Climate, Hydrology, and Water Resources

The Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering seeks to improve the understanding of physical, chemical, and biological processes in the climate and hydrologic system, with the ultimate goal of addressing global sustainability challenges around water resources, human health, agricultural productivity, and natural ecosystems.

The faculty are experimentalists and modelers exploring fundamental changes to earth system processes that span a range of scales, including nano- to watershed-scale hydrology, atmospheric biogeochemistry, and global hydrologic cycling. We translate scientific advances into original approaches that help society respond to major, global sustainability challenges, from improved watershed and nonpoint source pollution management to advanced mitigation and adaptation strategies under climate change.