One recent study, entitled “The conterminous United States are projected to become more prone to flash floods in a high-end emissions scenario” led by the HyDROS group was just published in Nature Commun Earth & Env. As results indicate, US floods are becoming 7.9% flashier by the end of the century assuming a high-emissions scenario. The Southwest (+10.5%) has the greatest increase in flashiness among historical flash flood hot spots, and the central US (+8.6%) is emerging as a new flash flood hot spot. Additionally, future flash flood-prone frontiers are advancing northwards.

 

This study has been receiving attention from different sectors. Our lab director Dr. Hong and collaborator Dr. Gourley have been interviewed by local, national, and international media. Here lists a range of newsletters that covered our study.

1. OU VPRP: New Climate Modeling Predicts Increasing Occurrences of Flash Flooding Across Most of the U.S.
2. StateImpact Oklahoma: Central U.S. to emerge as flash flood hotspot, study finds
3. Independent (UK based):Why US floods are getting ‘flashier’

As of today (06/06/2022), this study has been mentioned in 60 news outlets, being in the top 1 percent among articles published by this journal.

 

Floods have been affecting people in Eastern and Sothern Africa Region through losses of lives and properties. Countries affected by flooding hazards have underdeveloped national meteorological and hydrologic services. The best way to reduce and mitigate these hazards encountered by the communities is through improved prediction of these events. Timely hazard communication, and hydrological forecasting helps to reducing the harmful impacts of floods and associated water-related hazards in the Eastern and Southern African Region. The University of Oklahoma (OU) and NASA Applied Sciences Program’s SERVIR Mission lead efforts to build capacity for monitoring, forecasting, and communicating flood hazards in such developing regions: Advanced Hydrological Modeling and Application Workshops in Nairobi, Kenya and Kampala, Uganda November 18-22, 2019.

The capacity building workshops has used the OU and NASA jointly developed CREST and EF5 hydrological model framework for the SERVIR program. The OU HyDROS group has developed the Regionalized Ensemble Flash Flood Forecasting framework (EF5) for operation over the six countries of Eastern Africa since 2016.

The OU-AST and NASA SERVIR project aspires to support developing countries to mitigate water and water-related disasters through conducting hydrological modeling works using Earth observation satellites and geospatial technologies. The overarching goal of this project is to develop and implement an operational flood forecasting system to mitigate water and water-related disaster and conduct prediction and alerting communication using the Amazon Simple Notification System (Amazon SNS).   

The workshops involve regionalized EF5 hydrological modeling applications and introductions to hydrological concepts, GIS techniques, hydrological remote sensing concepts including rainfall and PET, manual calibration, automatic calibration, interpreting and using model output, DEM practice, calibration practice, Inundation modeling, and multiple gauges analysis. The EF5 model was installed and practiced by the workshop participants so that they can understand how GIS software can be used to help hydrological analysis. The regionalized EF5 hydrological model applications were also covered during the workshop through developing a flash flood threshold using global model and satellite forcings to push alerting notification to potentially save life and properties. The regionalized EF5 hydrological modeling flooding event alerting communication was linked with the Amazon SNS to push notification to RCMRD and end-users through disseminating text and e-mail messages. The workshop helped users and stakeholders familiar with EF5 and hydrological modeling and finally the EF5 modeling deployed at RCMRD. Over all, thirty-three (33) experts attended the EF5 workshop both in Kenya and Uganda. At the end of the workshop, the RCMRD Director, Dr. Emmanuel Nkurunziza, gave closing remarks and the workshop participants received certificates.

Features

• Presents an overview of the past, current and future remote sensing observations of the precipitation, soil moisture, evapotranspiration and total water storage
• Reviews the various applications of remote sensing in hydrological/land surface/climate modeling and Ensemble Square Root Filter (EnSRF) data assimilation
• Demonstrates techniques to help reduce devastating disasters triggered by hydrological hazards such as floods and landslides
• Explains how remote sensing, modeling and data assimilation can be utilized to improve societal resilience and environmental sustainability
• Shows how to create real-time flood and drought monitoring systems

Summary

Environmental remote sensing plays a critical role in observing key hydrological components such as precipitation, soil moisture, evapotranspiration and total water storage on a global scale. As water security is one of the most critical issues in the world, satellite remote sensing techniques are of particular importance for emerging regions which have inadequate in-situ gauge observations. This book reviews multiple remote sensing observations, the application of remote sensing in hydrological modeling, data assimilation and hydrological capacity building in emerging regions.

https://www.crcpress.com/Hydrologic-Remote-Sensing-Capacity-Building-for-Sustainability-and-Resilience/Hong-Zhang-Khan/p/book/9781498726665

Features

• Presents an overview of the past, current and future remote sensing observations of the precipitation, soil moisture, evapotranspiration and total water storage
• Reviews the various applications of remote sensing in hydrological/land surface/climate modeling and Ensemble Square Root Filter (EnSRF) data assimilation
• Demonstrates techniques to help reduce devastating disasters triggered by hydrological hazards such as floods and landslides
• Explains how remote sensing, modeling and data assimilation can be utilized to improve societal resilience and environmental sustainability
• Shows how to create real-time flood and drought monitoring systems

Summary

Environmental remote sensing plays a critical role in observing key hydrological components such as precipitation, soil moisture, evapotranspiration and total water storage on a global scale. As water security is one of the most critical issues in the world, satellite remote sensing techniques are of particular importance for emerging regions which have inadequate in-situ gauge observations. This book reviews multiple remote sensing observations, the application of remote sensing in hydrological modeling, data assimilation and hydrological capacity building in emerging regions.

 

Congratulations to Manabendra Saharia, CEES/ARRC PhD student, for winning the second prize in the oral presentation category of the 2016 Student Research and Creativity Day held in University of Oklahoma, Norman, March 4, 2016.
Congratulations to graduate student and PhD candidate Race Clark (OU/CIMMS) for winning the McNair’s Choice award for his poster in the Science A category of the 2016 Student Research and Creativity Day held in University of Oklahoma, Norman, March 4, 2016.

1) HyDROS is seeking a new undergraduate research assistant. See the flier for required qualifications and how to submit your resume. Undergrad RA Flier

2) WATER Center and HyDROS Lab invite applications for a faculty position to be appointed at the Associate Professor or Professor level in International Water Resources Development at the Climate-Water Nexus (PDF Link) and also Cluster Hiring Link (http://ouesclusterhire.ou.edu).

Research highlights:
A team of researchers led by Ke Zhang, Yang Hong, and Jonathan Gourley recently discovered that Global Vegetation Greening, combined with Climate Change, Promote Multi-decadal Rises of Global Land Evapotranspiration, accelerating global water cycles and potential regional drought risks. The findings were published on Nature Publishing Group Scientific Report magazine’s website (http://www.nature.com/articles/srep15956/).

The research team first generated a long-term global satellite record of land evapotranspiration using remote sensing satellite data since 1982. They investigated multi-decadal changes looking at trends between 1982 and 2013. In addition to global evapotranspiration trends, they examined vegetation greenness and general climate data including temperature, precipitation and cloudiness. Collectively, results show that during the past 32 years general increasing trends in both plant growth and evaporation with recent climate change mainly driven by vegetation greening and rising atmosphere moisture deficits. The study predicts that a continuation of these trends will likely exacerbate regional drought-induced disturbances, especially during regional dry climate phases associated with strong El Nino events.

Figure: (a) Annual anomalies of global land ET, global land air temperature and vegetation index NDVI from 1982 to 2013. A multivariate ENSO index, MEI, is shown with vertical color shading intensity. (b) Multi-decade spatial pattern of global land ET trends from 1982 to 2013.

