Speaker: Yadu Pokhrel, Red Cedar Distinguished Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), College of Engineering, Michigan State University

Title:  A systems approach to model natural-human hydrologic systems in a changing environment

Abstract
Ensuring adequate and sustainable supply of food, energy and water (FEW) and improving disaster resilience are amongst the greatest challenges of the 21st century. As water demands continue to rise, supplies are dwindling in many regions due to climate change. Meanwhile, human activities are profoundly altering terrestrial hydrologic landscapes over a range of scales. Together, climate change and human stressors are putting compounding pressure on freshwater systems, threatening water and food security, environmental sustainability and societal resilience. This seminar will present insights from studies on coupled natural-human hydrologic systems using global to local scale hydrological, agricultural and ecological models. Outcomes from transdisciplinary FEW systems research in several global regions including the Southwestern US and Amazon and Mekong River basins will be presented. Emphasis will be placed on modeling key water management activities such as irrigation, dam operation and groundwater pumping, and examining various pathways through which these human stressors affect hydrological, agricultural, ecological and societal systems.
 

Bio
Yadu Pokhrel is Red Cedar Distinguished Professor  in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Michigan State University (MSU). He obtained his PhD in civil engineering from the University of Tokyo and received postdoctoral training at Rutgers University. His research focuses on improving the understanding of the changes in the water cycle in response to climate change and accelerating human interventions—from global to local scales. He uses climate, hydrological, agricultural, and ecological models to examine how changes in climate extremes (e.g., floods and droughts) affect water, energy, agricultural, infrastructure, and livelihood systems. His research projects, funded primarily by the NSF and NASA, are in many global regions including the US, Africa, South/Southeast Asia, and the Amazon River basin in South America. He has published about 100 peer-reviewed articles, with a dozen plus in Nature, Science, and PNAS journals. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and Fulbright US Senior Scholar Award. He has also received numerous awards at MSU including the University Teacher Scholar Award, John K. Hudzik Emerging Leader in Advancing International Studies and Programs Award, Withrow Global Leadership Award and Withrow Distinguished Junior Scholar Award. He serves as an editor for Earth Interactions and an associate editor for Water Resources Research and Journal of Hydrology..