NASA satellite view of clouds over North America

Hydrology & Fluid Dynamics

Duke environmental engineering faculty in the Hydrology and Fluid Dynamics research group pursue some of the most pressing open problems in environmental fluid dynamics, hydrology and water resources. We take a multidisciplinary and multifaceted approach to these complex problems, ranging from advanced theoretical computational analyses to unique laboratory and local and global field experiments.

Research Areas

Hydrometeorology: Rainfall dynamics, land-atmosphere interaction, remote sensing
Eco-hydrology: Impact of hydroclimatic variability on ecosystems and feedbacks on the hydrologic cycle and local climate
Contaminant transport hydrology: Surface-subsurface interactions
Water cycle dynamics and human health, and stochastic hydrology

Related Study Opportunities

PhD and Master of Science (MS) in Environmental Engineering

Both offer a study track in Hydrology and Fluid Dynamics

Master of Engineering (MEng) in Environmental Engineering

Offers concentrations in:

Environmental Engineering and Public Policy
Environmental Process Engineering
Ecohydrology and Environmental Fluid Dynamics

Undergraduate Research

Primary Faculty

Andrew Bragg

Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Research Interests: Fundamental and applied problems in fluid dynamics, especially turbulence, and its role in environmental systems.

Nathaniel Chaney

Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Akhenaton-Andrew Dhafir Jones

Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Research Interests: Biofilms, cardiovascular infections, infectious diseases, biomaterials, antibiotics, porous media flows, fate and transport of nanomaterials in biofilms, water quality sensors, environmental systems analysis, environmental equity, environmental justice

Zbigniew J. Kabala

Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Research Interests: Stochastic and deterministic theory of fluid flow and contaminant transport in saturated and unsaturated heterogeneous porous media, theory of related measurements, field and laboratory studies in subsurface hydrogeology, stochastic fields and processes, numerical and analytical…

Gabriel G. Katul

Theodore S. Coile Distinguished Professor of Hydrology and Micrometeorology

Research Interests: Micrometeorology and surface hydrology, Carbon and water cycling, and Environmental fluid dynamics

David E. Schaad

Professor of the Practice of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Research Interests: Sustainable engineering, community development, water and wastewater treatment design, stormwater retention/detention and treatment design, hazardous waste remediation, urban hydrology, constructed wetland and stream restoration design, ecological stabilization, sustainable…

Mark Wiesner

James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Research Interests: Membrane processes, nanostructured materials, transport and fate of nanomaterials in the environment, colloidal and interfacial processes, and environmental systems analysis

Secondary Faculty

James Hench

Associate Professor of Oceanography

Marc A. Jeuland

Associate Professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy

Wenhong Li

Associate Professor of Climate

Ram Oren

Nicholas Distinguished Professor of Earth Systems Science

Adjunct Faculty

Massimo Germano

Adjunct Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Research Interests: Turbulence in fluids and its representation. Multiscale decompositions of turbulent flows. The Navier-Stokes, the Large Eddy and the Reynolds equations. Reynolds modeling and subgrid scale modeling for the Large Eddy Simulation of turbulent flows. Hybrid RANS/LES modeling.