Current Research · GeoWater Lab

Current Research

How do climate change, river-system structure, and human activities reshape hydrological dynamics and flood risk—and what do those changes mean for society?

Research Overview

Problem statementRivers are not merely conduits that transport water downstream. Their flow pathways, channel geometry, floodplain connectivity, and human modifications form a spatially organized system that governs how water is generated, conveyed, stored, and redistributed across landscapes. Yet these spatial organizations—particularly the fine-scale imprint of human activities—remain incompletely represented in existing observations and models, limiting our ability to understand and predict river-flow dynamics.

What we doGeoWater Lab combines Earth observations, geospatial information, and process-based and data-driven modeling to understand how river-system organization shapes terrestrial hydrological dynamics, flood-risk patterns, and societal impacts, moving toward spatially explicit descriptions and predictions that can better support adaptation and decision-making.

GeoWater Lab overview showing global river networks and their connections to biodiversity, cities, agriculture, hydropower, and transportation

Overarching questions

Three overarching questions

Our research connects process understanding with flood risk, societal impacts, and decisions for a changing world.

01 · WATER CYCLE

How is the terrestrial water cycle changing under the dual pressures of climate change and intensifying human activities?

02 · FLOOD RISK

How do river-channel and floodplain patterns impact flood risks and intensities across space and time?

03 · SOCIETAL IMPACT

How do human activities alter floods’ severity, frequency, distribution, and duration—and how can this knowledge support adaptation, planning, and flood-risk management?

Research Projects

Global river networks, satellite examples, channel cross-section geometry, and width–elevation relationships used to estimate channel geometry and river flow

Spatial information × river estimation

Leveraging emerging spatial information to improve channel geometry and river flow estimates

Emerging satellite observations and fine-scale geospatial data can reveal how river geometry and flow vary across networks. We integrate spatial analytics to estimate channel properties and constrain discharge estimates, especially in ungauged and human-modified basins at global scales.

FundingNSFC General Grant and Beijing Nova Program (PI)

Relevant publications

Lin^* et al. (2023): Inversion of river discharge from river width: A critical assessment at three thousand gauges. Remote Sensing of Environment.
Yuan, Lin^*, et al. (2024): Revisiting At-a-Station Hydraulic Geometry using Discharge Observations and Satellite-Derived River Widths. Journal of Remote Sensing. Editor’s Highlight
Xu et al., Lin^* (2026): Leveraging “SWOT and a-priori information (SWAP)” constrained channel parameters for improved historical river discharge estimates from space. ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.

Human perturbations to river flow through water use, channel construction, land-cover change, climate warming, and reservoir regulation in the time and frequency domains

Human alterations × river flows

Understanding and modeling human alterations to spatio-temporal patterns of river flows

Human activities increasingly reorganize river systems through urbanization, levees, reservoirs, and other interventions. We seek to better understand how the configuration of human activities interacts with the spatial organization of rivers to alter flow dynamics through data-driven approaches.

FundingNational-level Young Scientist Award to PI Lin

Relevant publications

Zhang, Lin^*, & Tu (2026): Hidden Complexity in Reservoir Flow Regulation Revealed by Spectral Analysis. Geophysical Research Letters. Led by an undergraduate researcher of GeoWater Lab
Su, Lin^* et al. (2026): Observation-Based Spatiotemporal Analysis of the Evolving Flood Regulation Capacity for the Yangtze River Basin. Geophysical Research Letters.
Lin, Lin^*, Zheng (2026): Human perturbations reshape hydrological responses in riverine systems: Insights from a reach-level quantification framework for the Pearl River Basin. Sustainable Horizons.
Yin, Lin^* et al. (2024): A synthesis of global streamflow characteristics, hydrometeorology, catchment attributes (GSHA) for large-sample river-centric studies. Earth System Science Data.

Channel conveyance capacity and urban expansion in levee-protected floodplains before and after levee construction

Development × flood adaptation

Flood hazards and adaptation strategies as reshaped by the spatial redistribution of human development

As cities expand into floodplains and climate change continues, relationships between people, rivers, and flood defenses are being reshaped. Urban growth concentrates populations and assets in hazard-prone areas, constrains natural floodplain functions, and increases pressure on existing flood protection systems. We investigate how the spatial configuration of human development alters flood exposure and risk, aiming to identify vulnerable areas and develop targeted strategies for sustainable flood adaptation.

FundingCenter of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (CBAS) Youth Scientist Award to PI Lin, for SDG 11 and SDG 13

Relevant publications

Ding, Lin^* et al. (2023): Reversal of the levee effect towards sustainable floodplain management. Nature Sustainability. Featured article
Zheng & Lin, P.^* (2025): Flood regulation as a multivariate challenge in the Anthropocene: A systematic modeling approach. Environmental Research Letters.
Zheng, Lin^*, Yin (2024): SHIFT: A DEM-Based Spatial Heterogeneity Improved Mapping of Global Geomorphic Floodplains. Earth System Science Data.
Lin^* et al. (2024): Tracking global floodplain urban growth. The Innovation Geoscience.

Process-based hydrological modeling framework for rainfall–snowfall partitioning, vegetation, snowmelt, frozen soil, glaciers, runoff characteristics, and water-resource impacts

Climate-sensitive regions × process modeling

Process-based modeling and understanding of river flows in climate-sensitive regions

River flows in climate-sensitive regions are shaped by interacting snow, frozen-soil, vegetation, and meteorological processes. Their inconsistent representation creates substantial uncertainty in hydrological and land-surface models. We diagnose forcing and process errors, test whether greater model complexity improves performance, and develop more robust representations of snowmelt-driven runoff under a changing climate.

FundingNational R&D Program on Global Change (Co-I)

Relevant publications

Lei, Lin, Zheng, Lin^* (2026): Process diagnostics of snowmelt runoff in global hydrological models: Part I – Model evaluation from the perspective of robustness. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences.
Lei, Lin, Zheng, Lin^* (2026): Process diagnostics of snowmelt runoff in global hydrological models: Part II – Are more complex models better? Hydrology and Earth System Sciences.
Lei, Lin^* et al. (2025): Systematic analyses of the meteorological forcing and process parameterization uncertainties in modeling runoff with Noah-MP for the Upper Brahmaputra River Basin. Journal of Hydrology.

Long-term vision

Toward a Spatially Explicit Understanding of the Terrestrial Water Cycle

Ultimately, we aim to develop a more spatially explicit understanding of how water moves through the terrestrial environment—from hydrological forcing and runoff generation, through river-network conveyance and floodplain storage, to downstream propagation and human interaction.

By resolving these processes in space, we aim to better explain how floods are generated and propagated across the land surface, enable more targeted flood adaptation, and ultimately support progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals.