WHAT WE DO

Our research integrates technology and field observations to investigate how urbanization, climate change, and infrastructure affect watershed hydrology and water quality. We focus on developing sustainable solutions for critical civil infrastructure while quantifying the complex dynamics of water management in uncertain environments. Our research mainly includes the following directions:

• Data-Driven Modeling and Processing of Hydro-Environmental Signals

Utilize signal processing and data-driven analytics to assess the time-frequency characteristics of hydro-environmental signals (Zhang et al., 2023, WRR, Zhang & Chui, 2018, HP), identify the embedding dynamics of them, and make predictions (Zhang et al., 2023, GRL, Zhang et al., 2023, WRR, Bin Mamoon et al., 2025, GRL, Kumar & Zhang, 2025, JH, Ding & Zhang, arXiv).

• Urban Hydrologic Modeling

Develop and utilize data-driven (Horvath et al., 2023, EST) and physically-based hydrologic models (Zhang & Chui, 2018, JH, Zhang & Chui, 2020, JH, Zhang & Parolari, 2022) to characterize urban hydrologic processes and assess the flood mitigation, hydrologic restoration, and water quality improvement performance of green stormwater infrastructure at various spatial scales and provide design and planning recommendations (Zhang & Chui, 2017, HP, Zhang & Chui, 2020, HP, Zhang & Chui, 2024, Islam, Kumar, & Zhang, 2026, Konrath, Merten, Zhang, under review).

• Urban Stormwater Instrumentation and Monitoring

Design and implement field monitoring and sampling campaigns to assess the complicated hydro-environmental processes happening within green stormwater infrastructure (Zhang et al., 2022, JHE, Huang, Zhang, & Chui, 2025, JH, Zhang, Huss, & Merten, 2025), and assess their impact on watershed hydrology and biogeochemistry (Lam, Zhang & Parolari, 2024, STOTEN, Zhang & Parolari, in preparation).