Zoom ID: 969 4285 6374; Password: 108789. 

Abstract: It is time for a new way of thinking about water management in California. Rather than treating floods and droughts as two independent problems, there is growing support for a form of managed aquifer recharge (MAR), flood-MAR: capturing and storing underground the floodwaters so that they recharge (replenish) the groundwater system depleted during the times of drought. We are using geophysical imaging methods to search for optimal locations for recharge – imaging up to 300 meters below the ground surface. With a state-wide investment in the acquisition of 25,000 kilometers of geophysical data using a helicopter-deployed system, and with access to a recently developed towed geophysical system, we have developed the computational workflows needed to use geophysical imaging to support the recharge of California’s groundwater systems.

Biography: Rosemary Knight is the George L. Harrington Professor of Earth Sciences in the Geophysics Department at Stanford University, and Senior Fellow in the Woods Institute. Rosemary received her Ph.D. in Geophysics from Stanford, was on the faculty at the University of British Columbia for 13 years, and returned to Stanford in 2000. Rosemary has worked for more than 30 years on the challenge of using geophysical methods for groundwater science and management. Collaboration with local and state agencies and with nonprofit organizations to move “knowledge into action” has been, and remains, central to the work done by Rosemary with her research group.

This seminar is sponsored by the Department of Applied Physics and the Ginzton Laboratory