Nathaniel Chaney

Research Interests

Hydrology, Earth system science, soil science, ecology, geomorphology, numerical modeling, high performance computing, machine learning, environmental data delivery and data assimilation. 

Bio

Prior to arriving at Duke, I was a postdoctoral research associate in the program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at Princeton University and had a dual appointment as a visiting research scientist at the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. I obtained my undergraduate degree at U.C. Berkeley where I received a Bachelor of Arts in Atmospheric Sciences and Applied Mathematics. For my graduate studies, I attended Princeton University where I completed a Ph.D. in Hydrology in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

My research harnesses the existing petabytes of global environmental data to improve understanding of the terrestrial water cycle. More specifically, I focus on quantifying and uncovering the role of multi-scale spatial organization over land (i.e., heterogeneity) in the Earth system. To this end, my group's research has three overarching themes: 1) improve the representation of land heterogeneity in Earth system models, 2) harness environmental data to characterize the observed spatial patterns and features over land, and 3) quantify the sensitivity of the hydrologic cycle to spatial heterogeneity. The tools that my group uses include numerical modeling, satellite remote sensing, machine learning, and high performance computing.

I am currently looking for highly motivated Ph.D. and postdocs. If the research themes of my group are of interest to you, please don't hesitate to email me.

Education

• Ph.D. Princeton University, 2015

Positions

• Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Courses Taught

• CEE 701: Graduate Colloquium
• CEE 692: Independent Study: Advanced Topics in Civil and Environmental Engineering
• CEE 691: Independent Study: Advanced Topics in Civil and Environmental Engineering
• CEE 690: Advanced Topics in Civil and Environmental Engineering
• CEE 506: Environmental Spatial Data Analysis
• CEE 494: Research Independent Study in Civil and Environmental Engineering
• CEE 493: Research Independent Study in Civil and Environmental Engineering