Graduate student and PhD candidate Race Clark (OU/CIMMS) won 3rd place at the 2015 OU GIS Day poster contest held November 17, 2015 in Norman, OK. His poster was titled “Processing Topographical Data for Hydrological Modeling”, which presented a new software tool for speeding up topographical preprocessing for hydrological models. This software tool is primarily designed for use during international capacity building workshops. His coauthor on the poster is fellow graduate student and PhD candidate Zac Flamig (OU/CIMMS). Both students are advised by Drs. J.J. Gourley (NOAA/NSSL) and Yang Hong (OU Civil and Environmental Engineering).

Race Clark and Galateia Terti were awarded first and second place in the graduate student poster contest at the 40th Annual Meeting of the National Weather Association. This continues an award filled year for the HyDROS group in 2015. The annual meeting was held October 17th-22nd in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Race’s poster was titled “Towards Hazard Services Recommenders for Flash Flood Forecasting” while Galateia presented “Target the warnings: Probabilistic flash flood casualties prediction.”

Manabendra Saharia (CEES/ARRC PhD student) won first prize in the Graduate Student Poster Contest at the Society of Environmental Journalism (SEJ) 25th Annual Conference held in Norman, October 7-11, 2015. Saharia’s work on the flashiest basins of the United States is supervised by Drs. Pierre Kirstetter (CEES/ARRC), J.J. Gourley (NOAA/NSSL) and Yang Hong (CEES/ARRC).

The 2015 International Symposium on Earth-Science Challenges (ISEC) was held at OU on September 20-23, 2015. Highlighting the partnership between the University of Oklahoma and Kyoto University Japan, ISEC is dedicated to bringing together scientists and engineers from around the world to share recent advances in the study of the Earth.

The American Meteorological Society (AMS) 37th Conference on Radar Meteorology was held at the Embassy Suites, September 14-18, 2015. Sponsored in part by OU, 466 people from around the world were in attendance at the conference that serves to promote the advancement of radar in all facets of weather meteorology. OU sponsored the banquet, held at the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History. Tours of the OU Bizzell Library, National Weather Center, NOAA’s National Weather Radar Testbed, and the Radar Innovations Laboratory were provided, with assistance from NOAA, the A&GS Dean’s Office, the Bizzell Library staff, and the ARRC.

School of Meteorology PhD candidates Race Clark and Zac Flamig recently taught a two-day training course at the Second Workshop on Geospatial Information in Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico at the invitation of the Center for Global Change and Sustainability in the Southeast (CCGSS), September 22-23 2015. This is the third such course they’ve taught this year: they were also invited to teach a four-day course at Windhoek, Namibia in April, and a three-day course at Puebla, Puebla, Mexico in May. Flamig serves at the lead developer of the training model and Clark serves as the lead author of the training course. Clark and Flamig have now taught variations of this course and others to over a hundred scientists, students, and officials representing nearly 50 countries. Both students are co-advised by Jonathan Gourley (SoM/NOAA/NSSL) and Yang Hong (CEES/ARRC). Funding for these international workshop training activities have been provided by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the National Science Foundation (NSF) Partnerships for International Research (PIRE) program, and the OU HyDROS Lab (hydro.ou.edu). Learn more about the Ensemble Framework for Flash Flood Forecasting (EF5) by visiting ef5.ou.edu.

The ARRC PX-1000 radar was deployed for a second field experiment to monitor weather and hydrology over areas affected by wildfire and debris flows in the Rio Grande area of Colorado from August to September 2015. The radar was operated from the Lobo Overlook to monitor precipitation and complement the NEXRAD coverage in complex terrain. The operations were coordinated with the local emergency managers, the Colorado Water Conservation Board, the National Weather Service (NWS), NASA, and the Pagosa Springs Middle School. The Pueblo NWS personnel displayed real time weather activity in and around the West Fork Fire Complex at the front of the forecast operations area, which provided forecasters the ability to observe the weather with great predictability. This resulted in very few warnings being issued, equating to less worry for the public. Project presentations and radar demonstrations were also made at the Pagosa Springs Middle School (https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1215628095129631&id=145579222134529).

Research Scientist Dr. Pierre-Emmanuel Kirstetter (Advanced Radar Research Center & National Severe Storms Lab), along with Dr. Jonathan J. Gourley (National Severe Storms Lab) and Dr. Yang Hong (Civil Engineering & Environmental Sciences/Advanced Radar Research Center) are members on the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Post-Launch Team recently selected for a NASA Agency Group Achievement Award with a citation “For exceeding all expectations for GPM operations, data processing, algorithm performance, science impact, and education and public outreach within one year after launch”. GPM is an international network of satellites that provides the next-generation observations of rain and snow across the entire globe. NASA’s most prestigious honor awards are approved by the Administrator and presented to a number of carefully selected individuals who have distinguished themselves by making outstanding contributions to the Agency’s mission. These NASA awards highlight the contribution of outstanding hydrometeorological research conducted on the Norman campus to advance our understanding of Earth’s water and energy cycle, improve forecasting of extreme events such as floods, and extend current capabilities in using accurate and timely observations of precipitation to directly benefit society.

The U.S. government recently authorized the release of 1 arcsecond (approximately 30m) SRTM data for most of the globe. In support of the release of these data the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) and the Regional Centre for Space Science and Technology Education for Latin America and the Caribbean (CRECTEALC) hosted the Workshop on Higher Resolution SRTM Data & Flood Modeling to demonstrate the utility of the data in flood modeling applications. CRECTEALC and CEOS generously invited OU graduate students Zac Flamig and Race Clark to conduct an EF5 training course as a part of this effort.

The workshop (25-29 May 2015) was held at the cultural complex of the Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla (BUAP) in Puebla, Puebla, Mexico and at the National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics, and Electronics (INAOE) in Tonantzintla, Puebla, Mexico. Included were participants representing Colombia, Honduras, Uruguay, Brazil, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Mexico, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic. EF5’s participation in this workshop is part of an ongoing pattern of international outreach and capacity building activities on the part of the model development team. EF5 and CREST have now been presented on five continents to people from dozens of countries. Travel support for the training workshop was provided by the Secure World Foundation and the University of Oklahoma.

A team of researchers at the University of Oklahoma designed and carried out a project that provides urban floodplain managers and other interested stakeholders with visual animations and images of how future flood events may impact urban watersheds. Research team members included Profs. Scott Greene, Yang Hong, Mark Meo (Principal Investigator), and Baxter Vieux with the research assistance of Jonathan Looper and Zhanming Wan, and Amy Goodin of OU POLL. Project website can be viewed here and the project was supported by NOAA SARP. Please see the Project Brochure here.

NORMAN – University of Oklahoma honors students Brandon Curd and Ben Toms have been named 2015 Goldwater Scholars, placing OU in the top ranks of universities nationally with 48 Goldwater Scholars since the competition began in 1991. The prestigious scholarships are awarded on the basis of potential and intent to pursue careers in mathematics, the natural sciences or engineering.

“The University is extremely proud of Brandon Curd and Ben Toms,” said OU President David L. Boren. “They are continuing OU’s winning tradition nationally in the competition for Goldwater Scholars.”

