Water, Climate and Energy

Water management infrastructure

Above: Water is routed into a treatment facility.


 

Water resources lie at the center of this century’s most urgent environmental challenges. At the same time, energy production and supply will continue to drive anthropogenic climate change, exacerbating the risks of water shortages, floods, vector-borne diseases and disrupted food production. To ensure reliable and safe water resources for a rapidly growing global population, research must address basic and emerging questions and find novel solutions.

Faculty in this department work on the grand challenges of our changing climate. How do energy supply and green-house gas emissions alter atmospheric dynamics? What are the spatial and temporal patterns of the water cycle, particularly at the extremes of flood and drought? We aim to explain how these processes work and interact, and in so doing develop prognostic capabilities in the service of a global human population. Our work is steeped in classical concepts and in step with breakthrough research.

Faculty