A new study from the PIE lab shows that California’s dramatic swing from extreme drought in 2022 to record-breaking rains in 2023 didn’t reset the water cycle the way we might expect. Despite the surge in precipitation, evapotranspiration (ET) — the water returning to the atmosphere from soils and plants — stayed remarkably stable. Why? Because humans are a major driver of it. During the drought, irrigation and other managed water use made up about 30% of statewide ET, buffering ecosystems and food production against collapse but increasing reliance on groundwater. In the wet year that followed, human activity still accounted for nearly half of ET in managed landscapes, revealing that exceptional rainfall will not compensate for California's agricultural water demand. In California, the water cycle is not just shaped by climate — it’s co-engineered by people.

I will be speaking at the American Geophysical Union Fall Conference in New Orleans, LA! My talk, "Proximal remote sensing for scaling forest ecophysiology from leaf to globe" will discuss scaling challenges for hyperspectral remote sensing data and how proximal systems (i.e., optical instruments mounted to towers) can provide a foundation for temporally scaling biochemical traits to airborne and satellite platforms. 

I am looking forward to connecting with future graduate students and postdocs at AGU this year so please reach out or come find me to learn about upcoming opportunities in the group.  

The Photon Informed Ecology (PIE) Lab at the University of California Santa Barbara combines remote sensing and data science to understand terrestrial ecosystems in a changing climate. PIE lab research is multi-scale in nature and mechanistically links remote sensing observations with biologic processes - with a particular emphasis on quantifying carbon and water fluxes. We do this by leveraging proximal (tower-mounted) optical systems to understand how physical and physiological drivers impact remote sensing signals and ultimately how we can scale to what is observable from space. 

The PIE lab will be recruiting graduate students and a postdoctoral researchers Fall of 2025 so please stay tuned for updates.