Research
The research interests of my lab are broad and interdisciplinary in nature and center around the science of catchment hydrology, experimental hydrology and hydrology-climate interactions in both nearly pristine and human-impacted landscapes. A primary goal of our research is to contribute to a better mechanistic understanding of hydrological processes and their links to climate and biogeochemical cycling. We tackle many of the research questions through hypothesis-driven field or lab experiments, which allow us to identify key hydrological mechanisms, their evolution in space and time, but also first order controls and feedbacks relevant to any studied system. For our research we draw on a diverse suite of methods and techniques including (i) manual and automated field instrumentation and monitoring, (ii) multivariate/geo/spatial statistics, (iii) geographic information systems (GIS) and web-based GIS, (iv) stochastic hydrology and time series analysis, and (v) distributed watershed modeling and model development. This methodological approach and research has led to the discovery of tipping points and threshold behavior (e.g. in runoff generation) in hydrologic systems and the importance of changes in boundary conditions or system states (e.g., changes in antecedent moisture conditions, snow cover extent on glaciers) as underlying controls.
