PhD student (doctoral assistant) from 01.04.2021 to 31.09.2026
Research
In my PhD, I aimed 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 inverse modeling, I extract the snow information hidden in the streamflow records to improve multidecadal snow reconstructions in mountain areas throughout the world. 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
- Wiersma, P., Loritz, R., Baste, S., Hafner, K., and Mariéthoz, G. (2026): Data-driven inference of snowmelt from streamflow in 110 catchments across three continents, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-5373, 2026
- Wiersma, P., Magnusson, J., Peleg, N., Schaefli, B., & Mariethoz, G. (2026). Can streamflow observations constrain snow mass reconstructions? Lessons from two synthetic numerical experiments. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-3331-2026
- 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 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2024.130899.
- Wiersma, P., Aerts, J., Zekollari, H., Hrachowitz, M., Drost, N., Huss, M., Sutanudjaja, E. H., and Hut, R. (2022): Coupling a global glacier model to a global hydrological model prevents underestimation of glacier runoff, Hydrology of Earth System Sciences, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-5971-2022
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
- EGU 2025 – Vienna
- SnowHydro 2026 – Jaca
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