Dr. Niu's research centers on numerical modeling of land surface processes, including terrestrial hydrology and ecology, for climate studies. He mainly focused on developing process-based land surface models based on understandings of the processes associated with water and heat storages in snow, soil, and vegetation and their fluxes into the atmosphere. Dr. Niu is also interested in global/regional climate modeling, snow (frozen soil) - vegetation - climate interactions, interactions between global energy, water, and carbon cycles, application of remote sensing data to climate/land modeling, wetland dynamics and related CH4 emission, terrestrial ecosystems and related nutrient cycling, etc.

Areas of Expertise

Soil hydrology, snow hydrology, runoff and groundwater dynamics, frozen soil, boundary-layer meteorology, and climatology.


Current Research Programs & Projects

Using Satellite Data and Fully Coupled Regional Hydrologic, Ecological and Atmospheric Models to Study Complex Coastal Environmental Processes

Improving Hydrological Representation in the Community Noah Land Surface Model for Intraseasonal to Interannual Prediction Studies,

Application of GRACE to water management in the High Plains Aquifer


CCSM (Community Climate System Model) Distinguished Achievement Award - National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) (2008)

Guest Senior Research Scientist, Key Laboratory of Regional Climate-Environmental Research for Temperate East Asia (RCE-TEA) - CAS, China (2007)

Visiting Scholarship - Turin University, Turin, Italy 2 (1997)

'Elite' Scholarship, 'Xuedu Fengzheng' Best Dissertation Award - Awarded by Institute of Atmospheric Physics, CAS. , China. (1995)

Review services for academic journals, Journal Geophysics Research (Atmospheres) (USA)

Review services for academic journals, Journal Geophysics Research (Biogeosciences) (USA)

Review services for academic journals, Water Resources Research (USA)

Review services for academic journals, Journal of Hydrometeorology (USA)

Review services for academic journals, Hydrological Processes (USA)

Review services for academic journals, Advances in Atmospheric Sciences (China)

Review services for academic journals, Climate Dynamics (Europe)

Review services for academic journals, Global and Planetary Change (Australia)

Review services for academic journals, Bulletin of the American Meteorology Society (USA)

Review services for academic journals, Science of the total environments (STOTEN) (Japan)

Representing runoff and groundwater in global climate models, AGU fall meeting, San Francisco, California (2007)

Representing snow and frozen soil in global climate models, International Center for Climate and Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China (2007)

Modeling global terrestrial water storage change from 1948-2004, START Regional Center for Temperate East Asia, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China (2007)

Some new developments in the Noah land surface model, National Center for Environmental Prediction, Washington D. C (2007)

Improving the simulation of runoff in the Community Land Model, START Regional Center for Temperate East Asia, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China (2006)

Representing runoff and snow in global climate models (GCMs), Hydrological Sciences Branch NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland (2004)

Modeling runoff in global climate models (GCMs), Dept. of Earth & Environmental Science, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX (2004)

--- Guest lectures in hydrometeorology and physical climatology (Grad-Undergrad Combined)