Bio

I am a Professor in Hydrology and Climate at Ghent University since 2017, after a long journey via UK, The Netherlands and USA. Being a climate scientist with a background on hydrology and remote sensing, my scientific interests and curiosity are very wide. My research activities lie at the interface between the hydrosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere. The Hydrology and Climate team aims towards the understanding global water cycle dynamics, the impact of climate change on hydrology and ecosystems, and the influence of land feedbacks on climate and climate extremes. This work includes the development of novel satellite datasets, the use of models to quantify biophysical processes, and the investigation of hydro-meteorological extremes using multiple computational approaches.

Contact

Address: Coupure links 653 - Room A2.028

               9000 Ghent, Belgium

Phone: +32 9 264 61 35

E-mail: Diego.Miralles@UGent.be

ORCID | ResearcherID | Scopus | Google Scholar | ResearchGate | LinkedIn

Trajectory (short CV, sept. 2021)

• 2017–Present: Professor (Associate) – Ghent University, Hydro-Climate Extremes Lab (H-CEL)

• 2014–2017: Guest Professor – Ghent University, Hydro-Climate Extremes Lab (H-CEL)
• 2014–2017: NWO Fellow – VU Amsterdam, Earth and Climate Cluster
• 2011–2014: Assistant Professor, Lecturer – University of Bristol, School of Geography
• 2009–2011: Research Assistant – VU Amsterdam, PhD in global hydrology
• 2008–2009: Visiting Scientist – US Department of Agriculture, Hydrology and Remote Sensing Lab
• 2006–2009: MSc. in Hydrology – VU Amsterdam
• 2001–2005: MSc. in Environmental Sciences – Autonomous University Madrid

Recent and ongoing projects

• 4DMED–Hydrology (DTE) – High-resolution satellite-based hydrology in the Mediterranean (2021-2023)
• SATDATA3.5 – Hyper-resolution evaporation data over The Netherlands (2019–2021) 
• DOWN2EARTH (EU) – Translation of climate information into multilevel decision support for social adaptation, policy development, and resilience to water scarcity in the Horn of Africa Drylands (2020–2024)
• DRY–2–DRY (ERC) – Do droughts self-propagate and self-intensify? (2017–2022)
• Digital Twin Earth (DTE) – Hydrology (ESA) – High-resolution satellite-based hydrology (2020–2021)
• ET–Sense (BELSPO) – High resolution terrestrial evaporation from Sentinels (2019–2021)

• ALBERI (BELSPO) – Assessing Links between Biogenic Emissions and Remotely-sensed photosynthesis Indicators (2019–2021)

• STR3S (BELSPO) – Stress on TRanspiration Sensed from Satellite Systems (2016–2018)
• SAT–EX (BELSPO) – Global impacts of hydrological and climatic extremes on vegetation (2014–2018)

Selected publications (complete publication list here)

• Schumacher, D.L., Keune, J., Dirmeyer, P., Miralles, D.G. Drought self-propagation in drylands due to land–atmosphere feedbacks, Nature Geoscience, in print, 2022.
• Wouters, H., Keune, J., Petrova, I.Y., van Heerwaarden, C.C., Teuling, A.J., Pal, J.S., de Arellano, J.V.-G., Miralles, D.G. Soil drought can mitigate deadly heat stress thanks to a reduction of air humidity, Science Advances, 8, eabe6653, 2022.
• Forzieri, G., Miralles, D.G., [...], and Cescatti, A. Increased control of vegetation on global terrestrial energy fluxes, Nature Climate Change, 10, 356–362, 2020.
• Keune, J. & Miralles, D.G. A precipitation recycling network to assess freshwater vulnerability: challenging the watershed convention. Water Resoures Research, 55, 9947–9961, 2019.
• Miralles, D.G., Gentine, P., Seneviratne, S.I., and Teuling, A.J. Land–atmospheric feedbacks during droughts and heatwaves: state of the science and current challenges. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1436, 19–35, 2019.
• Schumacher, D.L., Keune, J., van Heerwaarden, C.C., Vilà-Guerau de Arellano, J.,  Teuling, A.J., Miralles, D.G. Amplification of mega-heatwaves through heat torrents fuelled by upwind drought. Nature Geoscience, 12, 712–717, 2019.
• Forzieri, G., Alkama, R., Miralles, D.G., and Cescatti, A. Satellites reveal contrasting responses of regional climate to the widespread greening of Earth. Science, 2017.
• Miralles, D.G., van den Berg, M.J., Gash, J.H., Parinussa, R.M., de Jeu, R.A.M., Beck, H.E., Holmes, T.R.H., Jiménez, C., Verhoest, N.E.C., Dorigo, W.A., Teuling, A.J., and Dolman, A.J.: El Niño–La Niña cycle and recent trends in continental evaporation, Nature Climate Change, 4(12), 122–126, 2014.
• Miralles, D.G., Teuling, A.J., van Heerwaarden, C.C., De Jeu, R.A.M., and Vilá-Guerau de Arellano, J.: Mega-heatwave temperatures due to combined soil desiccation and atmospheric heat accumulation, Nature Geoscience, 7, 345–349, 2014.
• Miralles, D.G., Holmes, T.R.H., De Jeu, R.A.M., Gash, J. H., Meesters, A.G.C.A., and Dolman, A.J.: Global land-surface evaporation estimated from satellite-based observations, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 15, 453–469, 2011.