Plant water stress detection using radar: The influence of water stress on leaf dielectric properties

What scientists can learn from Plato's Symposium

Creating Community for Early-Career Geoscientists

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the European Geosciences Union (EGU) play central roles in nurturing the next generation of geoscientists. Students and young scientists make up about one quarter of the unions’ active memberships [American Geophysical Union, 2013; European Geosciences Union, 2014], creating a major opportunity to include...

Proof of concept: Temperature sensing waders for environmental sciences

A prototype temperature sensing pair of waders is introduced and tested. The water temperature at the stream-bed is interesting both for scientist studying the hyporheic zone as well as for, e.g., fishers spotting good fishing locations. A temperature sensor incorporated in waders worn by members of the public can give scientists an additional...

A comparison between leaf dielectric properties of stressed and unstressed tomato plants

Leaf dielectric properties influence microwave scattering from a vegetation canopy. The dielectric properties of leaves are primarily a function of leaf water content. Understanding the effect of water stress on leaf dielectric properties will give insight in how plant dynamics change as a result of water stress, and how radar can be used for...

Predicting the ungauged basin: Model validation and realism assessment

The hydrological decade on Predictions in Ungauged Basins (PUB) led to many new insights in model development, calibration strategies, data acquisition and uncertainty analysis. Due to a limited amount of published studies on genuinely ungauged basins, model validation and realism assessment of model outcome has not been discussed to a great...

Fall Meeting's First Student and Early Career Conference

In a tradition that harks back to the ancient Greeks, students and early career scientists organized a symposium to help network, improve academic skills, and collaborate with peers.

Using the SnowScat instrument to investigate the influence of canopy water dynamics on backscatter from maize

Impact of diurnal variation in vegetation water content on radar backscatter of maize during water stress

Impact of diurnal variation in vegetation water content on radar backscatter from maize during water stress

Microwave backscatter from vegetated surfaces is influenced by vegetation structure and vegetation water content (VWC), which varies with meteorological conditions and moisture in the root zone. Radar backscatter observations are used for many vegetation and soil moisture monitoring applications under the assumption that VWC is constant on short...

Socio-hydrologic modeling to understand and mediate the competition for water between agriculture development and environmental health: Murrumbidgee River Basin, Australia

Competition for water between humans and ecosystems is set to become a flash point in the coming decades in many parts of the world. An entirely new and comprehensive quantitative framework is needed to establish a holistic understanding of that competition, thereby enabling the development of effective mediation strategies. This paper presents...

Socio-hydrologic modeling to understand and mediate the competition for water between agriculture development and environmental health: Murrumbidgee River Basin, Australia (discussion paper)

Competition for water between humans and ecosystems is set to become a flash point in the coming decades in many parts of the world. An entirely new and comprehensive quantitative framework is needed to establish a holistic understanding of that competition, thereby enabling the development of effective mediation strategies. This paper presents...

Measuring heat balance residual at lake surface using distributed temperature sensing

This research presents a new method to verify the measurements of surface fluxes and the heat balance at a lake surface, by means of Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS) measurements from 0.5 m above to 1.5 m below the surface. Using a polyvinyl chloride hyperboloid construction, a floating standalone measuring device was developed. Being an...