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Welcome to the Resilient Food and Water Systems Lab, within the Department of Biological Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech! We use systems engineering methodologies, such as machine learning, simulation, and risk and decision analysis to improve the understanding and management of water resources and agricultural systems, with an emphasis on understanding and responding to climate change impacts. Please visit the Research page to read about the lab's work and see a list of recent publications, and the Extension page to learn more about education and outreach activities conducted. Prospective students should visit the Opportunities page to learn about open positions.
News
News
January, 2026: Zahra Nourali's paper, "Predicting the impact of extreme weather on agricultural losses in the Delmarva peninsula using multi-step machine learning and financial crop loss data," has been published in the journal Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment. Congrats Zahra!
December, 2025: Suman Budhathoki has successfully defended his PhD dissertation, entitled "Data-Driven and Process-Based Modeling Approaches for Advancing Irrigation Water and Nitrogen Management in Humid Cropping Systems." Congratulations!
May, 2025: Suman Budhathoki's paper, "Event-Based Hydrological Signatures to Quantify Soil Moisture Parameters in Agricultural Soils Under Contrasting Irrigation Practices in Humid Climates," has been published in the Journal of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers. Well done!
October 2024: Dr. Shortridge is leading a new NOAA-funded project Community Agricultural Resilience through Extension (CARE). This collaboration between Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware aims to build capacity across the Cooperative Extension system to support agricultural community resilience in highly vulnerable coastal farming communities.
August, 2024: Dr. Shortridge has begun a Fulbright Research Fellowship at the University of Oulu in Finland. She is studying how rapidly warming temperatures there interact with land use change using socio-environmental systems modeling.
May, 2024: Zahra Nourali has successfully defended her PhD dissertation, entitled "Assessing Climatic Hazards in Coastal Socio-Ecological Systems using Complex System Approaches." Congratulations Dr. Nourali!
August 2023: Lab alumnus Momtaz Jahan just had her research assessing decision support tools for climate change adaptation published in Climatic Change. Well done!
June, 2023: Dr. Shortridge is leading a new USDA-funded project on using precision irrigation and nitrogen management to manage climate change impacts in humid cropping system. Our group will be working with colleagues at VT's Agricultural Research and Extension Centers, Agricultural Economics, and Soil, Plant and Environmental Sciences Departments to quantify the benefits of precision management and understand the factors that influence grower adoption of these technologies.
Congratulations Dr. Budhathoki!
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