Nathaniel Chaney | Scholars@Duke

Nathaniel Chaney
Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

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.

Current Research Interests

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

Current Appointments & Affiliations

Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering 2018
Assistant Professor, Environmental Sciences and Policy, Nicholas School of the Environment 2019

Contact Information

CIEMAS 2463, Durham, NC 27708
nathaniel.chaney@duke.edu (919) 660-5195
www.chaneylab.earth

Background
Education, Training, & Certifications
- Ph.D., Princeton University 2015
Recognition
In the News
- SEP 4, 2019
  
  Hurricanes: How to Prepare and Why They’re Getting More Dangerous
- MAY 28, 2019 Pratt School of Engineering
  
  What Researchers Are Watching Out For This Hurricane Season
- AUG 27, 2018 Pratt School of Engineering
  
  Nathaniel Chaney: Harnessing Petabytes to Better Understand the Global Water Cycle
Research
Selected Grants
Publications & Artistic Works
Selected Publications
- Academic Articles
  - Vergopolan, N., Chaney, N. W., Beck, H. E., Pan, M., Sheffield, J., Chan, S., & Wood, E. F. (2020). Combining hyper-resolution land surface modeling with SMAP brightness temperatures to obtain 30-m soil moisture estimates. Remote Sensing of Environment, 242. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2020.111740
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  - Huang, J., Hartemink, A. E., Arriaga, F., & Chaney, N. W. (2019). 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, 575, 780–793. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2019.05.075
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  - Chaney, N. W., Minasny, B., Herman, J. D., Nauman, T. W., Brungard, C. W., Morgan, C. L. S., … Yimam, Y. (2019). POLARIS Soil Properties: 30-m Probabilistic Maps of Soil Properties Over the Contiguous United States. Water Resources Research, 55(4), 2916–2938. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018WR022797
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  - Fan, Y., Clark, M., Lawrence, D. M., Swenson, S., Band, L. E., Brantley, S. L., … Yamazaki, D. (2019). Hillslope Hydrology in Global Change Research and Earth System Modeling. Water Resources Research. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018WR023903
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  - Siemann, A. L., Chaney, N., & Wood, E. F. (2018). Development and validation of a long-term, global, terrestrial sensible heat flux dataset. Journal of Climate, 31(15), 6073–6095. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0732.1
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  - Chaney, N. W., Van Huijgevoort, M. H. J., Shevliakova, E., Malyshev, S., Milly, P. C. D., Gauthier, P. P. G., & Sulman, B. N. (2018). Harnessing big data to rethink land heterogeneity in Earth system models. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 22(6), 3311–3330. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-3311-2018
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  - Siemann, A. L., Chaney, N., & Wood, E. F. (2018). Sensitivity and Uncertainty of a Long-Term, High-Resolution, Global, Terrestrial Sensible Heat Flux Data Set. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 123(10), 4988–5000. https://doi.org/10.1029/2017JD027785
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  - Cai, X., Pan, M., Chaney, N. W., Colliander, A., Misra, S., Cosh, M. H., … Wood, E. F. (2017). Validation of SMAP soil moisture for the SMAPVEX15 field campaign using a hyper-resolution model. Water Resources Research, 53(4), 3013–3028. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016WR019967
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  - Chaney, N. W., Herman, J. D., Ek, M. B., & Wood, E. F. (2016). Deriving global parameter estimates for the Noah land surface model using FLUXNET and machine learning. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 121(22), 218–235. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD024821
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  - He, X., Chaney, N. W., Schleiss, M., & Sheffield, J. (2016). Spatial downscaling of precipitation using adaptable random forests. Water Resources Research, 52(10), 8217–8237. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016WR019034
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  - Chaney, N. W., Metcalfe, P., & Wood, E. F. (2016). HydroBlocks: a field-scale resolving land surface model for application over continental extents. Hydrological Processes, 30(20), 3543–3559. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.10891
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  - Pan, M., Cai, X., Chaney, N. W., Entekhabi, D., & Wood, E. F. (2016). An initial assessment of SMAP soil moisture retrievals using high-resolution model simulations and in situ observations. Geophysical Research Letters, 43(18), 9662–9668. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL069964
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  - Estes, L. D., Searchinger, T., Spiegel, M., Tian, D., Sichinga, S., Mwale, M., … Caylor, K. K. (2016). Reconciling agriculture, carbon and biodiversity in a savannah transformation frontier. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 371(1703). https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2015.0316
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  - Chaney, N. W., Wood, E. F., McBratney, A. B., Hempel, J. W., Nauman, T. W., Brungard, C. W., & Odgers, N. P. (2016). POLARIS: A 30-meter probabilistic soil series map of the contiguous United States. Geoderma, 274, 54–67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2016.03.025
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  - Pan, M., Fisher, C. K., Chaney, N. W., Zhan, W., Crow, W. T., Aires, F., … Wood, E. F. (2015). Triple collocation: Beyond three estimates and separation of structural/non-structural errors. Remote Sensing of Environment, 171, 299–310. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2015.10.028
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  - Chaney, N. W., Herman, J. D., Reed, P. M., & Wood, E. F. (2015). Flood and drought hydrologic monitoring: The role of model parameter uncertainty. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 19(7), 3239–3251. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-3239-2015
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  - Enenkel, M., See, L., Bonifacio, R., Boken, V., Chaney, N., Vinck, P., … Anderson, M. (2015). Drought and food security - Improving decision-support via new technologies and innovative collaboration. Global Food Security, 4, 51–55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2014.08.005
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  - Chaney, N. W., Roundy, J. K., Herrera-Estrada, J. E., & Wood, E. F. (2015). High-resolution modeling of the spatial heterogeneity of soil moisture: Applications in network design. Water Resources Research, 51(1), 619–638. https://doi.org/10.1002/2013WR014964
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Teaching & Mentoring
Recent Courses

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Education, Training, & Certifications

In the News

Selected Grants

Selected Publications

Academic Articles

Recent Courses