Praveen Kumar

About

Praveen Kumar holds a B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, an M.S. from Iowa State University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, all in civil engineering. He has been a faculty member in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois since 1995. Prior to this, he worked as a research scientist at the Universities Space Research Association and NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center. Dr. Kumar's teaching encompasses undergraduate and graduate courses in hydrosystems engineering, engineering modeling under uncertainty, surface water hydrology, hydroclimatology, stochastic hydrology, non-linear methods in hydrology, and hydroinformatics. His research focuses on Hydrocomplexity, which involves understanding and predicting emergent patterns arising from complex non-linear multi-scale interactions between soil, water, climate, vegetation, and human systems, with the aim of developing innovative solutions to water and sustainability challenges. He is currently the Director of the Critical Zone Observatory for Intensively Managed Landscapes and leads NSF-supported projects on Geo-Semantics, cyber-infrastructure for long-tail data and models, and EarthCube initiatives.

Research topics

• Environmental science
• Ecology
• Geology
• Water resource management
• Meteorology
• Agricultural engineering
• Geography
• Agronomy
• Biology
• Engineering

Selected publications

• Debates—Does Information Theory Provide a New Paradigm for Earth Science? Causality, Interaction, and Feedback

  Water Resources Research · 2020-02-01 · 78 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract The concept of causal interactions between components is an integral part of hydrology and Earth system sciences. Modelers, decision makers, scientists, and other water resources stakeholders all utilize some notion of cause‐and‐effect to understand processes, make decisions, and infer how systems react to change. However, there are different perspectives on the meaning of causality in complex systems and, further, different frameworks and methodologies with which to detect causal inter…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Signatures of Hydrologic Function Across the Critical Zone Observatory Network

  Water Resources Research · 2020 · 57 citations

  Abstract Despite a multitude of small catchment studies, we lack a deep understanding of how variations in critical zone architecture lead to variations in hydrologic states and fluxes. This study characterizes hydrologic dynamics of 15 catchments of the U.S. Critical Zone Observatory (CZO) network where we hypothesized that our understanding of subsurface structure would illuminate patterns of hydrologic partitioning. The CZOs collect data sets that characterize the physical, chemical, and biol…

  DOI

• Modeling the Role of Root Exudation in Critical Zone Nutrient Dynamics

  Water Resources Research · 2020-06-11 · 33 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  Abstract The multifaceted interface of plant roots, microbes, water, and soil can be considered a critical zone within the Critical Zone as it is host to many important dynamically linked processes, including the promotion of nutrient cycling through absorption and rhizodeposition, interaction and feedbacks with microorganisms and fungi, root‐facilitated hydraulic redistribution, and soil carbon dynamics. Such important processes in the Critical Zone have not been fully characterized and modeled…

  PublisherDOI

• Predicting the Water Requirement for Rice Production as Affected by Projected Climate Change in Bihar, India

  Water · 2020 · 14 citations

  Climate change is a well-known phenomenon all over the globe. The influence of projected climate change on agricultural production, either positive or negative, can be assessed for various locations. The present study was conducted to investigate the impact of projected climate change on rice’s production, water demand and phenology for the state of Bihar, India. Furthermore, this study assessed the irrigation water requirement to increase the rice production by 60%, for the existing current cli…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Earth Sciences Are the Model Sciences of the Anthropocene

  Perspectives of Earth and Space Scientists · 2024-09-21 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract After 4.5 billion years as an evolving and dynamic planet, the Earth continues to evolve but with human‐altered dynamics. Earth scientists have special opportunities and responsibilities to accelerate our understanding of Earth's changes that are transforming our most remarkable home.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• EarthCube Building Blocks: Collaborative Proposal: A Geo-Semantic Framework for Integrating Long-Tail Data and Models

  NSF · $647k · 2014–2017

• EAGER: Comparative Study of Critical Zones of Intensively Managed Loess Landscapes in China and United States

  NSF · $50k · 2017–2019

• Collaborative Research: NeTS-NOSS: Towards a Theory of In-Network Computation for Surveillance and Monitoring in Wireless Sensor Networks

  NSF · $420k · 2005–2010

Frequent coauthors

• Phong V. V. Le

  Oak Ridge National Laboratory

  57 shared

• Andrew J. Stumpf

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  42 shared

• Jinhui Yan

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  36 shared

• Thanh H. Nguyen

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  36 shared

• Andrew W. Taylor‐Robinson

  University of Pennsylvania

  36 shared

• Brian F. Allan

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  36 shared

• Lei Zhao

  36 shared

• Efi Foufoula‐Georgiou

  Irvine University

  28 shared

Labs

• Climate, Meteorology & Atmospheric SciencesPI

Education

• Ph.D., Civil Engineering

  University of Minnesota System

  1993

Awards & honors

• Universities Space Research Association Award for Promise an…
• NASA New Young Investigator Award (1996)
• Xerox Award for Faculty Research (2005)
• Engineering Council Award for Excellence in Advising (2013)
• Featured Article, Water Resources Research (2011)

Similar researchers at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

• Gan Zhangh-134
• Robert Trapph-48
• Kelvin K Droegemeierh-43