Ben Livneh

Ben Livneh grew up in Ontario Canada. He earned his first two Civil Engineering degrees at the University of Western Ontario. He earned his Ph.D. degree at the University of Washington under the guidance of Dennis P. Lettenmaier, where he worked on a wide range of problems related to large-scale computational hydrology. His dissertation focused on the development of the Unified Land Model (ULM)--a merger of two operational models: the Sacramento Soil Moisture Accounting Model and the Noah Land Surface Model. During his time in Seattle, Ben also taught several courses at Seattle University. He now leads a research group in the department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering and he is also a Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) fellow. Professor Livneh's research group addresses physical hydrology problems across multiple scales. Major research themes include physically-based hydrologic model development, land-cover/land-use change, snow hydrology, and hydroclimatology. The group is focused on applying models in innovative ways that integrate remote sensing and in situ observations to understand how changes in climate and land cover will affect water availability at the land surface. Professor Livneh frequently interacts with scientists at the Western Water Assessment, with the departments of Geography, INSTAAR, and ATOC.