9/17/2010
Murugesu Sivapalan, a professor of civil and environmental engineering (CEE) and of geography at the University of Illinois, has been selected to receive the 2010 Hydrologic Sciences Award from the American Geophysical Union.
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Murugesu Sivapalan, a professor of civil and environmental engineering (CEE) and of geography at the University of Illinois, has been selected to receive the 2010 Hydrologic Sciences Award from the American Geophysical Union.
The Hydrologic Sciences Award recognizes outstanding contributions to the science of hydrology. Sivapalan was cited for having made outstanding contributions to surface hydrology, especially in conceiving rigorous theoretical frameworks for addressing scale issues in hydrologic response, developing conservation laws for watershed-scale processes, and addressing the role of heterogeneity across a range of space and time scales. He has also been a leader in the PUB (Predictions in Ungaged Basins) initiative of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences, which has impacted the state of the art of watershed hydrology and its practice worldwide.
Sivapalan, who joined the University of Illinois in 2005, has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in watershed hydrology, engineering hydrology, stochastic hydrology and water resources engineering. His research focuses on making predictions in ungaged basins. A basic aim of his research is to understand observed space-time variabilities of runoff processes at all scales, including their extremes, and to interpret these in terms of the underlying climate-soil-vegetation-topography interactions, including human impacts. A further aim is to investigate the interactions between runoff processes, and chemical and biological processes, and to develop new process-based models capable of making predictions of both water quantity and quality in ungaged basins, subject to natural and human-induced changes to climate and the landscape.
Sivapalan will be honored at the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco, December 13-17, 2010. CEE PhD student Ciaran Harman, a student of Sivapalan, also will be honored at the AGU's fall meeting. Harman was selected to receive the 2010 Horton Research Grant, which is made from the AGU Hydrology Section's Robert E. Horton Fund for Hydrologic Research "in support of research projects in hydrology and water resources by PhD candidates in institutions of higher education." Harman was selected for his proposed dissertation research, "Biotic alteration of soil hydrologic properties and feedback with vegetation in water limited ecosystems." He is one of only two awardees selected from more than100 nominees.
The 35,000-member AGU is dedicated to the furtherance of the geophysical sciences through the individual efforts of its members and in cooperation with other national and international scientific organizations. Established in 1919 by the National Research Council, the AGU operated for more than 50 years as an unincorporated affiliate of the National Academy of Sciences. It is now a nonprofit corporation chartered under the laws of the District of Columbia.
Contact: Murugesu Sivapalan, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Writer: Celeste Arbogast Bragorgos, director of communications, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 217/333-6955.
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