Originally published in our November 2024 newsletter (Issue 25)
Hisham Eldardiry is a postdoctoral research associate at Cornell University’s Critical Infrastructure Systems (CIS) Lab, under the supervision of Dr. Stefano Galelli. Before joining Cornell, he worked as a postdoctoral research associate in the Earth Systems Science Division at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Hisham holds a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Alexandria University in Egypt and went on to earn both a Master of Science in Civil Engineering and a PhD in Systems Engineering from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He later completed a second PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle.
Hisham’s research is dedicated to advancing our understanding of the complex dynamics within water-energy systems and designing actionable solutions to achieve long-term security and sustainability. Within the realm of water-energy systems, Hisham’s research journey has emphasized the role of extreme events (as natural/climatic driver) and infrastructure resilience (as anthropogenic/human driver), shaping the management of water-energy resources. During his PhD at the University of Washington, Hisham focused on the resilience of water infrastructures, particularly dam operations, in the face of future hydropower development within transboundary basins, with a primary emphasis on the Nile River Basin. As an outcome of his research, Hisham developed a satellite-based decision support system, NiBRAS (or Nile Basin Reservoir Advisory System) to support the monitoring of reservoir operations over the Nile basin.
As a postdoctoral research associate at PNNL, Hisham has contributed to various projects, including Integrated Multisector Multiscale Modeling (IM3). More specifically, his role was to simulate the dynamics of coupled human-natural systems over the contiguous U.S. (CONUS). In a recent study (currently under review), Hisham led a detailed diagnostic evaluation of the uncertainties arising from meteorological forcing selection and model parameterization in hydrological simulations of the Community Land Model version 5 (CLM5). The CLM simulations were driven by five commonly used gridded forcing datasets in combination with a large ensemble (over 1,200) of key CLM5 hydrologic parameters. The results of this study highlighted three major conclusions: 1) The uncertainty in CLM5 runoff simulations, arising from forcing and parametric sources, is notably higher in arid regions; 2) The selection of meteorological forcing datasets has more influence than hydrologic parameter uncertainty on CLM5-simulated high flows; and 3) The combined effects of forcing and parametric uncertainty result in significant variations in the prediction of extreme event severity.
Recently, Hisham joined Dr. Galelli’s research lab at Cornell, where he is leading efforts to develop a novel model-coupling framework that dynamically couples a multi-reservoir system model (VIC-Res) with a power system model (PowNet), thus capturing operational decisions based on the states of both systems. Specifically, VIC-Res represents and optimizes hydropower reservoirs, while PowNet simulates the unit commitment and economic dispatch of large-scale power systems. The coupler acts as the model orchestrator, managing the sequential exchange of information between models at each time step and checking the convergence of hydropower generation by VIC-Res and PowNet to advance to the next time step. The framework is currently being tested on the Lao PDR-Thailand-MalaysiaSingapore Power Integration Project (LTMS-PIP), which largely relies on the hydropower produced by the Mekong and Chao Phraya river basins. This work will provide insights into hydropower’s operational dynamics within grid operations and water reservoir systems, aiming to enhance decision-making and improve system resilience to climate change.
Hisham’s research is underpinned by a rich experience across various institutions, which gave him the opportunity to collaborating with diverse teams and projects. These experiences have profoundly enriched his knowledge and expertise in multisector dynamics, with a particular focus on water-energy systems, integrated modeling, and infrastructure resilience, especially in the context of drought and climate change.
Highlighted Articles:
[1] Yan, H., Sun, N., Eldardiry, H., Thurber, T. B., Reed, P. M., Malek, K., et al. (2023). Large ensemble diagnostic evaluation of hydrologic parameter uncertainty in the Community Land Model Version 5 (CLM5). Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 15(5), e2022MS003312. (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1029/2022MS003312).
[2] Eldardiry, H., Yan, H., Sun, N., Reed, P., and Rice, J. (in review). Characterizing How Meteorological Forcing Selection and Parameter Uncertainty Influence Community Land Model Version 5 Hydrological Applications in the United States (Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems).