Sustainability Leadership Fellow Cohort: 2017-2018
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Summary:Urbanization is accelerating around the world. As we build cities and pave over the natural landscape, we keep water from soaking into the ground, concentrating more of it in stream channels. This causes excessive erosion in urban streams, which degrades this important habitat, threatens bridges and other infrastructure, and impairs water quality. I’m developing a computer model to predict how quickly and how much stream channels will erode in response to urbanization and other disturbances. This will allow us to better plan for and respond to the damaging effects of extreme stream channel erosion.