Seminar by Dr. Jim Stagge - Assistant Professor, Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geodetic Engineering
Abstract
A long temporal perspective is critical for understanding drought and other risks that are, by definition, rare. This seminar will discuss challenges and opportunities for hydrologists to model drought vulnerability in a changing climate by linking centurieslong reconstructions of past hydrology with modern observations and climate change projections. Dr. Stagge will demonstrate his statistical approach for reconstructing river flow at a monthly scale from annual tree-ring chronologies and show how these reconstructions are already being used by water managers for drought contingency planning, alongside climate change projections.The seminar will end with a discussion of questions and limitations to be addressed in the future, and which methods could hold the key for a merging of the past, present, and future.