More news from The University of Oklahoma and The Norman Transcript

THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA’s Water Technologies for Emerging Regions (WaTER) Center invites applications for a faculty position to be appointed at the Associate Professor or Professor level in International Water Resources Development at the Climate-Water Nexus. Click here for application instructions and details. (PDF)

 

OU Research Scientist Dr. Pierre Kirstetter is cited as the recipient for the OU/NSSL team involving Drs. Jonathan Gourley and Yang Hong for two NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Robert H. Goddard Awards, both for the category of Exceptional Achievement in Science. One award is for contributing to the success of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Ground Validation Team and the other as part of the algorithm teams (Radar, Radiometer, Combined, and Merged). GPM is an international network of satellites that provide the next-generation global observations of rain and snow. OU/NSSL scientists have worked at the interface between the satellite algorithm development and the ground validation team to improve precipitation estimates across the entire globe. These distinguished awards are given annually at NASA GSFC after an extensive nomination and review process. The awards will be presented on March 17, 2015 at Goddard Space Flight Center.

NHFG is the only group fosters a focus within AGU on studies of geophysical hazards, including droughts, earthquakes, fires, floods, heat waves, landslides, space weather, storms, tsunamis, volcano eruptions, impact by near-Earth objects, and related events. The Group promotes fundamental research into the links between extreme natural hazards and dynamic processes on Earth and in space; real-time and long-term monitoring of active Earth processes; quantitative natural-hazard modeling; studying predictability of natural extreme events, their operational forecasting, and reducing predictive uncertainties; and implementation of effective strategies and designs for hazard mitigation and disaster management worldwide. The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is an international non-profit scientific association of Earth and Space Scientists with more than 62,000 members worldwide.

Published: December 23, 2014 by CRC Press
Radar Hydrology: Principles, Models, and Applications provides graduate students, operational forecasters, and researchers with a theoretical framework and practical knowledge of radar precipitation estimation. The only text on the market solely devoted to radar hydrology, this comprehensive reference:

• Begins with a brief introduction to radar
• Focuses on the processing of radar data to arrive at accurate estimates of rainfall
• Addresses advanced radar sensing principles and applications
• Covers radar technologies for observing each component of the hydrologic cycle
• Examines state-of-the-art hydrologic models and their inputs, parameters, state variables, calibration procedures, and outputs
• Discusses contemporary approaches in data assimilation
• Concludes with methods, case studies, and prediction system design
• Includes downloadable MATLAB® content

Flooding is the #1 weather-related natural disaster worldwide. Radar Hydrology: Principles, Models, and Applications aids in understanding the physical systems and detection tools, as well as designing prediction systems.

The book flyer is here and the book can be purchased from CRC Press and Amazon websites.

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Editorial Reviews
“This is the first book on radar hydrology written by hydrologists. Whereas the excellent knowledge of radar technology by the authors permits an adequate coverage of the principles of rainfall rate estimation by radar, their hydrological background allows them to provide a unique message on the benefits (and on the remaining challenges) in exploiting radar techniques in hydrology. … In a clear and concise manner, the book combines topics from different scientific disciplines into a unified approach aiming to guide the reader through the requirements, strengths, and pitfalls of the application of radar technology in hydrology—mostly for flood prediction. Chapters include excellent discussion of theory, data analysis, and applications, along with several cross references for further review and useful conclusions.”

Meteorology Ph.D. candidate, Yixin ‘Berry’ Wen attended the 2014 Asia-Pacific Remote Sensing Symposium in Beijing from October 13-16, 2014. In the conference, Berry gave an oral presentation titled ‘Systematical evaluation of VPR-Identification and Enhancement (VPR-IE) approach for different precipitation types’. Several attendees provided valuable suggestions for her VPR-IE study. After the conference, Berry was invited by Professor Yunfei Fu to visit the Laboratory of Atmosphere Observation and Water Cycle at the University of Science and Technology of China.

HyDROS (Hydrometeorology and Remote Sensing Laboratory) participated in the annual GIS Day Expo at the Molly Shi Boren Ballroom, Oklahoma Memorial Union, University of Oklahoma. Emad Hasan (in the middle) won the first prize in the graduate student poster competition.

Professor Yang Hong and PhD Candidate Humberto Vergara at the Hydrometeorology and Remote Sensing (HyDROS) Laboratory visited University of El Bosque in Bogota, Colombia representing WaTER and ARRC Center. The visit had the purpose of establishing a research collaborative project between the school of Engineering of El Bosque and HyDROS lab. During the three days of the visit (October 6-8, 2014), Professor Hong and Vergara met with some key faculty of El Bosque and also the heads of regional hydrology and environmental services to share experiences and discussed opportunities of collaboration to work on projects revolving around Risk and Disaster Management for Colombia. The visit was a success with research collaboration MOU, including technology transfer and capacity building, and professional exchange.

On Wednesday, July 16, 2014, HWT-Hydro received a visit from NOAA Deputy Under Secretary Vice Adm. Michael S. Devany and National Weather Service Director Dr. Louis W. Uccellini. They were visiting Norman to see how research-to-operations (R2O) activities are conducted within the various NOAA units housed in the National Weather Center. Both officials discussed the ongoing efforts to align research activities at NSSL with the operational needs of the NWS. Dr. Uccellini described methods of easing the eventual R2O transition of the FLASH suite of forecast tools with the experiment’s principal investigator, Dr. JJ Gourley. Dr. Gourley also took the opportunity to explain how the various components of the FLASH product suite work in unison to give forecasters a view of heavy precipitation and flooding issues. Vice Adm. Devany and Dr. Uccellini visited during the middle of an experimental forecasting shift, where week 2 HWT-Hydro participants were monitoring potential flash flooding impacts in the High Plains and the Intermountain West. Week 2 participants are Britt Westergard (NWS Albany NY), Laura Belanger (NWS Peachtree City GA), Amanda Schroeder (NWS Fort Worth TX), and Jeff Waldstreicher (NWS Eastern Region).

Experimental activities have also attracted the attention of local media in central Oklahoma. Oklahoma City’s Fox affiliate, KOKH, aired a story about the experiment on Thursday, July 10. The KOKH story is available here: http://www.okcfox.com/story/25990371/forecasters-test-technology-to-better-predict-flash-floods.

 

After 4 weeks the inaugural HWT-Hydro Experiment has come to a close. During the month of July, we welcomed 17 total participants from NWS offices across the United States. Both the participants and the experiment coordinators took every opportunity to share ideas and knowledge in an effort to improve communication between the research and operational portions of the weather enterprise. Our weekly “Tales from the Testbed” webinars were well-attended, averaging between 20 and 30 remote NWS offices each week. Many of us have made plans to stay in touch and some of us will see each other again as soon as the NWS Flash Flood Summit in September, when the conversation about flash flood observations, forecasting, and modeling will broaden to include all of the National Weather Service’s partners across the US. We recommend watching this space for further news about this year’s experiment, including preliminary results. An overview of the experiment will be presented at the National Weather Association&amp’s annual meeting in Salt Lake City, UT in October. The FLASH research group has also submitted five HWT-Hydro-related abstracts to the 2015 AMS Annual Meeting which will be held in Phoenix, AZ in January.

Now let’s look back at the people who made the last four weeks possible. Thank you all!

 

 

After six year at OU, HyDROS Lab has 200 referred publications with more than 4000 citations. HyDROS publishes at the most authoritative journals of its kind, such as Bulletin of American Meteorological Society (IF>=11), Water Resources Research, Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of Geophysical Research, Remote Sensing of Environment, and IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing etc. Although general journals hardly publish researches on remote sensing and hydrometeorology, HyDROS lab has set it sight on high impact journals such as Science, Nature, PNAS, and Geophysical Reviews etc with IF>15.

More details in this link.

The NSSL NOXP Radar on location for iPHEX[/caption]Members of the HyDROS team have been involved in the Integrated Precipitation and Hydrology Experiment (IPHEx) to study warm season precipitation and hydrologic response in the complex terrain of western North Carolina. The team has been with NSSL’s NOXP radar to coordinate operations with several other ground-based platforms as well as NASA’s ER-2 and UND’s Citation aircraft. Further, a number of developmental radar-based (MRMS) and hydrologic model-based (FLASH) products are being supplied to the experimental team for research and evaluation. The experiment runs from May 1 – June 15, 2014.

Website hosting MRMS, FLASH, and NOXP products: http://wdssii.nssl.noaa.gov/web/wdss2/products/radar/iphex.shtml
More information about IPHEX can be found here: http://iphex.pratt.duke.edu
And here: http://pmm.nasa.gov/IPHEx

On Saturday, April 5, meteorology doctoral degree candidate Berry Wen and meteorology major Jessica Tomaszewski, Class of 2015, were honored along with seven other OU female scholarship recipients at the University Women’s Association’s annual spring luncheon. Berry and Jessica each received a $750 scholarship from the UWA. Our thanks to UWA for providing these scholarships and Congratulations to Berry and Jessica!

The Coupled Routing and Excess STorage model (CREST, jointly developed by the University of Oklahoma and NASA SERVIR) is a distributed hydrological model developed to simulate the spatial and temporal variation of land surface, and subsurface water fluxes and storages by cell-to-cell simulation. CREST’s distinguishing characteristics include: (1) distributed rainfall–runoff generation and cell-to-cell routing; (2) coupled runoff generation and routing via three feedback mechanisms; and (3) representation of sub-grid cell variability of soil moisture storage capacity and sub-grid cell routing (via linear reservoirs). The coupling between the runoff generation and routing mechanisms allows detailed and realistic treatment of hydrological variables such as soil moisture. Furthermore, the representation of soil moisture variability and routing processes at the sub-grid scale enables the CREST model to be readily scalable to multi-scale modelling research.
Please click the image to view the video.

HyDROS students Jill Hardy and Race Clark recently taught a three-day CREST training workshop in Windhoek, Namibia. Participants were mainly drawn from members of Namibia’s Department of Hydrology, though others from the Polytechnic of Namibia, the Regional Center for Mapping and Resources for Development (Nairobi, Kenya), the South African National Space Agency (Pretoria, South Africa), NAMWater, and NASA also participated in the workshop. The workshop is part of a larger, ongoing effort to build capacity for flood and drought monitoring in the African nation. The NSF (via the Open Science Data Cloud PIRE program) funded Ms. Hardy and Mr. Clark’s travel, along with a grant to the University of Oklahoma from the NASA SERVIR program. Several workshop participants also got the chance to take part in field visits to three separate stream gauge stations on the Kuiseb River basin. CREST (Coupled Routing and Excess STorage) is a distributed hydrologic model used at varying scales across the globe and was jointly developed by OU and NASA. For more information, visit hydro.ou.edu/research/crest.

HyDROS Student Zac Flamig, together with Dr. Aondover Tarhule (Geography Dept. Director)and Mr. Andrew Reader (CARD Director) conducted meetings with officials from the Nigerian National Emergency Management Agency hosted at their headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria. Also present at the meetings were representatives from the Nigerian Meteorology department, Ministry of Environment Water Resources, and the National Space Research and Development Agency. The topic of conversation was how to move forward with defining the needs for a proposal to research, develop and implement a Nigerian Integrated Hazard Early Warning System for floods, droughts, air pollution and other extreme weather phenomena.

CYWater 国际华人青年水科学协会 2014 冬季联会 在 AGU Fall Meeting 旧金山成功召开。 CYWater 2014 Summer Meeting will be hosted in Tsinghua University, Beijing. We will send you the meeting call later. Look forward to seeing you again in summer.

CYWater Annual Best Paper Award – congratulations to Laifang Li again

CYWater Dinner party.

HyDROS (Hydrometeorology and Remote Sensing Laboratory) and CIMMS (NOAA/OU Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies) participated in the annual GIS Day Expo at the Molly Shi Boren Ballroom, Oklahoma Memorial Union, University of Oklahoma. Race Clark wins first prize in the graduate student poster competition.

Dr. Sadiq Khan and Zhen Hong at HyDROS’s booth.

Zac Flamig, Race Clark, Dr. Sadiq Khan, and Zhen Hong at CIMMS’s booth.

Race Clark wins first prize in the graduate student poster competition.

International Journal of Remote Sensing was the top active journal in remote sensing research, according to the articles related to remote sensing of SCI and SSCI databases during 1991–2010. Remote sensing research went up significantly in the past two decades (link to the article).

Race Clark (CIMMS at NSSL) was awarded first place in the graduate student poster competition at the 38th Annual National Weather Association (NWA) meeting in Charleston, SC. Clark is a Ph.D. student in the OU School of Meteorology and works with advisors J.J. Gourley (NSSL) and Yang Hong (OU Civil and Environmental Engineering).

The award is selected by the NWA Weather Analysis and Forecasting Committee. The poster, A CONUS-wide analysis of flash flooding: simulations, warnings, and observations, identifies regional trends in the frequency of flash flood observations in NWS Storm Data, flash flood warnings, and flash flood guidance. His co-authors are J.J. Gourley (NOAA/OAR/NSSL), Yang Hong (OU), Zac Flamig (OU), and Ed Clark (NOAA/NWS). The recognition includes $125 and complimentary membership in the NWA for 2014.

The 2013 Association of University Research Parks (AURP) held their International conference this week in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During this conference, the University of Oklahoma’s Research Campus was named the nation’s top research park for 2013. The “One of a kind” Radars Innovations Laboratory is recognized for it’s contribution to this award.

NSSL’s Zachary Flamig has been awarded the prestigious 2013 Chateaubriand Fellowship. The merit-based grant is offered by the Embassy of France in the United States and aims to encourage collaborations, partnerships or joint projects between France and the U.S. Flamig is a Ph.D. student in the School of Meteorology at The University of Oklahoma and works at NSSL with advisor J.J. Gourley.

Flamig will conduct his fellowship at the University Joseph Fourier in Grenoble, France and will work with the Hydrometeorology, Climate and Impacts (HCMI) team at the Laboratoire d’etude des Transferts en hydrologie et Environnement (LTHE). His mission will be to explore a variety of hydrologic models with various physics representations, including the French Cevennes (CVN) distributed hydrologic model, to determine the surface runoff generation and routing mechanisms that are needed to yield accurate simulations of flash floods. Results from his research topic will be incorporated in the U.S. Flooded Locations and Simulated Hydrographs (FLASH) project at NSSL, which capitalizes on the high-resolution (1km/5min) radar-based inputs from the NMQ/Q2 system. The four-month fellowship begins in January, 2014.

NSSL collaborated with the French team during HyMeX (Fall 2012) and used the NOAA X-Pol mobile radar to complement the research radar network. NSSL/CIMMS previously hosted an LTHE graduate intern, Martin Calianno, and is presently hosting Prof. Celine Lutoff, a social scientist. Flamig’s fellowship will strengthen collaboration between the teams to advance the state-of-the-science of flash flood prediction and societal impacts.

A team from NSSL and HyDROS will partner with the NOAA Hydrometeorological Testbed at the Weather Prediction Center to host the FFaIR will explore using high-resolution atmospheric and hydrologic models to improve short-term forecasts of both precipitation amounts and flash flooding. The project runs from July 8-26, 2013.

NSSL’s Flooded Locations And Simulated Hydrographs (FLASH) system will be one of several modeling systems evaluated during FFaIR. The FLASH system uses radar-estimated rainfall from NSSL’s National Mosaic and QPE System (NMQ/Q2) as input into the CREST (Coupled Routing and Excess STorage) hydrologic model. FLASH then creates real-time 6-hour forecasts on a 1km grid that is updated every 15 minutes.

