Abstract:
Groundwater is one of Earth’s largest freshwater stores, yet it is often out of sight and out of mind. While groundwater is often conceptualized as a separate store from surface water, feedbacks between groundwater depth, soil moisture, streamflow and plant water usage become increasingly important for characterizing the water and energy drivers of watershed fluxes. Thus, the literature shows that groundwater is intimately linked not only to surface water, but also the land surface, and the lower atmosphere. Here I will explore the linkages between groundwater and the rest of the hydrologic cycle. I will discuss some fundamental relationships that describe groundwater’s interconnections with land surface fluxes and how recent advances in our understanding these feedbacks can help us more holistically manage our watersheds. The growing body of evidence demonstrating the critical role of groundwater-surface water interactions has driven a new wave in groundwater hydrology. As we increasingly understand groundwater connections and learn how critical groundwater interactions are water-resource challenges, groundwater becomes a central part of integrated analyses that previously have been considered across disciplinary boundaries.
Biography:
Reed Maxwell is a Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and the High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI) at Princeton University. He also directs the Integrated GroundWater Modeling Center (IGWMC). His research interests are focused on understanding connections within the hydrologic cycle and how they relate to water quantity and quality under anthropogenic stresses. He is the 2020 Henry Darcy Distinguished Lecturer, an elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, was the 2018 Boussinesq Lecture and the 2017 School of Mines Research Award recipient. He has authored more than 140 peer-reviewed journal articles and teaches classes on integrated hydrology, fluid mechanics and modeling terrestrial water flow. Prior to coming to Princeton, Dr. Maxwell was faculty at the Colorado School of Mines and a postdoc and then staff in the Hydrologic Sciences group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Environmental Water Resources from the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of California, Berkeley.
