Water Resources, Climate, & Society Group

The Water Resources, Climate, and Society Group at the University of Massachusetts is composed of Drs. David Ahlfeld, Casey Brown, David Ostendorf, Richard Palmer, and Mi-Hyun Park. The Group has expertise in the areas of water resources management, surface water hydrology, surface water quality modeling using satellite imagery and GIS, groundwater hydrology, environmental fluid mechanics, global water issues, drought planning, climate change impacts, shared vision modeling, and decision support systems.

The group utilizes small scale and large-scale mathematical models, simulation tools, disciplined planning approaches, and mediation techniques to explore complex issues in the field of water resources. These issues include the relationship between water, climate and economic development and the management of climate risk in infrastructure systems.

During the past decade the Group has had the opportunity to work on water resource problems and conflicts in nearly every region in the United States, from Florida to Washington and California to Massachusetts. We have also applied our research internationally in Korea, Jordan, Mexico, and in portions of Africa, including the Nile River.

This webpage has been designed to introduce the general approach we have taken in our research, to describe specific research projects, and to archive past project results, reports, data sets, publications and presentations. Most links in this webpage are open to the general public; other areas are accessible only to authorized users.

This webpage is updated frequently, so please return soon for our most current research results and descriptions of new projects.

If you have a question or are interested in enlisting our help in addressing a water resources problem, or would like to work with us as a student or collaborator, please contact Austin Polebitski at 413-577-1275 or email polebitski@ecs.umass.edu.