The 2013 FFaIR experiment will provide, for the first time, a pseudo-real time environment where participants from across the weather enterprise can explore the interface of meteorology and hydrology. Working together through the forecast process will foster collaboration between National Centers for Environmental Prediction, National Weather Service Forecast Offices, NOAA labs, and the academic community.

HyDROS Lab member Zac Flamig traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland for a workshop on cloud computing and big data as part of an Open Science Data Cloud (OSDC) Partnership for International Research and Education (PIRE) fellowship. The workshop was attended by undergraduate and graduate students from around the US and UK who are interested in using cloud computing technology to leverage big data for research. As part of the fellowship Mr. Flamig had previously traveled to Namibia to work with the Namibian Department of Hydrology on flood prediction and monitoring using the HyDROS lab’s CREST hydrologic model.

HyDROS students Jessica Erlingis and Jill Hardy participated in the Studies of Precipitation, flooding, and Rainfall Extremes Across Disciplines (SPREAD) workshop at Colorado State University from June 16-21. The workshop participants included 27 students and young professionals from fields ranging from economics and cognitive psychology to meteorology and hydrology. SPREAD students attended lectures from scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the National Science Foundation, the American Meteorological Society, the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, the National Weather Service, the city of Fort Collins, and HyDROS’s own Dr. JJ Gourley of the National Severe Storms Laboratory. The workshop also included a field trip to sites affected by the 1997 Fort Collins flood, the 1976 Big Thompson Canyon flood, and the 1982 dam break at Lawn Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. Over the course of the year, the students will work on interdisciplinary projects related to multi-hazard events and assessing flood severity and will reconvene next year to present their findings.

HyDROS students Zhanming Wan and Xiaodi Yu joined a team of 8 people from Colorado School of Mines (CSM), North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and Univerisity of Oklahoma on a field trip to Asheville, NC area during May 29-June 1 for NASA landslide monitoring project. The team, led by Professor Ning Lu (CSM), visited three locations in western North Carolina to assess the suitability for field monitoring of hydrological conditions that lead to landslides: (1) Coweeta-Mooney Gap, (2) Poplar Cove, and (3) Bent Creek. At each site they hand dug ~1 meter deep pits to examine soil depth, stratigraphy, and composition. Specimens for material property testing were collected at each potential field monitoring site.

Dr. Yang Hong, ARRC/CEES faculty member and head of the HyDROS Lab at the National Weather Center, has been voted as Chair-elect of the International Professionals for the Advancement of Chinese Earth Sciences (IPACES). Established in 1999, IPACES is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to advance earth sciences research and education in China, and to promote scientific collaborations between China and the rest of the world. Membership in IPACES is by invitation only with current members either tenured professors at U.S. universities or senior scientists at national laboratories. IPACES is among the largest Chinese overseas think tanks currently advising the Chinese government and universities on science, education, research and development. Congratulations Yang!

Supported by NASA, USAID and NSF PIRE program, OU HyDROS Lab (http://hydro.ou.edu) member Zac Flamig (SoM/ARRC Ph.D student) was invited to build flood prediction capacity for Namibia and Rwanda Governmental Agencies for two weeks. Invited by the Namibia Department of Hydrology, Zac spent a week in that country discussing the requirements for establishing a hydrologic model for the prediction of flooding on the Okavango River. The desire is to set up the OU Coupled Routing and Excess Storage (CREST) hydrologic model to provide prediction of future flooding events. Zac then conducted a weeklong CREST training workshop in Kigali, Rwanda for the Integrated Water Resources Department. The workshop involved approximately 20 government hydrologists and meteorologists. Zac was supported by the joint efforts of NASA and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the National Science Foundation’s Partner’s for International Research and Education (PIRE) program. More details here and it is also on the President’s Monthly Research and Development Highlights.

Drs. Yang Hong, Jonathan Gourley, Pierre Kirstetter, and Qing Cao have been selected by the NASA Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission as Science Team Members for the 2013-2016 period. GPM is an international network of satellites that provide the next-generation global observations of rain and snow. The GPM concept centers on the deployment of a “Core” satellite carrying an advanced radar/radiometer system to measure precipitation from space and serve as a reference standard to unify precipitation measurements from a constellation of research and operational satellites. Through improved measurements of precipitation globally, the GPM mission will help to advance our understanding of Earth’s water and energy cycle, improve forecasting of extreme events that cause natural hazards and disasters, and extend current capabilities in using accurate and timely information of precipitation to directly benefit society. The GPM Core Observatory is scheduled to launch in early 2014.

The HyDROS Lab currently has two openings for graduate research assistants looking to do their MS/PhD at the University of Oklahoma. Both positions are part of NASA funded projects.

Graduate Research Assistant Position Opening on Severity Assessment of Extreme Rainfall and Flash Flooding

This NASA-funded project will consist in developing a retrieval database for a Bayesian inference of the severity assessment of storms potentially causing flash floods. It will benefit from an unprecedented, decade-long database of high-resolution rainfall estimates from NOAA/NSSL’s National Mosaic and Quantitative Precipitation Estimation (NMQ/Q2) system (http://nmq.ou.edu). The project will consider utilizing the database to assess the uncertainty of rainfall estimates, yielding probabilistic products. If the Bayesian method is proven to be successful for rainfall rates, then it will be extended to accommodate surface water flows simulated from a distributed hydrologic model. The selected student will join an enthusiastic team of about 30 people including several other students working on various hydrometeorology topics.
Link to PDF with full details

Graduate Research Assistant Position Opening on Satellite Remote Sensing of Precipitation

The NASA-funded project will utilize data from the NMQ/Q2 system to improve the monitoring of precipitation from space at a global scale. Specifically, the work will consist in performing detailed rainfall comparison analyses between ground-based radars and several space sensors for improved understanding and quantification of precipitation processes from space. Then, the project will take advantage of the newly upgraded dual-polarimetric radar observations from NEXRAD as well as GPM’s dual-frequency radar measurements from space. The combination of these unique measurements will provide new insights for hydrometeor types, particle size distributions, and cloud microphysical processes. The selected student will join an enthusiastic team of about 30 people including several other students working on various hydrometeorology topics.
Link to PDF with full details

Congrats to JJ! He was awarded the American Meteorological Society Journal of Hydrometeorology Editor’s Award at the annual conference in Austin, TX. The citation notes his service to the Journal and for his “insightful, timely, and thorough reviews.”

HyDROS scientists Dr. Pierre Kirstetter and Dr. Jonathan Gourley (NOAA/NSSL) have been invited toparticipate in the Hydrological Cycle in the Mediterranean Experiment (HyMeX), the largest weather field research project in European history. HyMeX is a 10-year international effort to better understand, quantify and model the hydrologic cycle in support of improved forecasts and warnings of flash floods in the Mediterranean region. Improved understanding of the land,atmosphere and ocean interactions that contribute to flash flooding in this part of the world will advance the state of the science that will ultimately be represented in forecast models with application in the United States.

The AGU annual meeting is among the largest Earth and Space conferences, with more than 20,000 attendees, every Fall at SF, CA.

HyDROS’s new book, “Multiscale Hydrologic Remote Sensing: Perspectives and Applications”, has been accepted as a textbook for upper level undergraduate or graduate courses on the subject of Remote Sensing Hydrology or Satellite Remote Sensing Applications. This book integrates advances in hydrologic science and innovative remote sensing technologies. Raising the visibility of interdisciplinary research on water resources, it explores hydrologic remote sensing at the local, urban, watershed and regional scales, as well as the continental and global scale.

