The UFRO teacher, Dr. Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, participated in this scientific event, which is considered as the most important one on Earth Sciences in Europe, and presented his study that describes the use of satellite precipitation and evapotranspiration products to assess the spatial extension, severity and duration of the megadrought that has affected the South-Center Regions of Chile.

The academic of the Civil Engineering Department at the Universidad de La Frontera, Dr. Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, participated in the Conference “European Geosciences Union (EGU) 2018” in Vienna, Austria, in order to disseminate his research studies.

The scientific event is considered to be the most important one on Earth Sciences in Europe and the UFRO teacher presented his study called “Using remote sensing estimates of precipitation and evapotranspiration to assess the spatial characteristics of Chilean megadrought” that describes the use of satellite precipitation and evapotranspiration products to assess the spatial extension, severity and duration of the megadrought that affected the South-Center Regions of Chile over the past decade.

The study is the result of a collaboration between Dr. Zambrano-Bigiarini and the Center for Climate and Resilience Research (CR2) of the University of Chile and follows a line of research on water and extreme events.

COLLABORATION

At the same time, he also participated in three other presentations in which he is actively collaborating thanks to the partnerships he has established with experts of other institutions in Chile and abroad. One of these studies is called “Assessment of water yield under global change scenarios in a mediterranean rainfed watershed dominated by exotic tree plantations” and led by Dr. Mauricio Galleguillos of the University of Chile. The purpose of this project is to investigate the effects the substitution of native forests by forest plantations has on the availability of water.

Another project is called “The CAMELS-CL dataset: catchment attributes and meteorology for large sample studies–Chile dataset” and led by the postdoctoral researcher Camila Álvarez-Garrretón of the Chilean Universidad Austral. The project describes the first dataset about geomorphological and hydro-meteorological characteristics for Chile. And the third project is called “Evaluating satellite-based rainfall estimates to support low flow modelling in data scarce Andean catchments at different latitudes of Chile” and led by the researcher Alexandra Nauditt of the Technical University of Cologne, Germany.

The third project addresses the use of different satellite products for the hydrological simulation of different watersheds of high socio-economic relevance for Chile. The project is the result of a collaboration between the UFRO Civil Engineering Department and the Institute for Technology and Resources Management in the Tropics and Subtropics (ITT, Cologne, Germany).

REPRESENTATIVES

Dr. Zambrano-Bigiarini and the researcher Camila Álvarez Garretón were the only representatives for Latin America in the "splinter meeting" of the work group "Drought in the Anthropocene" of the initiative Panta Rhei of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences, a group that is led by Anne Van Loonm, a researcher at the University of Birmingham, UK, and whose group members could collaborate with Master´s students in the study of socio-economic impacts of the megadrought in Chile.

After the EGU 2018 Conference, Dr. Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini went to Cologne, Germany, to meet with researchers of the Technical University of Cologne to discuss the advances of their current research projects and to plan the rest of the year 2018.