25 April 2014
IIASA Alumnus Eric Wood wins EGU Wegener medal
Eric Wood is famous for his work in hydrology, extending into meteorology and climate science. In the late 1980s, he led the development of a new area of research associated with determining the scaling behaviour of catchment hydrologic response. In a series of papers with Sivapalan, Beven and others he introduced the ‘representative elemental area’ concept, where catchment response could be represented in terms of building blocks of some minimum size. Wood also developed spatially distributed hydrologic modelling, which included the handling of energy, as well as moisture transfer dynamics at the land surface. Some of this work was facilitated by the land-atmosphere field campaigns of the 1980s. Beginning in the early 1990s, many of these concepts were included in the ‘variable infiltration capacity’ macro-scale hydrology model, which is now used in a wide array of hydrologic prediction, water and energy balance, and ensemble forecasting applications. Read more from EGU>>
On Wednesday, 30 April, Wood will deliver the 2014 Alfred Wegener Medal Lecture, entitled "The Challenges of Developing a Framework for Global Water Cycle Monitoring and Prediction." An award ceremony will take place from 17:30 to 19:00 that day. More details>>