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Seminar: Mukesh Kumar – U. Alabama Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering
October 9, 2019 @ 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm
UNC-CH’s Department of Marine Sciences is proud to host a seminar by Mukesh Kumar. This event is scheduled for Wednesday, October 9th, at 12:30 pm in room G201 on the ground floor of Murray/Venable Hall at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This seminar will also be broadcast live to seminar room 222 at the Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS) in Morehead City, NC and online via Zoom (Meeting ID: 793-910-747).
Presenter Affiliation: Associate Professor, University of Alabama
Title: Unexpected ecohydrological responses to human and climate forcings
Abstract: Changes in climate and landscape characteristics are driving the coupled hydrologic and ecological system into unchartered territories. Major alterations in water availability and quality have been experienced, oftentimes negatively impacting the water resource sustainability and societal prosperity. Despite these challenges, interactions between physical processes that are essential for interpreting and predicting the system dynamics remain far from being thoroughly understood. In this talk, I will highlight three examples where an inadequate representation of interactions between processes have led to incorrect conclusions in the past studies. Specifically, I will talk about (a) Tree thinning impacts on hydrologic responses in snow settings; (b) Impact of the changing climate on tree mortality risks; and (c) Role of expansion of agriculture on wetland consolidation in prairie pothole regions. Through these examples, I will make a case for the need to diagnose the missing interactions in our models and appropriately account for them for better ecohydrological predictions.