May 10, 2022
Thanks to a Fulbright Scholarship, Xixi Wang, professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, will spend four months in Australia collaborating with researchers from the Center for Applied Water Science (CAWS) at University of Canberra.
Wang, whose research focuses on hydrology, hydraulics and water resources, had already developed a dryland ecohydrologic model that can simulate water-soil-vegetation interactions as influenced by climate variation and livestock grazing.
He will work with researchers on the application and refinement of the model based on the Australian dryland ecosystem.
"Most of the Australian territory consists of drylands with a drying trend resulting from climate change and anthropogenic activity, making it vital to investigate interactive mechanisms of dryland water-soil-vegetation processes and develop a similar model for water resources management decisions," he said.
Wang notes that dryland ecosystems cover around 45% of the terrestrial land surface and support more than 2.5 billion people.
"This Fulbright award offers a unique opportunity for me to exchange ideas and thoughts with the peers in Australia, where various types of drylands have a gross area large enough to affect continental or even global climate," Wang said.
Wang, who came to ODU in 2011, holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering from Iowa State University and an M.S. in Hydrology and Water Resources from Tsinghua University.