Elizaveta Litvak

About

Elizaveta Litvak is a Research Professor at the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University and serves as a Senior Global Futures Scientist within the Global Futures Scientists and Scholars. Her research focuses on ecohydrological processes in urban environments, aiming to identify environmental, biological, and social factors that influence city landscapes. She employs an interdisciplinary approach, engaging with local communities and collaborating with hydrologic modelers, remote sensing experts, and social scientists to develop sustainable solutions tailored to diverse climatic and hydrologic conditions. Her work is grounded in in situ measurements of urban evapotranspiration and the physiological responses of urban plants to their environments. This research is key to understanding the relationships between plant water use, landscape composition, environmental conditions, and management practices. Litvak's educational background includes a PhD in Earth System Science from the University of California, Irvine, a Master's degree in Earth System Science from the same institution, a postdoctoral research position at the University of Utah, and a Bachelor's degree in Physics (diploma cum laude) from Moscow State University, Russia.

Research topics

• Environmental science
• Geography
• Forestry
• Water resource management
• Environmental planning

Selected publications

• Barriers and opportunities for resilient and sustainable urban forests

  Nature Cities · 2025-02-28 · 34 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Evapotranspiration of Residential Lawns Across the United States

  Water Resources Research · 2023-05-31 · 11 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Despite interest in the contribution of evapotranspiration (ET) of residential turfgrass lawns to household and municipal water budgets across the United States, the spatial and temporal variability of residential lawn ET across large scales is highly uncertain. We measured instantaneous ET (ET inst ) of lawns in 79 residential yards in six metropolitan areas: Baltimore, Boston, Miami, Minneapolis‐St. Paul (mesic climates), Los Angeles and Phoenix (arid climates). Each yard had one of f…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• How do urban trees vary across the <scp>US</scp>? It depends on where and how you look

  Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment · 2024-06-19 · 5 citations

  reviewOpen access

  Urban forests provide ecosystem services important for regulating climate, conserving biodiversity, and maintaining human well‐being. However, these forests vary in composition and physiological traits due to their unique biophysical and social contexts. This variation complicates assessing the functions and services of different urban forests. To compare the characteristics of the urban forest, we sampled the species composition and two externally sourced traits (drought tolerance and water‐use…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Water Use by Urban Landscapes in Semi-Arid Environments

  AGUFM · 2017-12-01 · 3 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

• Irrigation rates and turfgrass evapotranspiration in cities with contrasting water availability

  JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association · 2024-10-31 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract As water scarcity is worsened by drought and climate change, there is more interest in efficient management of urban irrigation, requiring understanding of the drivers of evapotranspiration (ET) and the role of irrigation inputs. We developed and validated a method to accurately measure ET of turfgrass lawns in contrasting climates using portable static chambers. We made in situ measurements of ET and irrigation inputs in lawns across three metropolitan areas in the United States with v…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Diane E. Pataki

  Arizona State University

  24 shared

• Heather R. McCarthy

  University of Oklahoma

  7 shared

• Peter M. Groffman

  The Graduate Center, CUNY

  6 shared

• T. S. Hogue

  6 shared

• Kimberly F. Manago

  Colorado School of Mines

  5 shared

• Stéphanie Pincetl

  University of California, Los Angeles

  5 shared

• Desirée L. Narango

  4 shared

• Anika R. Bratt

  Macalester College

  4 shared

Similar researchers at Arizona State University

• Jianguo Wuh-119
• Marco Janssenh-68