Hydrology, Water Resources & Environmental Fluid Mechanics

Civil engineering PhD student earns National Science Foundation Fellowship

sugl6437 — Thu, 07 May 2026 14:49:10 +0000

Civil engineering PhD student earns National Science Foundation Fellowship sugl6437 Thu, 05/07/2026 - 08:49

Susan Glairon

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has recognized Marguerite Lorenzo, a graduate student in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder, with a prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) award.

The award recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students from across the country in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields who are pursuing research-based master’s or doctoral degrees.

Awardees receive a $37,000 annual stipend and cost of education allowance for the next three years as well as professional development opportunities.

Advisor

Associate Professor Aditi Bhaskar

Lab

Hydro-Urban Bhaskar group

Research

I am researching how low-impact residential development affects water quantity and quality in the West Stroh Gulch watershed in Parker, Colorado. The findings will help clarify how urbanization is impacting hydrology in the greater Denver area.

How will your GRFP support your research?

In the later chapters of my PhD, I will use my GRFP award to study how water-wise landscaping influences wildfire propagation risk.

What do you enjoy doing outside of the lab?

I compete semi-professionally in high jump. I also like to try new plant-based recipes and learn languages.

Marguerite Lorenzo is researching how low-impact residential development affects water quantity and quality in the West Stroh Gulch watershed in Parker, Colorado. The findings will help clarify how urbanization is impacting hydrology in the greater Denver area.

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Modeling the Colorado River’s uncertain future

sugl6437 — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 21:30:38 +0000

Modeling the Colorado River’s uncertain future sugl6437 Fri, 04/10/2026 - 15:30

As the Colorado River faces historic declines in flow, decision-makers are turning to advanced modeling tools to manage an increasingly uncertain future. At the center of this effort is Research Professor Edith Zagona, who leads the development of RiverWare, a widely used modeling platform that simulates how water moves through the basin. Her work includes leading a multidisciplinary team at the Center for Advanced Decision Support for Water and Environmental Systems (CADSWES), advancing RiverWare and other decision- support tools.

Originally developed in the 1990s at the �鶹��Ѱ��, RiverWare allows states, cities and tribes to run their own scenarios through complex systems like the Colorado River Simulation System, increasing transparency and trust in water management decisions.

Read the IEEE Spectrum article

Research Professor Edith Zagona leads the development of RiverWare, a widely used modeling platform that helps simulate how water moves through the basin.

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Winter never came to Colorado. What does it mean for water supplies?

sugl6437 — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 16:54:10 +0000

Winter never came to Colorado. What does it mean for water supplies? sugl6437 Tue, 03/31/2026 - 10:54

Associate Professor Ben Livneh, who’s also the director of the Western Water Assessment (WWA) at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), shares insights on what this “snow drought” means for water availability, how it compares to past trends and what may lie ahead as Colorado approaches peak snowpack season.

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Professor interviewed on Colorado River crisis

sugl6437 — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 15:57:25 +0000

Professor interviewed on Colorado River crisis sugl6437 Thu, 02/19/2026 - 08:57

Professor Rajagopalan Balaji was interviewed by NPR's KGNU about the extreme difficulties facing western states as they renegotiate the Colorado River Compact that governs water use.

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Reconstructing the ancient Indus River

Susan Glairon — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 00:18:20 +0000

Reconstructing the ancient Indus River Susan Glairon Thu, 12/11/2025 - 17:18

By combining hydrology and paleoclimate modeling, Professor Balaji Rajagopalan and colleagues uncovered the long-standing mystery behind the disappearance of the Harappan Civilization.

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PhD student earns top award for video showing hidden odor patterns

Susan Glairon — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 18:47:48 +0000

PhD student earns top award for video showing hidden odor patterns Susan Glairon Wed, 12/03/2025 - 11:47

Elle Stark

Susan Glairon

Elle Stark

It’s well known that animals rely on odors to survive. Bees, for example, can follow the scent of a flower from far away to collect nectar and pollen. But in turbulent air, how do bees and other animals trace those scents back to their source?

Understanding that relationship between wind and odor plumes is the focus of �鶹��Ѱ�� PhD student Elle Stark’s work in the Ecological Fluid Dynamics Lab.

Stark, who is part of a large NSF-funded scientific effort called the Odor2Action Network, was recently awarded a prestigious Gallery of Fluid Motion (GFM) Award for a video describing her research. The competition, part of the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics conference, was held in Houston on Nov. 23-25.

“The award reflects the quality of our research within the fluid dynamics community and the importance of using data visualization to communicate complex ideas," Stark said. “It’s a chance to share our findings in a way that connects with a broad audience.”

The video illustrates the lab’s years of research measuring precise data about odor plumes, which animals regularly use to locate food, mates and habitat.

“Navigating natural plumes is a critical skill for many animals, yet we don’t fully understand how they do it,” Stark said. “The gaps in current knowledge stem partly from the complexity of how odors travel from a source to an animal.”

