a broad array of users.

Figuring out how to do all these things better, faster and stronger.

High Performance Computing, Data Development and Visualization

The modeling tools we use for our research are data and computationally intensive. To answer the science questions that drive our work we take advantage of high performance computing and best practices for workflow and data management. We work with computer scientists and applied mathematicians to improve our modeling platforms and create tools, datasets and simulated outputs that we make accessible to the community.