Hydrology and Hydroclimatology

The Hydrology and Hydroclimatology research group focuses on the role of the water cycle in the earth system. This focus extends from short-term phenomena at the pore scale, through seasonal cycles at the watershed and continental scales, to long-term climatic changes on a global scale.

The movement of water is important not only for its own sake but also for its role in transporting energy and chemicals. Many of the processes involved are not well understood. There are still fundamental uncertainties about the distribution of water over time and space, about the factors that initiate events such as floods and droughts, about connections between the land and atmosphere, about interactions between vegetation and the water cycle, and about the long-term effects of human activities on climate. These uncertainties motivate and structure hydrologic research at MIT. Our overall goal is to learn to manage natural resources more intelligently, now and in the future.

Hydrologic researchers at MIT integrate theory, data analysis, laboratory and field experimentation, and numerical modeling to gain insight, test hypotheses and develop new analytical tools. Many of these activities are carried out jointly with investigators from other departments and institutions.

MIT hydrologists are active in interdisciplinary projects that include interactions with researchers from public health, image processing, satellite technology, geophysics and seismology, applied mathematics and computer science, meteorology and oceanography, urban planning, terrestrial ecology, soil science and microbiology. Students are exposed to a wide range of disciplines both in class and through interactions with research colleagues and visitors.

MIT hydrologic research is specifically designed to push the boundaries of current understanding, to question conventional wisdom and to address difficult problems. This fosters a stimulating professional environment with close collaboration among faculty, graduate students, undergraduate researchers and postdoctoral associates.

Representative Research Areas

  • Fundamental investigations on the role of water in atmospheric dynamics and land-atmosphere interactions
  • New theoretical and experimental approaches for understanding multiphase flow in porous media
  • Studies of connections between water and human disease (e.g. malaria in sub-Saharan Africa and arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh)
  • The effects of climate change on agricultural production and groundwater recharge
  • The development of new methods for characterizing complex environmental features, such as storm systems and ocean circulation patterns, from uncertain data sources

Researchers

Elfatih A.B. Eltahir, Professor
Dara Entekhabi, Professor
Charles Harvey, Associate Professor
Ruben Juanes, Assistant Professor
Dennis McLaughlin, Professor
Daniele Veneziano, Professor

Research Projects