Prof. Marc Bierkens elected AGU Fellow

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) has named Prof. dr. ir Marc F.P. Bierkens among its newly elected Fellows. Bierkens investigates the global water cycle using  large-scale hydrological models.

Election as an AGU Fellow is a very special tribute to those who have made exceptional scientific contributions. Nominated Fellows must have attained acknowledged eminence in the Earth and space sciences. This designation is conferred upon not more than 0.1 percent of all AGU members in any given year. Nominations generally come from AGU members, and new Fellows are chosen by a committee of Fellows. The award ceremony will be held during the 2016 AGU Fall Meeting this December in San Francisco, the biggest conference in Earth Sciences worldwide.

Global hydrology and water resources

Marc Bierkens heads the Earth Surface Hydrology Group at Utrecht University. Research in this group concentrates on the role of the terrestrial hydrological cycle in System Earth. In particular it focuses on the role of climate variability, climate change and human impact on hydrology and water resources.

To this purpose the group has built a next-generation large-scale hydrological and integrated water resources model PCR-GLOBWB. PCR-GLOBWB simulates all water stocks and fluxes of the global terrestrial water cycle at 10 km resolution and daily time step over the past (1900-2015) and under future climate and socio-economic scenarios (2016-2100).

The model has already been widely used in various global or continental global change analyses, such as global water stress assessment, global groundwater depletion, the terrestrial contribution to sea-level variation, global flood risk mapping (floods.wri.org) and real-time global flood forecasting (forecast.ewatercycle.org).

Bierkens was nominated by an American colleague and awarded the Fellowship for his contributions to high-resolution global hydrology and water resources modelling, in particular focusing on human impacts, global water scarcity assessments and the depletion of groundwater resources.

AGU Fellows of Utrecht University

Marc Bierkens is the first AGU fellow from the Department of Physical Geography and the 7^th from Utrecht University. Earlier elected AGU Fellows are all from the department of Earth Sciences:Prof. dr. Sierd Cloetingh, dr. Mark Dekkers, Prof. dr. ir. Majid Hassanizadeh, Prof. dr. Cor Langereis and retired professors Prof. dr. Hans Zijderveld and Prof. dr. Nico Vlaar (deceased).

Sustainability at Utrecht University

By combining its expertise in the field of sustainability, Utrecht University develops integrated solutions for sustainability issues contributing to a better future for following generations. This theme connects Utrecht’s excellent sustainability research from the humanities, sciences and social sciences with a focus on water, energy and a healthy environment. Sustainability is one of the four strategic research themes at Utrecht University.

More information on the research theme Sustainability