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Studying ecosystem sustainability
Left to right: David Carchipulla-Morales, Matthew Barnes, Christopher Heckman, Kirstin Murr, Mireya Reyes, Lauren Lowman, and Sarah Marmolejos
The Environmental Dynamics Lab at Wake Forest University seeks to understand how spatial and temporal changes in water availability impact overall ecosystem health, productivity and sustainability. Our goal is to explain how physical water, energy, and carbon exchange pathways modulate ecosystem responses under different hydroclimatic scenarios (e.g., hurricanes, droughts, fires, etc.).
Our interdisciplinary research in the area of ecosystem health and productivity intersects the fields of engineering, physics, biology, chemistry, hydrology, and ecology, among others, and has impacts that are societally relevant. A driving tenet of the research program is to relate these interdisciplinary topics to societal outcomes while deepening our understanding of the physical processes describing ecosystem responses to climate variability.
Approaches
Computational Modeling
Numerical and statistical modelling of physical water, energy, and carbon pathways that quantitatively describe physical ecosystems responses to climate variability.
Geospatial Analysis
Use satellite imagery to detect and quantitatively evaluate changes in hydrology, geomorphology and vegetative states toward understanding the physical drivers of these changes.
Field Experiments
Collect ground-based and aerial measurements of meteorological, vegetative and soil conditions for data assimilation and model validation.
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