Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

Vijay K. Gupta

VIJAY K. GUPTA

Professor of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering
Fellow, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences
Campus Box 216
University of Colorado at Boulder
Boulder, CO. 80309-0216

OFFICE, ECOT 4-12 and Ekeley S-232
Phone: (303) 492-3696
Fax: (303) 492-5070
e-mail: gupta@cires.colorado.edu

CURRENT RESEARCH INTERESTS

Vijay's research interests are highly interdisciplinary. They have focused on the "nonlinear multiscale" nature of hydrologic processes to understand the physical basis of statistical fluctuations in space and time. Topics include:

  • Dynamics of space-time rainfall governing statistical multiscaliing
  • Multiscale statistics of peak flows and low flows via runoff generation and transport in river networks
  • Multiscale water balance on complex terrains via evapotranspiration, precipitation and runof
  • Solute transport in multiscale porous media
  • Water, Earth and Biota Coupling in the self-regulation of global climate

TEACHING AND EDUCATION

COURSES TAUGHT
  • Fluid Mechanics, CVEN 3313
  • Multiscale phenomena and Scaling in Hydrology, CVEN 6833
  • Order, Chance and Complexity, GEOL. 1600
  • Fractals in the Geosciences, GEOL 5750
  • River Basin Hydrology: A contemporary Approach, GEOL 4980/5980
  • Introduction to Hydrogeology, GEOL. 3030
  • Groundwater Hydrology, GEOL. 4040/5040

INNOVATIVE TEACHING

Vijay has focused on introducing the newly developing research ideas of nonlinearity and complexity in his undergraduate and graduate courses. It has required both an introduction of new theoretical concepts and their applications to real-world data analyses.

DISTINGUISHED SERVICE (1990-2000)

1987-91

 Member National Research Council/Water Science and Technology Board, Committee on Opportunities in the Hydrologic Sciences
1988-92 Member, Horton Medal Committee, AGU
1989-92 Member, National Research Council Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, Committee on Meteorological Analysis, Prediction, and Research
1992-94 Editor Search Committee: Geophysical Research Letters, AGU
1998-2000 Member, Geo-vision 2000 committee, Geoscience Directorate, NSF
1998-2000 Chair, WEB (Water-Earth-Biota) Initiative to Reassess Educational and Research Priorities in Hydrologic Sciences, NSF (see http://cires.colorado.edu/hydrology for a 40-page WEB report)

BRIEF CURRICULUM VITAE

EDUCATION

BE., Civil Engineering, 1967, University of Roorkee, India
MS., Civil Engineering, 1971, Colorado State University
Ph.D., Hydrology, 1973, University of Arizona

POSITIONS HELD

1973-77 Visiting Assistant Professor of Hydrology University of Arizona Tucson
1977-89 Assistant, associate and full Professor of Civil Engineering, University of Mississippi
1981 Visiting Professor of Hydrology Universidad Simon Bolivar Caracas, Venezuela
1985-87 Visiting Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering and Utah Water Research Laboratory Utah State University Logan
1986 ASEE Summer Faculty Fellow Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Greenbelt, MD
1989-98 Professor of Geological Sciences, Fellow of CIRES, University of Colorado, Boulder
1998- Professor of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, Fellow of CIRES, University of Colorado, Boulder
1993- Graduate Director, track in Hydrologic Sciences, Geophysics Ph.D. Program, University of Colorado, Boulder

HONORS AND AWARDS

1990 Fellow, American Geophysical Union
1997 Senior Gledden Visiting Fellow Univ. of Western Australia

REFEREED PUBLICATIONS (1990-2001)

GLOBAL CLIMATE

  1. Nevison, C., V. K Gupta, and L. Klinger, 1999: Self-sustained oscillations on Daisyworld, Tellus, 51B(4): 806-814.

SPACE-TIME RAINFALL

  1. Gupta, V. K., and E. Waymire, 1990: Multiscaling properties of spatial rainfall and river flow distributions. J. Geophys. Res., 95 (D3): 1999-2009.
  2. Gupta, V. K., and E. Waymire, 1993: A statistical analysis of mesoscale rainfall as a random cascade. J. Appl. Meteor. 32(2): 251-267
  3. Over, T. , and V. K. Gupta, 1996: A space-time theory of mesoscale rainfall using random cascades. J. Geophys. Res., 101 (D21), 26319-26331.
  4. Over, T. , and V. K. Gupta, 1996: A space-time theory of mesoscale rainfall using random cascades. J. Geophys. Res., 101 (D21), 26319-26331.