HyDROS group has been transferring their high-resolution Coupled Routing and Excess STorage (CREST) hydrological model and the rainfall-triggered Landslide model to NASA’s SERVIR-Africa Mission and NOAA’s Flash Flood Headquarter Office for a Continental US-wide National-Flood-Landslide (NFL) project.

Congratulations to ARRC and SoM graduate student Jessica Erlingis on receiving a 2012 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Jessica’s research interests include simulation and prediction of hydrometeorological extremes, such as heavy precipitation events and flash flooding. The NSF Fellowship provides a $12,000 cost of education allowance in addition to a $30,000 annual stipend for 3 years, with a total up to $156,000. Jessica, a student of Dr. Yang Hong (CEES/ARRC) and Dr. Jonathan Gourley (NOAA/NSSL), brings the total number of NSF graduate fellowship recipients currently in the ARRC to three.

HyDROS Lab will co-chair two sessions (File):

H035: Global Precipitation Measurements, Validation and Applications

NH002: Advances in Landslide Hazard Research: Assessment, Monitoring, and Forecasting

More about AGU Fall Meeting: Welcome to the American Geophysical Union’s 45th annual Fall Meeting! Join more than 20,000 Earth and space scientists, educators, students, and other leaders in San Francisco, California, 3–7 December as they gather to present groundbreaking research and connect with colleagues.

OU CEES/ARRC’s HyDROS Lab (http://hydro.ou.edu), jointly with NASA-SERVIR Mission, hosted a week-long CREST Hydrological Modeling Workshop in Kenya from 2nd April to 6th April 2012. Attendees are from 13 African and Asian countries’ Ministries of Hydrometeorology or Disaster Management Agency or University (Figure 1 & 2). This is the first workshop of many to transfer NASA and OU jointly developed technology to developing countries. The goal of the training is to provide technical expertise to participants on CREST- Grid based Distributed Hydrological Model for quantifying stream flow, soil moisture and evapotranspiration by use of NASA satellite rainfall datasets. [pdf News from NASA SERVIR Webstie]

Congratulations to HyDRROS member, ARRC/SoM M.S. student Jill Hardy who was recently selected as a 2012 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program Fellow. Jill will receive a three-year $126,000 award that will enable her to complete a research project titled “Probabilistic Flash Flood Forecasting using Ensemble Stormscale Precipitation Forecasts”. Her selection was based on her outstanding abilities and accomplishments, as well as her potential to contribute to strengthening the vitality of the US science and engineering enterprise.

HyDROS and ARRC/SoM M.S. student Zac Flamig is the recipient of this year’s Tommy C. Craighead Award for Best Paper in Meteorology. In addition to a monetary award, Zac will be recognized at the College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences Student Awards Ceremony, to be held on Thursday, April 19 in the NWC Atrium. Zac’s research interests include flash flood prediction and rainfall estimation using dual-polarization radar. Congratulations Zac!

Click the link for more detail.

HyDROS student Zac Flamig, together with NASA scientists, went to Namibia to host the Flood Dashboard Workshop to build capacity for Namibia Flood Disaster Early Warning System by working with Namibia Department of Hydrometeorology. They also took a field trip along flood-prone Okvango River Basin (see the Photos KMZ file).

More Info: The Namibia Flood Dashboard is a collection of geospatial information, including GIS data, hydrological information and other spatial data derived through Sensor Web that is integrated to provide an overall summary of flood situation analysis within Namibian water basins. Current and past flood activity for Angola, Nambia and Zambia are included. This effort is supported by UN-SPIDER.

As per the recommendation stated in the NRC Report “NOAA’s Role in Space-based Precipitation Estimation and Application”, NOAA has formed a Steering Group (SG) on space based precipitation missions. The main purpose of this SG is to guide/inform NOAA leadership on NOAA’s role in the NASA-led international Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission. “Given his expertise in precipitation research and his current tie with the TRMM/GPM community, Dr. Jonathan Gourley would be a valuable asset for the group and we think he could make an important contribution to shape NOAA’s R&D priorities for the NASA’s GPM mission”, said the SG co-chair Robert Cifelli, Ralph Ferraro, and Pingping Xie. (Jan 6, 2012)

HyDROS’ Water Resources and Climate Variability Study Highlighted in CEES Annual Newsletter (on 2nd page).

As PI or Co-PI, HyDROSlab has kicked off a series of research projects in Climate, Water, Energy, Remote Sensing, and Disaster as briefly described below.

US Army Corps of Engineers/Institute for Water Resources/Responses to Climate Change Program: Utilization of Regional Climate Science Programs in Reservoir and Watershed Risk-Base Impact Assessments Pilot Study, with Renee McPherson, Mark Shaffer, and USACE Gene Lilly and Brad Hudgens.

American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) for their project titled “Developing Standard Procedures for Filling Climatic Data Gaps for use in Building Energy Performance Monitoring and Analysis.”

NOAA funded project is titled “Climate Variability, Urban Floods and Stakeholder Capabilities: Linking Severe Weather Impacts to Community Users with Modeling and Visualization.”, a two-year project to assess the effects of climate change-induced flooding on urban watersheds in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Oklahoma City and Tulsa. This project will incorporate data from atmospheric-oceanic general circulation models into watershed flood models and present visualizations of potential future flood events to focus groups comprised of public works professionals and urban planners in each of the five cities. Results from the project are expected to help cities plan for urban climate adaptation.

NASA has awarded OU HyDROS Lab a project titled “Automated Tracking of Earth Science Phenomena for Ingest into a Moving Object Database to Enable Systematic Studies.”

NASA: Integrating and Validating NASA’s Real-time Satellite precipitation Products with NOAA/NSSL NMQ System

Oklahoma Dept. of Transportation has awarded CEES Amy Cerato and Yang Hong for their 2-year project titled: Real-time Monitoring of Slope Stability in Eastern Oklahoma.

Oklahoma Transportation Center has awarded OSU Prof. Liu and OU HyDROS team to conduct a research titled: Decision Support System for Road Closures in Flash Flood Emergencies.

The HyDROS Lab will give 14 presentations at AGU Annual Fall Meeting 2012, including three invited talks. In addition, HyDROS members will chair four oral sessions and three poster sessions. The sessions HyDROS co-convened include: H41L. Global Precipitation Measurement, Validation, and Applications; H21F: Remote Sensing Applications in Hydrology; and H21G: Application of Physically Based Distributed Hydrological Models to Flood Forecasting: Progresses, Challenges, and Future Directions

For more information, visit http://www.oudaily.com/news/2011/sep/27/winter-storms-becoming-more-plentiful-widespread-a/

HyDROS Lab presented 6 Oral Talks and 10 Posters, covering 4 general areas, at the International Symposium on Earth-science Challenges (ISEC), hosted the University of Oklahoma at Norman.