Publications

• Torres-Rojas L, Waterman T, Cai J, Zorzetto E, Wainwright HM, Chaney NW. A Geostatistics-Based Tool to Characterize Spatio-Temporal Patterns of Remotely Sensed Land Surface Temperature Fields Over the Contiguous United States. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. 2024 Sep 28;129(18).
• Hong M, Chaney N, Malyshev S, Shevliakova E. LM4-SHARC: Catchment-scale Soil-Hillslope Aquifer-River Continuum in  the GFDL Earth System Modeling Framework. Authorea, Inc. 2024.
• Dhital S, Webb NP, Chappell A, Kaplan ML, Nauman TW, Tyree G, et al. Synoptic Analysis and WRF-Chem Model Simulation of Dust Events in the Southwestern United States. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. 2024 Jul 16;129(13).
• Simon JS, Bragg AD, Chaney NW. Heterogeneous Land-Surface Effects on TKE and Cloud Formation: Statistical Insights From LES Cases. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. 2024 Jun 28;129(12).
• Waterman T, Bragg AD, Hay-Chapman F, Dirmeyer PA, Fowler MD, Simon J, et al. A Two-Column Model Parameterization for Subgrid Surface Heterogeneity Driven Circulations. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems. 2024 May 1;16(5).
• Fowler MD, Neale RB, Waterman T, Lawrence DM, Dirmeyer PA, Larson VE, et al. Assessing the Atmospheric Response to Subgrid Surface Heterogeneity in the Single-Column Community Earth System Model, Version 2 (CESM2). Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems. 2024 Mar 1;16(3).
• Findell KL, Yin Z, Seo E, Dirmeyer PA, Arnold NP, Chaney N, et al. Accurate assessment of land-atmosphere coupling in climate models requires high-frequency data output. Geoscientific Model Development. 2024 Feb 29;17(4):1869–83.
• Torres-Rojas L, Waterman T, Cai J, Zorzetto E, Wainwright HM, Chaney NW. The observed spatio-temporal patterns of Land surface temperature over the Contiguous United States. Authorea, Inc. 2023.
• Simon JS, Bragg AD, Chaney NW. Heterogeneous Land-Surface Effects on TKE and Cloud Formation: Statistical Insights from LES Cases. Authorea, Inc. 2023.
• Waterman T, Bragg AD, Hay-Chapman FM, Dirmeyer PA, Fowler M, Simon JS, et al. A Two-Column Model Parameterization for Subgrid Surface Heterogeneity Driven Circulations. Authorea, Inc. 2023.
• Lawston-Parker P, Santanello JA, Chaney NW. Investigating the response of land-atmosphere interactions and feedbacks to spatial representation of irrigation in a coupled modeling framework. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences. 2023 Jul 26;27(14):2787–805.
• Zorzetto E, Malyshev S, Chaney N, Paynter D, Menzel R, Shevliakova E. Effects of complex terrain on the shortwave radiative balance: a sub-grid-scale parameterization for the GFDL Earth System Model version 4.1. Geoscientific Model Development. 2023 Apr 6;16(7):1937–60.
• Xu C, Torres-Rojas L, Vergopolan N, Chaney NW. The Benefits of Using State-Of-The-Art Digital Soil Properties Maps to Improve the Modeling of Soil Moisture in Land Surface Models. Water Resources Research. 2023 Apr 1;59(4).
• Torres-Rojas L, Vergopolan N, Herman JD, Chaney NW. Towards an Optimal Representation of Sub-Grid Heterogeneity in Land Surface Models. Water Resources Research. 2022 Dec 1;58(12).
• Huang M, Ma PL, Chaney NW, Hao D, Bisht G, Fowler MD, et al. Representing surface heterogeneity in land–atmosphere coupling in E3SMv1 single-column model over ARM SGP during summertime. Geoscientific Model Development. 2022 Aug 29;15(16):6371–84.
• Vergopolan N, Sheffield J, Chaney NW, Pan M, Beck HE, Ferguson CR, et al. High-Resolution Soil Moisture Data Reveal Complex Multi-Scale Spatial Variability Across the United States. Geophysical Research Letters. 2022 Aug 16;49(15).
• Torres-Rojas L, Waterman T, Cai J, Chaney N. Analysis of hydrological spatial and temporal characteristic scales over the Contiguous United States using GOES-16 Land Surface Temperature retrievals. 2022.
• Waterman T, Bragg AD, Katul G, Chaney N. Examining Parameterizations of Potential Temperature Variance Across Varied Landscapes for Use in Earth System Models. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. 2022 Apr 27;127(8).
• Waterman T, Bragg AD, Katul GG, Chaney NW. Examining Parameterizations of Potential Temperature Variance Across Varied Landscapes for use in Earth System Models. Wiley. 2022.
• Waterman T, Bragg AD, Katul GG, Chaney NW. Examining Parameterizations of Potential Temperature Variance Across Varied Landscapes for use in Earth System Models. Wiley. 2021.
• Waterman T, Bragg A, Simon J, Chaney N. Capturing the Effects of Surface Flux Heterogeneity on the Lower Sub-grid Atmosphere in Earth System Models with a Multi-Column Approach. 2021.
• Rudiyanto, Minasny B, Chaney NW, Maggi F, Goh Eng Giap S, Shah RM, et al. Pedotransfer functions for estimating soil hydraulic properties from saturation to dryness. Geoderma. 2021 Dec 1;403.
• Chaney NW, Torres-Rojas L, Vergopolan N, Fisher CK. HydroBlocks v0.2: Enabling a field-scale two-way coupling between the land surface and river networks in Earth system models. Geoscientific Model Development. 2021 Nov 9;14(11):6813–32.
• Simon JS, Bragg AD, Dirmeyer PA, Chaney NW. Semi-Coupling of a Field-Scale Resolving Land-Surface Model and WRF-LES to Investigate the Influence of Land-Surface Heterogeneity on Cloud Development. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems. 2021 Oct 1;13(10).
• Vergopolan N, Chaney NW, Pan M, Sheffield J, Beck HE, Ferguson CR, et al. SMAP-HydroBlocks, a 30-m satellite-based soil moisture dataset for the conterminous US. Scientific data. 2021 Oct;8(1):264.
