Research Entities

CIROH, a partnership between NOAA and The University of Alabama, is a national consortium committed to advancing water prediction – the forecasting of streamflow entering water systems, extreme events such as floods and droughts, and water quality – and building community resilience to water-related challenges. CIROH scientists, from 28 different institutions—both academic and private, work to improve the understanding of hydrologic processes, operational hydrologic forecasting techniques and workflows, community water modeling, translation of forecasts to actionable products, and use of water predictions in decision making. Awarded to AWI in April 2022, this award consists of up to $360 million over 10 years, the largest external award in UA history.

The Global Water Security Center (GWSC) is an applied research and operational center commissioned to respond to our nation’s need for water and environmental security insights. GWSC will inform national and international agencies as well as multi- national companies (MNCs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and others with global interests in water quality and quantity impacts on sectors such as diplomacy, transportation, and supply chain management. Through ground-breaking research and analysis, operationalizing applied science, and developing and implementing best practices in risk communications, the Global Water Security Center will create the most reliable water and environmental security-related information tools, and analysis. By communicating to key U.S. decision-makers in contextually appropriate ways, GWSC will aid U.S. water security interests and improve outcomes like water access, food security, economic opportunities, and health.

CONSERVE aims to form a community-focused research team addressing complex water-related challenges through interdisciplinary collaboration with local communities, scaling and sharing suitable solutions. By integrating traditional knowledge, fostering equitable and collaborative approaches, and providing student opportunities, CONSERVE strives to build water-resilient and sustainable communities for the future.

The Center for Freshwater Studies combines the interests of UA faculty with expertise in different areas of freshwater studies and fosters interdisciplinary research and education. Currently 43 faculty from units within four colleges are involved with the center and contribute expertise in biogeochemistry, biodiversity, conservation, ecology, geochemistry, geography, geology, hydrology, water policy/law and water resources management. Research facilities related to the center include an aquatic chemistry laboratory, an optical analysis facility, an aquatic mesocosm facility, geographic information system and remote sensing facilities as well as a facility housing major research instrumentation.

The Center for Water Quality Research serves as a national integrating resource for water and environmentally focused transdisciplinary research and development activities. The center pursues the innovative application of science and engineering principles to collect and transform environmental and water resource information into actionable knowledge that protects public health and promotes environmental stewardship and resilience. With a core capacity in environmental and hydrologic informatics, key research themes include climate and climate change impacts; environmental and water resource management decision support; fate and transport of contaminants in the environment; global water, sanitation and hygiene; hydrologic and frequency modeling; stormwater and emerging contaminants; and water and wastewater treatment.

The Center for Complex Hydrosystems Research focuses on collaborative research to advance the understanding of hydrologic science through modeling climate-water-human interactions as a complex system, which will result in sustainable management. The center contributes new insights into the coupled interactions between climate, hydrology and water resources through the application and use of data sets and methods; including climate model downscaling, remote sensing, state-of-the art data assimilation, distributed hydrologic modeling, ensemble inference, post-processing and multi-modeling.

The Center for Sedimentary Basin Studies integrates the work of various scientific disciplines, including geologists, geophysicists, engineers, hydrologists, paleontologists, biologists, computer scientists and scientists and practitioners in other related fields, to examine all aspects of sedimentary basins from an interdisciplinary perspective. Key among its strengths is research on groundwater and surface-water hydrogeology. Faculty collaborate with government agencies, academic institutions and industry on projects that address societal needs in the areas of energy and water resources, environmental issues and geohazards.

The Remote Sensing Center utilizes radio frequency and microwave engineering as well as radar systems, radar remote sensing and microwave radiometers to the study polar ice sheets, sea ice, ocean, atmosphere and land. The center involves students and researchers in multiple disciplines across campus, as well as using unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, that carry remote sensing technologies to collect data on surface water and snow depth in the continental United States.