Hydro³

Hydrogeology, hydrology, and hydrometeorology — or hydro³ —are multidisciplinary fields that investigate water quality and water quantity impacts across different and combined portions of the hydrologic cycle.

Examples include understanding energy and water flux across the land surface and exchanges to the atmosphere, surface water, and groundwater; water movement and water resource impacts on streams and groundwater due to both temporal scarcity (drought) and abundance (flooding), as well as other climate factor impacts; ecological impacts due to anthropogenic and natural inputs in the environment; changes in water quality and ecological health across transitions from freshwater to coastal waters and coastal embayments; transport and fate of contaminants in groundwater, surface water, and vadose zone; development/application of novel remediation for contaminated water (surface water and groundwater) systems; and the development of novel mathematical models for surface-water, groundwater, unsaturated flow, and contaminant fate transport to improve our mechanistic understanding of such processes.