Ph.D. Candidate
Ph.D. Candidate
BSc. Environmental Science, Technology & Policy. California State University, Monterey Bay. 2017
Biometeorology, Eddy Covariance, Surface Energy Balance, Evaporation, Remote Sensing
In our biosphere, where “everything flows, and nothing abides, everything gives way, and nothing stays fixed” (Heraclitus, ~500 BC), estimating evaporation accurately remains to be a major challenge for the hydrology and remote sensing communities (Fisher et al., 2017; Baldocchi, 2020). This issue is further exacerbated with advection, the horizontal transport of energy or moisture (Philip, 1959). Accurate estimates of evaporation are needed to optimize irrigation water use efficiency, and one of the ways to monitor on-farm evaporation is through eddy covariance (Alfieri et al., 2018), which assumes homogeneity and steady flow (Foken and Wichura, 1996). However, this assumption is violated under real atmospheric flow, where surface heterogeneity often occurs (Businger et al., 1971; Rao et al., 1974). For example, in the Central Valley, many irrigated agricultural fields (‘oases’) are often surrounded by dry fields, forming a chessboard pattern that is susceptible to higher water loss via the advection of sensible heat flux(Philip, 1959; Blad and Rosenberg, 1974; Rosenberg and Verma, 1978; Tolk et al., 2006).
Forrest S. Melton, Justin Huntington, Robyn Grimm, ... Carlos Wang, Yun Yang, Ray G. Anderson. 2021. OpenET: Filling a Critical Data Gap in Water Management for the Western United States. Journal of the American Water Resources Association. https://doi.org/10.1111/1752-1688.12956
Wang, T.; Melton, F.; Pôças, I.; Johnson, L.; Thao, T.; Post, K.; Cassel-Sharma, F., 2021. Evaluation of Crop Coefficient and Evapotranspiration Data for Sugar Beets from Landsat Surface Reflectances Using Micrometeorological Measurements and Weighing Lysimetry. Agric. Water Manag. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2020.106533
Pereira, L.S., Paredes, P., Melton, F., Johnson, L., Wang, T., López-Urrea, R., Cancela, J.J., Allen, R.G., 2020. Prediction of crop coefficients from fraction of ground cover and height. Background and validation using ground and remote sensing data. Agric. Water Manag. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2020.106197.
Pereira, L.S.; Paredes P.; M. Mota.; Melton F.; Johnson, L.; Wang, T., 2020. Prediction of crop coefficients from fraction of ground cover and height. Practical application to vegetable, field and fruit crops with focus on parameterization. Agric. Water Manag. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2020.106663.
NASA ROSES-20 Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) - “How Advective is California's Central Valley: A Novel Approach to Quantify Sensible Heat Advection Using Biometeorology and Satellite Remote Sensing”
ESPM/CIVENG C172 - Remote Sensing of the Environment