Research

Our research group focuses on developing an understanding of how terrestrial water storage and water quality are influenced by climate, land cover, and land use. Changing climate and current land and water use practices threaten water availability (quantity and quality) for human populations. Our goal is to project Earth’s near surface fluxes (e.g., water, solutes, and sediments) and architecture (e.g., soil thickness and hydrologic properties) — a process termed earthcasting — to examine how human and climatic perturbations will drive the evolution of terrestrial Earth. To accomplish this goal, we examine the interactions among vegetation, soil, and water across climatic gradients in varying spatial (mm to km) and temporal (seconds to millennia) scales; making targeted observations of chemical, physical, and biological variables to support process understanding and the development of predictive models. Specifically, we characterize and quantify how hydraulic properties and plant-soil-water-atmosphere interactions respond to changing climate, and how these processes vary with geology and plant community composition.

I admit students most years into one of two programs: 1) the geology program in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, and 2) the Water Resources Science program. Application materials are due by December 15th to be considered for funding.

Current Funded Projects

How do changes in land cover and climate perturb grassland water and carbon cycles below-ground?

Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Project Duration: 2024-2027
PIs: Pamela Sullivan, Li Li (Penn State), Jesse Nippert (K-State), Matt Kirk(K-State)
People Supported: TBD (learn more)

Disentangling wildfire effects on the water cycle across wet mountain watersheds with varying subsurface storage

Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Project Duration: 2024-2027
PIs: Catalina Segura (OSU), Pamela Sullivan, Mark Raleigh (OSU)
People Supported: Shannon Duffy, TBD (learn more)

Plant-mediated hydraulic redistribution: a valve controlling watershed solute transport?

Sponsor: Department of Energy
Project Duration: 2022-2025
PIs: Pamela Sullivan, Kamini Singha (Mines), Holly Barnard (University of Colorado-Boulder), Emily Graham (PNNL)
People Supported: Xander Takver

Using a network of networks for high-frequency multi-depth soil moisture observations to infer spatial and temporal drivers of subsurface preferential flow

Sponsor: USGS Powell Center, CUAHSI; NSF
Project Duration: 2022-2024
PIs: Matthias Sprenger, (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Pamela Sullivan, John Nimmo (USGS) and Tianfang Xu (Arizona State University).
People Supported: Bonan Li

Quantifying climate and land use effects on continental-scale coupling of water and

carbon cycles

Sponsor: Norwegian Research Council
Project Duration: 2021-2026
PIs: Attila Nemes David Robinson, Sabine Reinsch, Daniel Hirmas (UC-Riverside), & Pamela Sullivan
People Supported:

Collaborative Research: How roots, regolith, rock and climate interact over decades to centuries — the R3-C Frontier.

Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Project Duration: 2021-2025
PIs: Pamela Sullivan, Daniel Hirmas (UC-Riverside), Sharon Billings (University of Kansas), Alejandro Flores (Boise State), Li Li (Penn State), , Hoori Ajami (UC-Riverside), Kamini Singha (Mines), & Jesse Nippert (K-State)
People Supported: Caitlin Mayernik, Karla Jarake

SitS: Collaborative Research: Soils are signaling shifts in aggregate life-cycles: What does this mean for water, carbon and climate feedbacks in the Anthropocene?

Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Project Duration: 2021-2025
PIs: Pamela Sullivan, Daniel Hirmas (UC-Riverside), Sharon Billings (University of Kansas), Alejandro Flores (Boise State), Li Li (Penn State), & Hoori Ajami (UC-Riverside), Kamini Singha (Mines)
People Supported: Xi Zhang and Victoria Moreno

Collaborative Research: Network Cluster: Quantifying controls and feedbacks of dynamic storage on critical zone processes in western montane watersheds

Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Project Duration: 2020-2025
PIs: Holly Barnard (University of Colorado-Boulder), Eve-Lyn Hinckley (University of Colorado-Boulder), Li Li (Penn State), Katherine Lininger (University of Colorado-Boulder), Pamela Sullivan, Alexis Navarre-Sitchler (Mines), Kamini Singha (Mines), Adrian Harpold (University of Nevada-Reno), Naomi Tague (UCSB)
People Supported: Keira Johnson

Past Funded Projects

Collaborative Research: Parsing out the controls of climate, geology, and land use on riverine (234U/238U) ratios in Texas river basins

Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Project Duration: 2020-2024
PIs: Lin Ma (UTEP), Jason Ricketts (UTEP), Pamela Sullivan
People Supported: Grace Goldrich-Middaugh

Toward a watershed hydro-biogeochemical theory: Evolving reactive fluxes as determined by water travel time under changing climate.

Sponsor: Department of Energy
Project Duration: 2020-2023
PIs: Li Li (Penn State), Pamela Sullivan,
People Supported: Keira Johnson and Lena Wang

Digging Deeper: Do deeper roots enhance deeper water and carbon storage in woody-encroached grasslands?

Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Project Duration: 2019-2023
PIs: Pamela Sullivan, Li Li (Penn State), Jesse Nippert (K-State)
People Supported: Victoria Moreno

RAISE-SitS: Designing models to forecast how biogeochemical fluctuations in soil systems govern soil development, terrestrial water storage and ecosystem nutrient fluxes

Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Project Duration: 2018-2023
PIs: Pamela Sullivan, Daniel Hirmas (UC-Riverside), Sharon Billings (University of Kansas), Alejandro Flores (Boise State), & Li Li (Penn State)
People Supported: Xi Zhang

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