Hydrometeorology and the Water Cycle

1. Hong et al ID 21: Radar and Satellite for Global and Regional Flood Prediction and Water Cycle Study
2. Gourley et al. ID 93: NMQ-FLASH- A Prototype System for Flash Flood Prediction
3. Flamig et al. ID 49: Evaluation of A Demonstration System for Flash Flood Prediction over the Arkansas-Red River Basin
4. Xue et al. ID 81: Evaluation of Satellite-based Global Hydrological Simulation using Distributed CREST Model
5. Hodges et al. ID 60: An Evaluation of Storm Scale Model Quantitative Precipitation Forecasts in Cases of Extreme Flash Flooding

Radar and Satellite Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere and Hydrosphere

1. Wen et al. ID 97: Incorporating NASA Space-borne precipitation into NOAA Q2 operational system for improved integrated NMQ Products
2. Kirstetter ID 48: Systematic Cross-Evaluation of NASA Spaceborne Radar and NOSS Ground Radar-based National Mosaic QPE over Lower CONUS
3. Chen et al. ID 46: Inter-comparsion of NOAA/NSSL Next Generation National Mosaic QPE and NCEP Stage II and Stage IV over the Conterminous United States
4. Yeary et al. ID 53: Prototype Concept: Non-Contacting Soil Moisture Estimates via Innovative RF Solutions

Hydrological Modeling and Remote Sensing Data Assimilation

1. Zhang et al. ID 45: Assimilation of Satellite-based Precipitation and Soil Moisture Data to Hydrological Model for Improved Flood Prediction over Poorly Gauged Basin in Africa
2. Chen et al. ID 87: A New Metric-based Method for QPE Verification
3. Khan et al. ID 74: Multispectral and Microwave Satellite Remote Sensing for Flood Prediction in Data Scarce Environments

Weather, Water, and Climate Variability

1. Liu et al. ID 39: Climatological Drought Analysis and Projection wijustifyth Comprehensive Drought Indicators: A Case Study for Arkansas-Red River Basin
2. Grout et al ID 22: Winter Weather Events and Associated Socioeconomic Impacts Across Oklahoma: 2000-2010
3. Adhikari and Hong ID 8: Climate change Impacts on water resources: Assessments from two contrasting River Basins
4. Zhang et al. ID 58: Understanding the changing characteristics of droughts in Sudan and the corresponding components of the hydrologic cycle

Gina Hodges, OU graduate and Atmospheric Radar Research Center student, will receive $30,000 a year for the next three years to investigate her proposed research topic, Prototyping a Flash Flood Prediction System Using Next Generation Radar Observations and Stormscale Rainfall Forecasts.“Itis my goal to improve the current methods used for flash flood prediction to protect lives and property of the public,” said Hodges. “In order to accomplish this goal, I will use an interdisciplinary approach combining my background in meteorology, hydrology and social sciences.” This interdisciplinary method will be applied to recent flash floods that occurred during the spring of 2010 – specifically, the Nashville, Tenn., flood that inundated the Grand Ole Opry House, the deadly Arkansas campground event and the urban Oklahoma City event.The three events chosen were recent with significant impacts and can be studied to prevent such costly and deadly results in thefuture, according to Hodges.

“Gina was awarded the Outstanding Senior in Meteorology award last year, and she is now pursuing a master’s degree in water resources engineering,” said Yang Hong, Hodges’ adviser and OU College of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science associate professor and School of Meteorology adjunct professor. “Her research is part of the end-to-end, high-impact event prediction system development that integrates meteorology, weather radar remote sensing and hydrological modeling approaches. I have been impressed by Gina’s ability to understand and solve problems in her innovative flash flood prediction study.” “The goal of her study is to develop and demonstrate a system that will increase the forecast lead time and identify specific locations about to be impacted by flash floods, and I am confident that her research will have broader impacts in the U.S. National Weather Service and beyond,” said Jonathan J. Gourley, research hydrometeorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Severe Storms Laboratory and Hodges’ co-adviser.

The National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program helps to ensure the vitality of the human resource base of science and engineering in the United States and reinforces its diversity. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology,engineering and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited U.S. institutions. For more information, visit http://www.nsfgrfp.org/.

CREST (Coupled Routing and Excess STorage), a high-resolution distributed Hydrological Model developed through a collaborative effort among OU, the ARRC and CEES, was adopted by the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center for their SERVIR-Africa and SERVIR-Mesoamerica system deployment. SERVIR, a joint NASA-USAID initiative, is a Regional Visualization and Monitoring System that currently provides critical and actionable information for Central America,the Dominican Republic and East Africa, and addresses the nine societal benefit areas of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO): disasters, ecosystems, biodiversity, weather, water, climate, health, agriculture, and energy.

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
120 David L. Boren Blvd.
Norman, OK  73072
www.ags.ou.edu

NORMAN, Okla. – University of Oklahoma professor Yang Hong, associate professor in OU’s School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences, recently received a $500,000 grant from the Pakistan – U.S. Science and Technology Cooperation Program.
Hong’s project, titled “Capacity Building in Disaster Risk Assessment and Management through Training and Research in Geo-informatics and Hydrometeorological Hazard Risk Reduction Strategies,” focuses on increasing Pakistan’s capacity to reduce the risk of damage from potential natural disasters, including developing an early warning system for floods by integrating real-time remote sensing information and predictive hydrometeorological models. It was one of only 28 selected from 270 applications submitted to the program.

“Pakistan is a country prone to hydrometeorological disasters – flooding, landslides and droughts,” said Hong. “Monsoon flooding that began in late July has now affected 20 million people in Pakistan. This has left one-fifth of the country underwater and prompted intense and sustained relief assistance from the United States and other international donors. “These recent floods in Pakistan have underlined the need for countries to be better prepared for extreme weather events. Currently, the flood risk assessment and management system in Pakistan deals with rescue and relief. Adequate adaptation practices need to be strengthened and people’s local capacities to adapt need to be supported and enforced. The early warning system will help map flood zones, determine the potential economic impact of flooding and reduce the risk of damage and fatalities in vulnerable communities.”

The major outcome of this project is to develop local capacities through trainings, disaster risk-reduction research, student and faculty exchanges, workshops and seminars. Ultimately, the project should build the national capacity of Pakistan in natural disaster risk mitigation through training and research in geographical information science, according to Hong. “We are likely to see more extreme events in the future, particularly in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan region, and the international climate, water and development communities need to ensure that adequate support is channeled to the region in a way that enforces ongoing ‘best practices in adaptation,’” said Shahid Habib, project collaborator and chief of the Office of Applied Sciences at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

In addition to serving as an OU professor, Hong is an affiliated faculty member in the Atmospheric Radar Research Center at the National Weather Center and the associate director of the Center for Natural Hazard and Disaster Research.

This project is a collaboration between OU and Pakistan’s National University of Science and Technology. The project will be completed in three years. Slightly more than half of the total budget will be spent training Pakistani university academics in disaster prediction and risk management techniques.
For more on Pakistan – U.S. Science and Technology Cooperation Program, visit

http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/dsc/pakistan/index.htm

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
120 David L. Boren Blvd.
Norman, OK  73072
www.ags.ou.edu

NORMAN, Okla.—Trevor Grout, engineering graduate student at the University of Oklahoma’s Atmospheric Radar Research Center, was presented with the Oklahoma Transportation Center’s student of the year award at the 14th annual Council of University Transportation Centers’ award banquet, held recently in Washington, D.C.

Pictured (L-R): Musharraf Zaman, OU College of Engineering associate dean of research and graduate programs; Jewellyn Grout, spouse; Trevor Grout, OU engineering student; Michelle McFarland, Oklahoma Transporation Center assistant director; and Tony Dark, OTC executive director.

Grout was the only one from Oklahoma among the 60 recipients recognized nationally for outstanding achievement in and contribution to transportation research and education. Since July 2009, Grout has been working with collaborators on a project titled “Proactive Approach to Transportation Resource Allocation under Severe Weather Emergencies.” The goal of the project is to develop tools that aid maintenance managers in making resource allocation and deployment decisions to mitigate severe winter weather.

“Trevor is a unique fit for this project as it necessitates the need for a multidisciplinary approach from both a meteorological and engineering perspective,” said Yang Hong, associate professor in OU’s School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences. “Trevor’s background with a bachelor’s degree in meteorology, as well as working towards his master of science in civil engineering degree, undoubtedly gives him a great advantage. This award truly testifies the interdisciplinary weather enterprise at OU.”

