
Dr Rodolfo Bezerra Nobrega
BEng, MSc, PhD
Current positions
Lecturer
School of Geographical Sciences
Contact
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Biography
I joined the School of Geographical Sciences in 2022 as Lecturer in Hydrology. Prior to that, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Reading (2017–2018) and at the Department of Life Sciences (Prentice’s Climate Group) at Imperial College London (2018–2022), where I worked in NERC and ERC funded projects focused on research from plot to global scales.
Research interests
My research interests spread around understanding the role of water in ecosystems and the soil-vegetation-atmosphere continuum; how water is connected to and influenced by elements of the terrestrial biosphere and anthroposphere. I use plot, community, and catchment scales to identify and assess ecosystem processes on regional and global levels to support theories that reduce equifinality in modelling schemes in hydrology and Earth System science.
My main areas of research interest are currently related to the:
- Quantification of ecosystem services - including water quality, soil health and biodiversity - in catchments/River basins;
- Assessment of impacts of climate extremes and land use change on water resources for marginal communities;
- Development and verification of theories of optimal allocation of water and carbon from plot to global scales;
- Understanding of hydrological processes using field experiments and eco-evolutionary optimality principles;
- Development of remote sensing evapotranspiration models.
I'm currently a member of the Editorial Board of Communications Earth & Environment (https://www.nature.com/commsenv/) and the Commission on Coupled Land-Atmosphere Systems (ICCLAS) of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS). I'm also co-chair of the National Branches Committee of the Young Hydrologic Society, focusing on expanding ECR activities and YHS reach worldwide to promote ERC networking and support.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
Ranching, Resources and Resilience: Uncovering the Impact of Land Grabbing in the Amazon
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of Geographical SciencesDates
01/01/2025 to 30/06/2025
Publications
Selected publications
21/08/2020Ecosystem services of a functionally diverse riparian zone in the Amazon–Cerrado agricultural frontier
Ecosystem services of a functionally diverse riparian zone in the Amazon–Cerrado agricultural frontier
Impacts of land use and land cover change on surface runoff, discharge and low flows: Evidence from East Africa
Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies
Are Remote Sensing Evapotranspiration Models Reliable Across South American Ecoregions?
Water Resources Research
Recent publications
01/01/2025How does the storage volume of semi-arid reservoirs change water quality and modulate the diversity of benthic macroinvertebrates?
Science of The Total Environment
Rainwater harvesting
Elgar Encyclopedia of Water Policy, Economics and Management
Efficiency of global precipitation datasets in tropical and subtropical catchments revealed by large sampling hydrological modelling
Journal of Hydrology
Enhancing global rainfall interception loss estimation through vegetation structure modeling
Journal of Hydrology
Simple process-led algorithms for simulating habitats (SPLASH v.2.0)
Geoscientific Model Development