Hidden patterns

Odor2Action is an international network of scientists across 16 research institutions that seek to understand how animals use odors to guide natural behaviors.

This effort will help researchers better understand the sensory and behavioral processes in the brain, with broad implications for health and security for both animals and human beings. The work could inform search and rescue, chemical leak detection and even improvements in neural network architectures, computer models inspired by the brain.

Experimental setup for plume illumination. Precisely aligned lasers (center right), are sent through specialized sheet-forming optics (center left) to illuminate a slice of the plume in the wind tunnel (left).

The Ecological Fluid Dynamics Lab studies how fluid dynamic processes shape the signal an animal encounters as it navigates an odor plume. For the work shown in the video, the researchers investigated odors moving through air, which required multiple lasers and cameras precisely timed to collect data across a 30 x 30 cm area.

To measure flow, the researchers used particle image velocimetry, which tracks particles in the air and calculates their velocity from successive images. To measure odor, they released acetone vapor into the flow through a small tube that serves as the odor source. When a UV laser is shined on the acetone, it fluoresces in visible light, allowing them to photograph the evolving odor plume.

Because the researchers measure both flow and odor simultaneously, they can better understand how the two are related, Stark said. The visual layers shown in the video reveal structures and boundaries within the flow, highlighting how closely flow and odor are linked. This relationship has been experimentally investigated in water plumes, but obtaining accurate and detailed time-resolved measurements in air has only recently been possible.

Stark hopes that those watching the video come to appreciate the complexity and beauty of the fluid dynamics underlying “something as seemingly humble as an odor plume.”

“Viewers can see structures in the flow shaping the odor, stretching and rotating it along the same regions where the flow itself is stretching and rotating,” Stark said. “At the same time, the odor diffuses outward, making it difficult to predict exactly how it will be shaped by these flow structures. These factors determine the odor cues an animal experiences."

Odor concentration (blue/purple) overlaid on flow patterns (gold lines), showing how odor moves with air.

“While computer simulations are powerful tools, taking direct measurements of physical phenomena is critical for discovering and testing theoretical dynamics in the real world,” Stark continued. “More broadly, we hope the viewer will understand that the fundamental physics of plume dispersion not only provides abstract scientific understanding but also drives the ecological and atmospheric processes that shape our world.”

Looking ahead

The researchers are developing advanced analysis techniques to investigate the relationship between the flow and the odor under different plume conditions.

“By rigorously quantifying these fundamental relationships, we hope to provide tools both for understanding olfactory navigation and, more broadly, understanding the fluid dynamics of flow and transport in these types of conditions.”

Elle Stark, a PhD student in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, was recently awarded a prestigious Gallery of Fluid Motion (GFM) Award for a video describing her research.

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Scientist may have solved why this ancient, advanced civilization vanished

Susan Glairon — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 17:39:54 +0000

Scientist may have solved why this ancient, advanced civilization vanished Susan Glairon Wed, 12/03/2025 - 10:39

Professor Balaji Rajagopalan co-authored a study published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment with colleagues from the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar and the University of Arizona. The research examines how hydrology and climate during the Mid-Holocene may have contributed to the decline of the Harappan (Indus Valley) Civilization.

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Why flood prediction in the US falls short and how researchers are working to fix it

Susan Glairon — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 20:30:05 +0000

Why flood prediction in the US falls short and how researchers are working to fix it Susan Glairon Thu, 07/17/2025 - 14:30

Zhi Li, who joined �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder as an assistant professor in August 2025, leads the new Flood Lab, which develops high-resolution models to predict flood impacts with one-meter precision—technology not yet used in real time due to high computational demands.

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Wildfires threaten water quality for years after they burn

Susan Glairon — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 15:27:45 +0000

Wildfires threaten water quality for years after they burn Susan Glairon Mon, 06/23/2025 - 09:27

Associate Professor Ben Livneh

Years after wildfires burn forests and watersheds, the contaminants left behind continue to poison rivers and streams across the Western U.S. — much longer than scientists estimated.

A new study led by CIRES researchers, published today in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, analyzed water quality in more than 500 watersheds across the Western U.S., and is the first large-scale assessment of post-wildfire water quality.

Ben Livneh, an associate professor of civil, environmental and architectural engineering, CIRES fellow and Western Water Assessment director, was the principal investigator and co-author of the study.

Read The Conversation article Read the CIRES article

A new study published today in Nature Communications Earth & Environment is the first large-scale assessment of post-wildfire water quality. Ben Livneh, an associate professor of civil, environmental and architectural engineering, was the principal investigator and co-author of the study.

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Western Water Assessment hosts first cohort of Water Fellows

Susan Glairon — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 20:38:23 +0000

Western Water Assessment hosts first cohort of Water Fellows Susan Glairon Thu, 04/10/2025 - 14:38

Associate Professor Aditi Bhaskar serves as program director for the Colorado Water Fellows Program, which prepares future water leaders through training, networking and mentorship from professionals across the state.

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