• Simon JS, Bragg AD, Dirmeyer PA, Chaney NW. Semi-coupling of a Field-scale Resolving Land-surface Model and WRF-LES to Investigate the Influence of Land-surface Heterogeneity on Cloud Development. Wiley. 2021.
• Simon JS, Bragg AD, Dirmeyer PA, Chaney NW. Semi-coupling of a Field-scale Resolving Land-surface Model and WRF-LES to Investigate the Influence of Land-surface Heterogeneity on Cloud Development. Wiley. 2021.
• Vergopolan N, Xiong S, Estes L, Wanders N, Chaney NW, Wood EF, et al. Field-scale soil moisture bridges the spatial-scale gap between drought monitoring and agricultural yields. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences. 2021 Apr 9;25(4):1827–47.
• Dhib S, Chaney N, Mannaerts CM, Bargaoui Z. Comparison of two bias correction methods for TRMM 3B42 satellite daily rainfall estimates over Northern Tunisia. Arabian Journal of Geosciences. 2021 Apr 1;14(7).
• Vergopolan N, Chaney NW, Beck HE, Pan M, Sheffield J, Chan S, et al. Combining hyper-resolution land surface modeling with SMAP brightness temperatures to obtain 30-m soil moisture estimates. Remote Sensing of Environment. 2020 Jun 1;242.
• Huang J, Hartemink AE, Arriaga F, Chaney NW. Unraveling location-specific and time-dependent interactions between soil water content and environmental factors in cropped sandy soils using Sentinel-1 and moisture probes. Journal of Hydrology. 2019 Aug 1;575:780–93.
• Chaney NW, Minasny B, Herman JD, Nauman TW, Brungard CW, Morgan CLS, et al. POLARIS Soil Properties: 30-m Probabilistic Maps of Soil Properties Over the Contiguous United States. Water Resources Research. 2019 Apr 1;55(4):2916–38.
• Fan Y, Clark M, Lawrence DM, Swenson S, Band LE, Brantley SL, et al. Hillslope Hydrology in Global Change Research and Earth System Modeling. Water Resources Research. 2019 Feb 1;55(2):1737–72.
• Siemann AL, Chaney N, Wood EF. Development and validation of a long-term, global, terrestrial sensible heat flux dataset. Journal of Climate. 2018 Aug 1;31(15):6073–95.
• Chaney NW, Van Huijgevoort MHJ, Shevliakova E, Malyshev S, Milly PCD, Gauthier PPG, et al. Harnessing big data to rethink land heterogeneity in Earth system models. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences. 2018 Jun 14;22(6):3311–30.
• Siemann AL, Chaney N, Wood EF. Sensitivity and Uncertainty of a Long-Term, High-Resolution, Global, Terrestrial Sensible Heat Flux Data Set. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. 2018 May 27;123(10):4988–5000.
• Cai X, Pan M, Chaney NW, Colliander A, Misra S, Cosh MH, et al. Validation of SMAP soil moisture for the SMAPVEX15 field campaign using a hyper-resolution model. Water Resources Research. 2017 Apr 1;53(4):3013–28.
• Chaney NW, Herman JD, Ek MB, Wood EF. Deriving global parameter estimates for the Noah land surface model using FLUXNET and machine learning. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. 2016 Nov 27;121(22):218–35.
• He X, Chaney NW, Schleiss M, Sheffield J. Spatial downscaling of precipitation using adaptable random forests. Water Resources Research. 2016 Oct 1;52(10):8217–37.
• Chaney NW, Metcalfe P, Wood EF. HydroBlocks: a field-scale resolving land surface model for application over continental extents. Hydrological Processes. 2016 Sep 30;30(20):3543–59.
• Pan M, Cai X, Chaney NW, Entekhabi D, Wood EF. An initial assessment of SMAP soil moisture retrievals using high-resolution model simulations and in situ observations. Geophysical Research Letters. 2016 Sep 28;43(18):9662–8.
• Estes LD, Searchinger T, Spiegel M, Tian D, Sichinga S, Mwale M, et al. Reconciling agriculture, carbon and biodiversity in a savannah transformation frontier. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B, Biological sciences. 2016 Sep;371(1703):20150316.
• Chaney NW, Wood EF, McBratney AB, Hempel JW, Nauman TW, Brungard CW, et al. POLARIS: A 30-meter probabilistic soil series map of the contiguous United States. Geoderma. 2016 Jul 15;274:54–67.
• Pan M, Fisher CK, Chaney NW, Zhan W, Crow WT, Aires F, et al. Triple collocation: Beyond three estimates and separation of structural/non-structural errors. Remote Sensing of Environment. 2015 Dec 15;171:299–310.
• Chaney NW, Herman JD, Reed PM, Wood EF. Flood and drought hydrologic monitoring: The role of model parameter uncertainty. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences. 2015 Jul 24;19(7):3239–51.
• Enenkel M, See L, Bonifacio R, Boken V, Chaney N, Vinck P, et al. Drought and food security - Improving decision-support via new technologies and innovative collaboration. Global Food Security. 2015 Mar 1;4:51–5.
• Chaney NW, Roundy JK, Herrera-Estrada JE, Wood EF. High-resolution modeling of the spatial heterogeneity of soil moisture: Applications in network design. Water Resources Research. 2015 Jan 1;51(1):619–38.

In The News

• Climate Scientists Listen to the Clouds (Jan 10, 2023 | Duke Magazine)
• Duke Experts on Hurricane Recovery: Need a Long-Term Focus (Sep 30, 2022 | Duke News)
• Duke Experts on Hurricane Recovery: Need a Long-Term Focus (Sep 30, 2022 | Duke News)
• A Step Toward Better Weather Forecasts (Nov 2, 2021 | Pratt School of Engineering)
• Hurricanes: How to Prepare and Why They’re Getting More Dangerous (Sep 4, 2019 | )
• What Researchers Are Watching Out For This Hurricane Season (May 28, 2019 | Pratt School of Engineering)
• Nathaniel Chaney: Harnessing Petabytes to Better Understand the Global Water Cycle (Aug 27, 2018 | Pratt School of Engineering)