Research

My research focused on investigating the influence of terrain characteristics, climate, and disturbance (like wildfires and grazing) variability on the vegetation organization, that is a resultant of competition between various plant species such as trees, shrubs, and grass. For my study, I have explored semiarid and arid watersheds from Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge (SNWR) near Socorro, New Mexico, and Barta Brother Ranch (BBR), Nebraska.

My research workflow typically included the following steps:

• studying about the current state of an ecosystem
• visualizing the current state by analyzing available observations
• understanding the processes involved
• creating multi-layered numerical models using Landlab
• calibrating the model and cross-check model performance with observations
• creating hypotheses and employ the models to forecast ecosystem response
• repeating few or all of the above steps -> ‘Re’search

In Landlab, earth surface processes are represented as components. To help myself and the community to quickly build ecohydrologic models, I created the following Landlab components: SoilMoisture, Radiation, PotentialEvapotranspiration, Vegetation, and VegCA. These components can be coupled to build ecosystem models. I present few examples below:

• Vegetation organization in a semiarid ecosystem in central New Mexico
• Influence of topography on vegetation organization in a semiarid ecosystem in central New Mexico
• Influence of disturbances on shrub invasion of grasslands in arid watersheds.
• Reusing Landlab ecohydrology model with bias corrected data from gridded hydrometeorology products.

I have communicated my research through presentations at various conferences including AGU Fall meetings, CSDMS Annual meetings, and CUAHSI Biennial meeting, and publications.

I would love to discuss more about my research. Please contact me to ask any questions you may have.

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