Research Areas

Agriculture is a major driver of water quantity and quality in California's surface water and groundwater. We study how hydrology, land use, and management shape the movement, storage, and transformation of water, nutrients, carbon, pesticides, and other constituents across agricultural landscapes. This work includes questions related to agricultural drainage, nitrate leaching, groundwater contamination, and downstream water quality.

Current Research Areas: 

1. Drainage water quality and quantity across contrasting land covers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

2. Long-term nitrate dynamics in the Pajaro and San Lorenzo River watersheds 

Wildfires are becoming more common, yet the effects of wildfire on streams and their water quality remain unclear. Wildfires can alter the routing and composition of water as it flows from hillslopes to downgradient streams through changes to landscape properties and processes as well as through the creation or alteration of materials, like ash, soil, and plant matter. Our work examines how fire affects watersheds and aquatic systems over both short and longer timescales.

Current Research Areas: 

1. Post-fire impacts on water quality

2. Best practices for post-fire water research

Water resources face diverse and growing pressures from climate change and local stressors. Responding to these challenges requires locally tailored land and water management strategies that reduce demand, increase supply, and strengthen long-term water resilience across our natural and working lands. Our work evaluates how management and land use change affect water quantity and quality, with a focus on approaches that can improve resilience and inform long-term water management.

Water resources are inherently connected across diverse system contexts, from groundwater to surface water, upstream to downstream, and terrestrial to marine environments. We study how water moves through coastal watersheds and across connected systems, including rivers, aquifers, estuaries, and the coastal ocean. We examine the flow paths and exchanges that shape the transport of water, nutrients, carbon, and other constituents across interconnected system boundaries.

Current Research Areas: 

1. Groundwater-surface water connections in coastal watersheds

2. River-lagoon and river-estuary exchange of particulate and dissolved constituents

Climate change is altering water quantity and quality in ways that affect both the hydrology and the biogeochemistry of aquatic systems. We study how diverse climate stressors influence riverine and coastal groundwater processes to help address key knowledge gaps and identify research priorities.