Dynamic Connectivity as a Metric for Resilience in River network Processes Seminar
For more information regarding this seminar, please email Barend Van Maanen at B.Van-Maanen@soton.ac.uk .
Event details
We are pleased to announce the first Coastal Seminar of this semester will be given by Professor Efi Foufoula-Georgiou from the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Minnesota.
River networks are the pathways for transport and transformation of fluxes generated by the landscape, e.g., overland flow, sediment, nutrients, pollutants. Their “topological connectivity” dictates the static template over which these fluxes propagate, join, amplify, or dampen but their “dynamical connectivity” depends on the physical process of interest (water level, sediment type, sediment amount, or stream biology) and evolves over time as inputs change, propagate or get stored in the system. We propose a framework by which a “process-based dynamic connectivity” (PDC) is defined and the maximum cluster (the maximum coherent part of the river network that acts as a connected whole) is used as a metric for system resilience. We demonstrate these concepts via application to a large river basin in the Midwestern U.S. where geology, climate, and human actions have conspired to create excess sediment production impairing river water quality and aquatic life.
Speaker information
Professor Efi Foufoula-Georgiou, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Efi Foufoula-Georgiou is a University of Minnesota McKnight Distinguished Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering and the Joseph T. and Rose S. Ling Chair in Environmental Engineering. She is Director of the NSF Science and Technology Center “National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics” (NCED), and has served as Director of St. Anthony Falls Laboratory at the University of Minnesota. She received a diploma in Civil Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, and an M.S. and Ph.D. (1985) in Environmental Engineering from the University of Florida. Her area of research is hydrology and geomorphology, with special interest on scaling theories, multiscale dynamics and space-time modeling of precipitation and landforms. Professor Foufoula-Georgiou has been the recipient of the John Dalton Medal of the European Geophysical Society and the AGU Hydrologic Sciences Award. She is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and American Meteorological Society (AMS), and an elected member of the European Academy of Sciences. She is the President-elect of the Hydrology Section of AGU.