EES Guest Speaker - Dr. Yadu Pokhrel
This week's speaker is MSU's very own Dr. Yadu Pokhrel! Please join us Thursday September 5th, 0224 at 3pm in room 351 Nat Sci:
Yadu Pokhrel, PhD
Red Cedar Distinguished Professor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Michigan State University
Talk 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 Central- and South-western 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: Dr. Yadu Pokhrel is a 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 (2011) 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.
