Rafael L. Bras

University of California, Irvine, USA

Biography

Rafael L. Bras is Distinguished Professor and Dean of the Henry Samueli School of Engineering of the University of California, Irvine. He is past Chair of the MIT Faculty and former head of the Civil and Environmental Engineering department at MIT. He has served as advisor to many government and private institutions.

Dr. Bras has been very active in several professional organizations. He is past president of the Hydrology section of AGU and is presently member of its Board of Directors. Dr. Bras has received many honors and awards: the NASA Public Service Medal, the Macelwane and Horton Medals of AGU, the Athalie Richardson Irvine Clarke Prize, Simon W. Freese Environmental Engineering Award, Honorary Diplomate of Water Resources Engineering of the American Academy of Water Resources Engineers, US National Academy of Engineering, the Mexican National Academy of Engineering and the national Academy of Arts and Sciences of Puerto Rico. He is an elected Fellow of AGU, ASCE, AMS and AAAS.

Dr. Bras maintains an active international consulting practice. Presently he chairs a panel of experts that supervises the design and construction of a multibillion-dollar project to protect the City of Venice from floods.

Dr. Bras has published two textbooks, over 180 refereed journal publications, and several hundred other publications and presentations.

Abstract: Complexity and organization of hydrologic systems

Rafael L. Bras, University of California, Irvine, USA

The hydrologic cycle is an exquisitely coordinated, balanced, interaction between the atmosphere, the oceans, and the land that controls, among other things, the planet’s temperature by moving large quantities of matter and energy. The system is incredibly complex with a myriad of positive and negative feedbacks acting at a variety of scales. Much of what we experience in our natural and altered environments results from these complex interactions. Surprisingly (or maybe not) this complexity many times results in beautifully organized expressions of the hydrologic state that are commonly amenable to fairly simple explanations.

This talk explores some outcomes of the hydrologic complexity and organization with examples of over 30 years of work. Topics include the impact of soil moisture on the atmosphere and vice-versa, the impact of deforestation on the Amazon cloud climate, the self-organization of landscapes and river basins over very long time periods and the roles of vegetation on landscape evolution and in turn the role of the landscape on vegetation distribution.