dr. ir. Akash Koppa

Bio

I am currently a post-doctoral research fellow, working in the Down2Earth project, at the Hydro-Climate Extremes Lab (H-CEL), Research team: Hydrology and Climate, Ghent University. A hydrologist and civil engineer by training, I have worked on large scale hydrology, high resolution atmosphere and land surface modeling, and stochastic optimization. My doctoral thesis funded by NASA's Applied Sciences program, focused on developing a decision support system for hydropower optimization in datascarce regions, leveraging numerical weather prediction models and remote sensing data. Specifically, I developed novel frameworks for improving seasonal forecasts in data-scarce regions by combining remote sensing and land surface models. I have also worked on coupled atmospheric-hydrologic modeling at regional scales for my Master's thesis.

Contact

Address: Coupure links 653 - Room A2.010

               9000 Ghent, Belgium

Phone: +32 9 264 61 40

E-mail: Akash.Koppa@UGent.be

Trajectory

• 2020 – Present: Post-doctoral research fellow– Hydro-Climate Extremes Lab, Ghent University
• 2019 – 2020: Post-doctoral research fellow - Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ), Germany
• 2015 – 2019:  PhD in Hydrology and Water Resources, Department of Civil Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
• 2014 – 2015: Research Engineer (Hydrology), AIR Worldwide, India
• 2012 – 2014: MTech in Water Management, School of Water Resources, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India                        
• 2008 – 2012: BE in Civil Engineering, BMS College of Engineering, India

Ongoing projects

• Down2Earth: Improving resilience to water scarcity in the Horn of Africa Drylands (2020 - Present)
• NASA Applied Research Grant: Hydropower optimization in East Africa (2014-2019)

Selected publications

• Koppa, A., Gebremichael, M., Zambon, R. C., Yeh, W. W.-G. and Hopson, T. Seasonal Hydropower Planning for Data-Scarce Regions Using Multimodel Ensemble Forecasts, Remote Sensing Data, and Stochastic Programming. Water Resources Research, 55, 8583-8607, 2019.
• Koppa, A., Gebremichael, M. and Yeh, W. W.-G. Multivariate calibration of large scale hydrologic models: the necessity and value of a pareto optimal approach. Advances in Water Resources, 130, 129-146., 2019.
• Koppa, A. and Gebremichael, M. A framework for validation of remotely sensed precipitation and evapotranspiration based on the budyko hypothesis. Water Resources Research, 53(10), 8487-8499, 2017.
• Koppa, A. and Gebremichael, M. Improving the Applicability of Hydrologic Models for Food-Energy-Water Nexus Studies Using Remote Sensing Data. Remote Sensing, 12, 599, 2020.
• Xiao, M., Koppa, A., Mekonnen, Z., Pagán, B.R., Zhan, S., Cao, Q., Aierken, A., Lee, H. and Lettenmaier, D.P. How much groundwater did California's Central Valley lose during the 2012-2016 drought? Geophys. Res. Lett. 44, 4872-4879, 2017.
• Becker, R., Koppa, A., Schulz, S., Usman, M., aus der Beek, T. and Schüth, C. Spatially distributed model calibration of a highly managed hydrological system using remote sensing-derived ET data. Journal of Hydrology, 123944, 2019.