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
120 David L. Boren Blvd.
Norman, OK  73072
www.ags.ou.edu

Announcement—Aug. 12, 2010
Yang Hong, associate professor in the University of Oklahoma’s School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences and associate director of the Center for Natural Hazard and Disaster Research, has been appointed precipitation technique committee chair for the American Geophysical Union.

AGU is the largest earth scientists’ organization with about 60,000 members, and 7,000 of its members identify hydrology as their primary section of choice.

“Precipitation technical committees are a key element of the AGU hydrology section,” said AGU hydrology section president Dennis Lettenmaier in a letter to Hong. “They have a storied past; many well known names in the field have chaired these committees going back many decades.”

Selected by Lettenmaier, Hong began serving the two-year term July 1. He has been asked to assemble a 12-person committee responsible for promoting scientific interactions in precipitation and closelyrelated subdisciplines of hydrology.

“It is an honor to be appointed to such a position and I hope to work with the deputy chair, professor Wiltold Krajewski, and the other core members from all over the world to provide intelligent leadership for precipitation sciences and applications in hydrology,” said Hong. “Major focuses for the coming two years will be the synergistic integration of space and ground sensors, as well as flash flood prediction initiatives.” In addition to Hong’s titles, he serves as an affiliated faculty member in the Atmospheric Radar Research Center at the National Weather Center.

Zac Flamig traveled overseas to Kenya to give a presentation about the Coupled Routing and Excess STorage (CREST) hydrologic model. (April 29, 2010)

RSHG undergraduate student Jessica Erlingis received the School of Meteorology Faculty Recognition for Outstanding Performance as an Undergraduate, and fFuture RSHG graduate student Gina Pine Hodges received the School of Meteorology Undergraduate Academic Achievement Award. Congratulations to both of you girls!! (March 30, 2010)

RSHG graduate students participated on the Student Research and Performance Day 2010 at NWC last Friday March 26. Yixin Wen (Berry), Pradeep Adhikari, Zonghu Liao and Sadiq Khan presented their research work with posters (See Below). Good Job guys!!

This award is given to senior students who perform outstandingly as a senior. There is only one person named Outstanding Senior for each major, and Liu Lu has been selected for the Environmental Science program. CONGRATULATIONS!! (March 23, 2010)

This scholarship is awarded on the basis of his academic accomplishments. The Cleo Cross International Student Scholarship is awarded in honor of Mrs. Cleo Cross, wife of Dr. George L. Cross who was President of The University of Oklahoma for 25 years. The International Programs Center will be hosting an awards ceremony in his honor to present him with a certificate of his Cleo Cross International Student Scholarship. (March 5, 2010)

CONGRATULATIONS PRADEEP!!

Dr. Hong and Dr. Gourley presented at the International Symposium on Radar and Modeling Studies of the Atmosphere in Kyoto, Japan. (November 10, 2009)

Zac Flamig has been selected to receive a $10,000 scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation. He was selected from a group of 17 students of the whole nation, who were nominated based on exceptional performance, initiative and creativity in their field to receive the Astronaut Scholarship, the largest monetary award given to science and engineering students based solely on merit. (September 25, 2009)

CONGRATULATIONS ZAC.

http://eos.ou.edu/

Dr. Bin Yong, Research Scientist completed his tenure at RSHG and returned to his home university as an Assistant Professor at Nanjing, China. Our best wishes to Dr. Yong in his future endeavor. (June 06, 2009)

Two OU undergraduate students Kim Douglas and Lacey Evans are working at Remote Sensing Hydro Group this summer for a NSF-funded “Research Experience for Undergraduate” Program. (June 01, 2009)

As an outreach program of the RSHG, Dr. Yang Hong is mentoring K-12 outreach activities for two weeks starting June 01, 2009. Six science and mathematics teachers from the High Schools in the vicinity of Norman are participating in the program. Dr. Hong is assisted by Ph.D. student Mr. Sadiq Khan. (June 01, 2009)

Undergraduate Student Lu Liu has been selected as a recipient of the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) grant by the University of Oklahoma Honors Council. (April 22, 2009)

Congratulations to Lu!

A seminar was held at NHDR where Dr. Xuguang Wang, faculty member of the School of Meteorology, The University of Oklahoma made a presentation about Ensemble-based atmospheric data assimilation. During the presentation methods, issues and applications of ensemble-based atmospheric data assimilation was reviewed and discussed. (April 21, 2009)

Dr. Xuguang Wang (center) giving her presentation and leading discussion on Ensemble-based atmospheric data assimilation

Sadiq Khan was awarded the Olson Scholarship in a ceremony on April 17, 2009 to honor the recipient of various awards in the Geography Department.

Good news keep coming for Sadiq Khan. Two days before he received the Olson Scholarship award, he was notified about the renewal of his NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship. CONGRATULATIONS AGAIN!!! (April 20, 2009)

A paper titled “Quantitative Assessment of Climate Change and Human Impact on Long-term Hydrologic Response using an Impact Factor Formula: a Case Study in a Sub-basin of the Yellow River, China” has been submitted to International Journal of Climatology Special Issue. Dr. Jiahu Wang of RSHG is the lead author. (April 15, 2009)

Cooperation Agreement between Global Runoff Data Centre and the University of Oklahoma- School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science has been established a Cooperation Agreement to share the river discharge data from more than 1600 stations in Africa and Central /South America. (April 14, 2009)

Former DEERS-LAB website has been updated along with the name of this research group. RSHG (Remote Sensing Hydrology Group) is now the name of our group. New members have also joined us since the old website was developed. (April 13, 2009)

A paper titled “Evaluation of Global Daily Reference ET’s Hydrological Utility using Oklahoma’s World-Class Environmental Monitoring Network-MESONET” has been submitted to Water Resource Research. Wenjuan Liu of RSHG is the lead author. (April 8, 2009)

PhD student Sadiq Khan has been awarded with a new scholarship from the Geography department of OU. This is the scond award Sadiq receives. The ceremony will take place at The National Weather Center this coming Friday April 17 of 2009, as of the 2009 College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences Awards Celebration. (April 07, 2009)

Julien LAGRANGE, joined the group April 2009 as an exchange undergraduate student from France for three months. Julien’ s research is focused on water quality issue and is titled “Using ArcGIS to map water pollution spatial and temporal variability (algae etc) in Oklahoma lakes using satellite MODIS images and field measurements data”. (April, 2009)

Dr. Hiroshi Fukuoka, Associate Professor from Research Center on Landslides Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University made a presentation about current landslide research and application at Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI), Kyoto University. During the presentation Dr. Fukuoka gave introduction of landslides studies at DPRI, Sliding surface liquefaction process and International framework on landslide research and Global Landslide databases. During his visit, we established long-term collaboration plans for Landslide Monitoring and Prediction in Asia. For more info on the work of Dr. Fukuoka and DPRI please visit http://www.dpri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/web_e/index_e.html. (March 26, 2009)

Dr. Fukuoka (Center) at NWC

Liu Lu joined the group in January 2009 as an undergraduate student. Liu would be working on a research titled “Estimating solar energy spatiotemporal distribution in central Oklahoma”. (January, 2009)

Dr. Yang Hong becomes the Chair for AGU Hydrology Section Precipitation Technique Committee for term 2008-2010. (July, 2008)

Dr. Yang Hong received NASA Headquarter Applied Science Group Achievement Award together with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Scientists: “For significant achievements in systematically promoting and accelerating the use of NASA scientific research results for societal benefits”. (May, 2008)