Publications from our group are available at google scholar.
We are interested in addressing water-related issues that challenge our society today. Planet Earth has been experiencing unprecedented changes as the paces of climate change and human perturbations accelerate. The Arctic has been melting at rates higher than predicted; tropical glaciers are retreating, putting millions, often communities with limited resources, at risk; flooding flushes large chemical stores (e.g., trace metals) into river networks; summer droughts speed up biogeochemical reactions, often promoting emission of greenhouse gases and incubating diseases; increasing intensity of agriculture and growing population have driven rapidly-changing land uses, widespread application of fertilizers, and impaired rivers and lakes worldwide.
We aims to tackle many of these pressing water issues. Our group integrates myriad tools, methodologies, and knowledge from diverse fields at the forefront of scientific inquiry. This approach goes beyond the the confines of disciplinary silos that often leads to fragmented understanding and scattered data. In particular, we have developed modeling tools and expanded the capabilities of traditional reactive transport models (RTM)—primarily a tool of hydrogeology and geochemistry for studying contaminant transport and groundwater quality—and applied them to understanding watershed hydrology and biogeochemistry processes. Such applications have helped elucidate intricate interplays between climate, weather, land use, and river water quality. We have also used big and deep learning approaches to understand continental-scale patterns and temporal trends of water quality.
We collaborate extensively with research teams in hydrology, biogeochemistry, and ecology. We believe interdisciplinary collaborations capitalize expertise and knowledge across traditional disciplinary boundaries, and catalyze education of students capable of addressing multi-faceted local and global water problems. Interested students are encouraged to reach out and visit other research groups, domestically or internationally, to broaden scientific horizons and forge new collaborations.
Interested in our research? Let's talk. Email Dr. Li at lili at engr dot psu dot edu.