PhD student (doctoral assistant) since 01.04.2021
Research
In my PhD, I aim to quantify the amount of seasonal snow in mountainous catchments around the world since the start of the 20th century. While today we have snow stations and satellite observations to help us quantify the amount of water stored as snow, I am interested in the years and the catchments where the only observations we have are temperature, precipitation and streamflow. Through an inverse hydrological modeling approach, I estimate the amount of snowfall, and the timing of snowmelt responsible for the streamflow at the catchment outlet. If successful, this approach can help us recover the large amounts of snow information embedded in the long streamflow records, and teach us more about the influence of climate change on seasonal snow over the past century.
Educational background
- 09.2018-02.2021: MSc Environmental Engineering, TU Delft, The Netherlands
- Thesis title: Evaluation of global glacio-hydrological model coupling for runoff prediction: PCR-GLOBWB and GloGEM (repository)
- 03.2018-07.2018: Chinese Language and Culture, Zhejiang University, PRC
- 09.2016-02.2017: Minor Environmental Engineering, Tsinghua University, PRC
- 09.2014-07.2017: BSc Civil Engineering, TU Delft, The Netherlands
Publications
- Zou W, Hu G, Wiersma P, Yin S, Xiao Y, Mariethoz G, Peleg N (2024), Multiple-point geostatistics-based spatial downscaling of heavy rainfall fields, Journal of Hydrology 632: 130899, doi: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2024.130899.
- Wiersma, P., Aerts, J., Zekollari, H., Hrachowitz, M., Drost, N., Huss, M., Sutanudjaja, E. H., and Hut, R.: Coupling a global glacier model to a global hydrological model prevents underestimation of glacier runoff, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 5971–5986, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-5971-2022, 2022
Conferences
- vEGU21
- AGU2021 – New Orleans
- IAHS 2022 – Montpellier
- International Symposium on Snow 2022 – Davos
- EGU 2023 – Vienna
- IUGG 2023 – Berlin
- SnowHydro 2024 – Grenoble
- EGU 2024 – Vienna
Languages
Dutch (native)
Catalan (native)
English (fluent), CPE C2 2014
Spanish (fluent), DELE B2 2014
French (fluent)
Italian (semi-fluent), CILS B2 2019
Mandarin Chinese (intermediate), HSK5 2018
Contact
Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics (IDYST),
UNIL-Mouline, Geopolis, bureau 3247
University of Lausanne
1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Email: pau.wiersma@unil.ch
LinkedIn
Twitter
ResearchGate