Yun Yang
Assistant Professor, School of Integrative Plant Science, Soil and Crop Sciences Section

My research focuses on monitoring plant water use across field to global scales using remote sensing and assessing the impacts of agricultural practices and land cover changes on water resource sustainability. At Cornell, my lab develops advanced methods to enhance field-scale evapotranspiration (ET) estimation and operational data production through multi-satellite data fusion, deep learning, and cloud computing. We leverage remote sensing retrieved ET data to monitor plant water use and detect plant stress. By integrating ET data with actionable insights, we aim to provide farmers and decision-makers with reliable, accurate, and transparent plant water use information to improve agriculture and water resource management.
Interests
Remote sensing retrieved ET modeling
Operational ET data production through cloud computing
Land use impacts on sustainable water use
Recent Research
Selected Publications
- Liu, N., Sun, G., Yang, Y., Aguilos, M., Starr, G., O’Halloran, T.L., Amatya, D.M., Oishi, A.C., Zhang, Y. and Trettin, C., 2025. Potential for augmenting water yield by restoring longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) forests in the southeastern United States. Water Resources Research, 61(2), p.e2024WR037444.
- Ahmad, S.K., Holmes, T.R., Kumar, S.V., Lahmers, T.M., Liu, P.W., Nie, W., Getirana, A., Orland, E., Bindlish, R., Guzman, A. and Hain, C.R., 2024. Droughts impede water balance recovery from fires in the Western United States. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 8(2), pp.229-238.
- Volk, J.M., Huntington, J.L., Melton, F.S., Allen, R., Anderson, M., Fisher, J.B., Kilic, A., Ruhoff, A., Senay, G.B., Minor, B. and Morton, C., 2024. Assessing the accuracy of OpenET satellite-based evapotranspiration data to support water resource and land management applications. Nature Water, 2(2), pp.193-205.
- Melton, F.S., Huntington, J., Grimm, R., Herring, J., Hall, M., Rollison, D., Erickson, T., Allen, R., Anderson, M., Fisher, J.B. and Kilic, A., 2022. OpenET: Filling a critical data gap in water management for the western United States. JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 58(6), pp.971-994.
- Anderson, M.C., Yang, Y., Xue, J., Knipper, K.R., Yang, Y., Gao, F., Hain, C.R., Kustas, W.P., Cawse-Nicholson, K., Hulley, G. and Fisher, J.B., 2021. Interoperability of ECOSTRESS and Landsat for mapping evapotranspiration time series at sub-field scales. Remote Sensing of Environment, 252, p.112189.
- Yang, Y., Anderson, M., Gao, F., Hain, C., Noormets, A., Sun, G., Wynne, R., Thomas, V. and Sun, L., 2020. Investigating impacts of drought and disturbance on evapotranspiration over a forested landscape in North Carolina, USA using high spatiotemporal resolution remotely sensed data. Remote Sensing of Environment, 238, p.111018.
- Kustas, W.P., Anderson, M.C., Alfieri, J.G., Knipper, K., Torres-Rua, A., Parry, C.K., Nieto, H., Agam, N., White, W.A., Gao, F. and McKee, L., 2018. The grape remote sensing atmospheric profile and evapotranspiration experiment. Bulletin of the American meteorological society, 99(9), pp.1791-1812.
- Yang, Y., Anderson, M.C., Gao, F., Hain, C.R., Semmens, K.A., Kustas, W.P., Noormets, A., Wynne, R.H., Thomas, V.A. and Sun, G., 2017. Daily Landsat-scale evapotranspiration estimation over a forested landscape in North Carolina, USA, using multi-satellite data fusion. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 21(2), pp.1017-1037.
Contact Information
Ithaca, NY 14853
yy2356 [at] cornell.edu
More information
Education
- Doctorate
University of Massachusetts
- Master of Science
University of Massachusetts
- Bachelor of Science
Beijing Normal University
- Doctorate
Yun in the news

Spotlight
- School of Integrative Plant Science
- Soil and Crop Sciences Section
- Plants