GEOMETRY OF RIVER NETWORKS

  1. Gupta, V. K., and E. C. Waymire, 1989: Statistical self-similarity in river networks parameterized by elevation. Water Resour. Res., 25(3):463-476.
  2. Gupta, V. K., O. J. Mesa, and E. Waymire, 1990: Tree dependent extreme values: The exponential case. J. Appl. Prob., 27:124-133.
  3. Peckham, S. and V. K. Gupta, 1999: A reformulation of Horton's laws for large river networks in terms of statistical self-similarity, Water Resour. Res., 35(9), 2763-77.
  4. Gupta, V. K., 1999: Analysis and asymptotics of multiscale hydrologic phenomena on river networks, DYNA, 128(66): 53-61.(Special invited article Translated and printed in Spanish).
  5. Veitzer, S. and V. K. Gupta, 2000: Random self-similar river networks and derivations of generalized Hortons laws in terms of statistical simple scaling, Water Resour. Res., 36(4), 1033-48.

SPACE-TIME ANALYSIS OF FLOODS AND DROUGHTS

  1. Gupta, V. K., O. J. Mesa, and D. Dawdy, 1994: Multiscaling theory of floods: Regional quantile analysis. Water Resour. Res., 30(12), 3405-3421.
  2. Gupta, V. K., and D. Dawdy, 1995: Physical interpretation of regional variations in the scaling exponents in flood quantiles, Hydrological Processes,, 9(3/4), 347-361.
  3. Dawdy, D., and V. K. Gupta, 1995: Multiscaling and skew separation in regional floods, Water Resour. Res., 31(11), 2761-2767.
  4. Gupta, V. K., S. Castro and T. M. Over, 1996: On scaling exponents of spatial peak flows from rainfall and river network geometry, J. Hydrol., 187 (1-2), 81-104.
  5. Furey, P. and V. K. Gupta, 2000: Space-time variability of low flows in river basins, Water Resour. Res. 36(9), 2679-2690.
  6. Furey, P. and V. K. Gupta, 2001: A physically-based filter for separating baseflow from streamflow time series, Water Resour. Res. 37(11), 2709-2722.

INVITED BOOK CHAPTER

  1. Bhattacharya, R., and V. K. Gupta, 1990: Application of Central Limit Theorems to Solute Dispersion in Saturated Porous Media: From Kinetic to Field Scales. In: Dynamics of Fluids in Hierarchical Porous Media, (Ed) J. Cushman, Academic.
  2. Gupta, V. K., and E. Waymire, 1991: On scaling and lognormality in spatial rainfall averages? In: Scaling, Fractals and Nonlinear Variability in Geophysics, (Eds.) S. Lovejoy and D. Schertzer, Kluver Academic
  3. Gupta, V. K. and E. Waymire, 1991: Spatial Statistics of random networks and a problem in river basin hydrology, In: Spatial Statistics and Imaging, (Ed.) A. Possolo, Inst. Math Stat. Lecture Notes-Monograph Series, Springer-Verlag.
  4. Gupta, V. K., and D. R. Dawdy, 1994: Multiscaling theory of peak flows and its physical basis. In: Advances in Distributed Hydrology, (Ed.) R. Rosso, A. Peano, I. Becchi, and G. Bemporad, Water Resources Publications, Highlands Ranch, CO.
  5. Gupta, V. K., and E. Waymire, 1996: Multiplicative cascades and spatial variability in rainfall, river networks and floods, In: Reduction and Predictability of Natural Disasters, (Ed.) J. Rundle, W. Klein and D. Turcotte, Santa Fe Institute V. XXV, Addison-Wesley.
  6. Gupta, V. K., and E. Waymire, 1997: A survey of cascades with applications from geosciences, Stochastic Models in Geosciences, (Ed.) S. A. Molchanov and W. Woyczynski, IMA Volumes in Math. and Appl., Springer-Verlag, V. 85.
  7. Gupta, V.K. and E. Waymire, 1998: Spatial variability and scale invariance in hydrologic regionalization, In: Scale Dependence and Scale Invariance in Hydrology, (Ed.) G. Sposito, Cambridge University Press.
  8. Gupta, V.K. and E.Waymire, 1998: Some mathematical aspects of Rainfall, Landforms and Floods, In: Stochstic Methods in Hydrology: Rainfall, landforms and floods, (Ed.) O. E. Barndorff-Nielsen, V. K. Gupta, V. Perez-Abreu, and E. C. Waymire, Advanced Series on Statistical Sciences and Applied Probability, V. 7, World Scientific.