Robert Brakenridge

  • Senior Research Associate
  • Founder & Associate Director, DFO Flood Observatory

Surface water changes

Space-based monitoring of surface water changes for humanitarian, research, and water management applications; includes changes related to floods, droughts, wetlands, shorelines, lakes, and reservoirs.

I founded the Dartmouth Flood Observatory in 1993, which moved to the University of Colorado in 2010. The Observatory conducts space-based monitoring of surface water changes for humanitarian, research, and water management applications. It has acquired and is preserving for public use a digital map record of the Earth’s changing surface water, including changes related to floods, droughts, wetlands, shorelines, lakes, and reservoir. Surface water changes dramatically on a seasonal basis in areas such as monsoonal Asia and Africa and across the Arctic, and from year to year elsewhere during major floods and droughts. We monitor such changes in near real time, so that the resulting information has maximum utility to the disaster response community.

 News about Bob 

 

The future of flood mapping: Dartmouth Flood Observatory (4 min)

 

Education

  • PhD: University of Arizona, 1982
  • MS: University of Arizona, 1979
  • BS: Beloit College, 1975

Awards

  • Winner, 2019 PROSE Award for Best Earth Science Book, Association of American Publishers, 2019
  • Certificate of Appreciation, NASA, 2010
  • Group Achievement Award, NASA, 2007

Example publications

For additional publications, see .

Tellman, B., Sullivan, J. A., Kuhn, C., Albert J. Kettner, Doyle, C. S., Robert Brakenridge, Erickson, T. A., Slayback, D. A. 2021: . Nature, 596: 80-86. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03695-w

Restrepo, J. D., Albert J. Kettner, Robert Brakenridge 2020: . Journal of Hydrology, 586: 124887. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2020.124887

Robert Brakenridge 2020: . International Journal of Astrobiology, 20(1): 48-61. DOI: 10.1017/S1473550420000348

Zeng, Z., Gan, Y., Albert J. Kettner, Yang, Q., Zeng, C., Robert Brakenridge, Hong, Y. 2020: . Journal of Hydrology, 582: 124377. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2019.124377

Guy Schumann, Robert Brakenridge, Albert J. Kettner (he/his), Kashif, R., Niebuhr, E. 2018: . Remote Sensing, 10(8): article 1230. DOI: 10.3390/rs10081230