Department of Environment

dr. ir. Akash Koppa

Research team: Hydrology and Climate

Akash KoppaI am currently a post-doctoral research fellow, working in the Down2Earth project, at the Hydro-Climate Extremes Lab (H-CEL), Ghent University. A hydrologist and civil engineer by training, I have worked on large scale hydrology, high resolution atmosphere and land surface modeling, and stochastic optimization. My doctoral thesis funded by NASA's Applied Sciences program, focused on developing a decision support system for hydropower optimization in datascarce regions, leveraging numerical weather prediction models and remote sensing data. Specifically, I developed novel frameworks for improving seasonal forecasts in data-scarce regions by combining remote sensing and land surface models. I have also worked on coupled atmospheric-hydrologic modeling at regional scales for my Master's thesis.

 

Research topics: large scale hydrology, land surface modeling, remote sensing, hydropower

CONTACT

Address: Coupure links 653 - Room A2.010

               9000 Ghent, Belgium

Phone: +32 9 264 61 40

E-mail:

TRAJECTORY

  • 2020 – Present: Post-doctoral research fellow– Hydro-Climate Extremes Lab, Ghent University
  • 2019 – 2020: Post-doctoral research fellow - Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ), Germany
  • 2015 – 2019:  PhD in Hydrology and Water Resources, Department of Civil Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
  • 2014 – 2015: Research Engineer (Hydrology), AIR Worldwide, India
  • 2012 – 2014: MTech in Water Management, School of Water Resources, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India                        
  • 2008 – 2012: BE in Civil Engineering, BMS College of Engineering, India

ONGOING PROJECTS

  • Down2Earth: Improving resilience to water scarcity in the Horn of Africa Drylands (2020 - Present)
  • NASA Applied Research Grant: Hydropower optimization in East Africa (2014-2019)

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

  1. Koppa, A., Gebremichael, M., Zambon, R. C., Yeh, W. W.-G. and Hopson, T. Seasonal Hydropower Planning for Data-Scarce Regions Using Multimodel Ensemble Forecasts, Remote Sensing Data, and Stochastic Programming. Water Resources Research, 55, 8583-8607, 2019.
  2. Koppa, A., Gebremichael, M. and Yeh, W. W.-G. Multivariate calibration of large scale hydrologic models: the necessity and value of a pareto optimal approach. Advances in Water Resources, 130, 129-146., 2019.
  3. Koppa, A. and Gebremichael, M. A framework for validation of remotely sensed precipitation and evapotranspiration based on the budyko hypothesis. Water Resources Research, 53(10), 8487-8499, 2017.
  4. Koppa, A. and Gebremichael, M. Improving the Applicability of Hydrologic Models for Food-Energy-Water Nexus Studies Using Remote Sensing Data. Remote Sensing, 12, 599, 2020.
  5. Xiao, M., Koppa, A., Mekonnen, Z., Pagán, B.R., Zhan, S., Cao, Q., Aierken, A., Lee, H. and Lettenmaier, D.P. How much groundwater did California's Central Valley lose during the 2012-2016 drought? Geophys. Res. Lett. 44, 4872-4879, 2017.
  6. Becker, R., Koppa, A., Schulz, S., Usman, M., aus der Beek, T. and Schüth, C. Spatially distributed model calibration of a highly managed hydrological system using remote sensing-derived ET data. Journal of Hydrology, 123944, 2019.