Dr. Shanshui Yuan: Adapting to more extreme events requires high-quality observations and multi-disciplinary integrations

The leaderette: We feel very delighted to welcome Dr. Shanshui Yuan to join the YICODE team. Dr. Yuan is an experienced researcher in numerical simulation of hydrological systems. His research also focuses on hydrometeorology, land-atmosphere interactions and extreme drought/flood events.

I was born in Nantong, a city to the north of the Yangtze Estuary. While many of us depend on it for livelihoods, she also brought a great many disasters, like the extreme flooding in 1998 and 2020 and the drought in 2009. Under warming climate, more frequent and intense extreme events are projected to occur in the Yangtze River basin, threatening life and economic losses. My research focuses on extreme hydrometeorological events under global warming, which I think is both scientifically and practically significant for the Yangtze River basin.

Specifically, I’m interested in soil moisture-atmosphere interactions, with emphasis on the role of land-atmosphere interactions under drought and flood scenarios. The goal of my research is to better understand the causes and physical processes of extreme events and to improve accuracy and reduce uncertainties in modelling. Currently, the causes of extreme events at process-level are not fully understood because of limited observations. In June 2019, the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) listed 23 unsolved problems in hydrology, which include variability of extremes, measurements and data and interfaces with society etc. To better answer the scientific questions, I will continue to work on (1) analyzing the spatial and temporal variabilities of extremes under global warming; (2) investigating the role of soil moisture in land-atmosphere interactions and how this impacts drought and extreme precipitation; (3) quantitatively interpreting the responses of land-surface process to climate change; (4) improving the reliability of modelling extreme events.

I look forward to working with YICODE colleagues and contributing to the protection and green development of the Yangtze River basin.

For more information about Dr. Yuan please refer to his personal page