ECOHYDROLOGY AND FOREST METEOROLOGY LABORATORY

Gil Bohrer, Richland, WA — Prof. Bohrer installing equipment to monitor dissolved greenhouse gases in river sediments, Columbia River near Richland, WA.

I develop and use physical and empirical models of the interactions between individual, biological organisms and atmospheric and hydrological processes.

My research bridges the physical scale gap between regional, atmospheric processes and individual plant-scale function and structure, and the scale at which moving organisms respond to their environment. I develop new approaches to parameterization of the effects of small-scale heterogeneity on surface fluxes, on water movement from the soil through plants to the air, and on advection and dispersion of VOCs and particulate matter.

I use a range of models, from high-power, parallel, large eddy, simulations to simple, empirical models. I use remote sensing to study the structure of vegetation and land cover at individual, plant-scale resolution.

I conduct meteorological and eddy-flux observations in forests and wetlands to provide the needed information to force, parameterize and evaluate models of green-house gas budgets of ecosystems and the effects of small-scale, heterogeneity and intermediate disturbance on these fluxes.