Department of Environment

Prof. dr. Diego Miralles

Hydrology and Climate teamDiego Miralles

My scientific interests are wide, and strive towards the general understanding of the dynamics of the global water cycle and the impact of climate change on hydrology. My earlier work comprised the development of global satellite products of soil moisture and evaporation. In recent years my work evolves along the use of satellite-based evaporation to identify land–atmospheric feedbacks, the characterization of evaporation at the regional scales, the investigation of hydrological and climatic extremes, the impact of hydro-climatic anomalies on vegetation, and the study of ocean–atmospheric oscillations and their impact on terrestrial hydrology.

 

Research topics: ecohydrology, land–atmosphere interactions, global hydrology, hydro-climatic extremes, satellite remote sensing.

CONTACT

Address: Coupure links 653 - Room A2.028

               9000 Ghent, Belgium

Phone: +32 9 264 61 35

E-mail:

TRAJECTORY (CV here)

    ONGOING PROJECTS

    • DRY–2–DRY (ERC) – Do droughts self-propagate and self-intensify? (2017–2022)
    • 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)
    • LandFlux (GEWEX) – Evaluation and inter-comparison of existing land evaporation products (2010–2018)

    RECENT PROJECTS

    • Veni (NWO) – Dry soils: A driving force of droughts and heatwaves? (2014–2017)
    • WACMOS–ET (ESA) – Advancing the production of evaporation from satellite observations (2012–2016)

    SELECTED PUBLICATIONS (complete list here)

    1. Good, S.P., Moore, G.W., and Miralles, D.G. A mesic maximum in biological water use demarcates biome sensitivity to aridity shifts. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 2017.
    2. 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.
    3. Mccabe, M.F., Rodell, M., Alsdorf, D.E., Miralles, D.G., Uijlenhoet, R., Wagner, W., et al. The future of Earth observation in hydrology. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 21(7), 3879–3914, 2017.
    4. Teuling, A.J., Taylor, C.M., Meirink, J.-F., Melsen, L.A., Miralles, D.G., van Heerwaarden, C.C., Vautard, R., Stegehuis, A.I., Nabuurs, G.-Y., and Vilá-Guerau de Arellano, J.: Observational evidence for cloud cover enhancement over Western European forests, Nature Communications, 7:14065, 1–7, 2017.
    5. Miralles, D.G., Nieto, R., McDowell, N., Dorigo, W.A., Verhoest, N.E.C., Liu, Y.Y., Teuling, A.J., Dolman, A.J., Good, S.P., and Gimeno, L.: Contribution of water-limited regions to their own supply of rainfall, Environmental Research Letters, 11, 124007, 2016.
    6. Guillod, B.P., Orlowsky, B., Miralles, D.G., Teuling, A.J., Seneviratne, S.I.: Reconciling spatial and temporal soil moisture effects on afternoon rainfall, Nature Communications, 6, 6443, 2015.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. Miralles, D.G., van den Berg, M.J., Teuling, A.J., and de Jeu, R.A.M.: Soil moisture-temperature coupling: A multiscale observational analysis, Geophysical Research Letters, 39, L21707, 2012.
    10. 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.