• Rooftop Observatory Tracks Hurricane Rain and Winter Snow

    On Friday night, while most of North Carolina braced against the biting sleet and snow with hot cocoa and Netflix, a suite of research instruments stood tall above Duke’s campus, quietly gathering data on the the storm. Read more

  • How Tropical Cyclones Influence Photosynthesis

    A new modeling study gives insight into how tropical cyclones affected ecosystems in the southeastern United States between 2002 and 2012. 

    Read more on Earth & Space Science News

  • The Real Story of Precipitation in the Southern Appalachian Mountains

    Mid-morning peak in light rainfall appears as clouds and fog at Purchase Knob in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
    Read more

  • Hurricane Irene

    Hurricane Irene was a large and destructive tropical cyclone, which affected much of the Caribbean and East Coast of the United States during late August 2011.
    Read more

  • 2009 Southeastern United States floods and storms

  • San Isidro Cloud Forest, Andes Mountains, Ecuador

    Many scientists consider Andean cloud forests the world’s greatest conservation priority. Because the Andes mountains of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru are very tall and straddle the equator, they are the most biodiverse cloud forests on Earth.
    Read more

Studying the Hydrologic Cycle

We are studying the dynamics of water presence and water pathways in the terrestrial environment. The goal is to improve our understanding of the physics of the hydrological cycle at all spatial and temporal scales and to apply this new knowledge to investigate and develop technologies for environmental assessment, prediction and control.

Our research is interdisciplinary and addresses fundamental engineering science questions in the areas of climate, hydrometeorology, geomorphology, ecology, hydraulics and hydrology, and their linkages to the environmental engineering sciences.

Our projects involve the use of computer models, signal processing and exploratory data analysis, and laboratory and field experiments.