Institute at Brown for Environment and Society

Breadcrumb

Fangfang Yao

Postdoctoral Research Associate in Environment and Society
fangfang_yao@brown.edu

Biography

Dr. Fangfang Yao is a postdoctoral associate at the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society (IBES) at Brown University. His research at Brown with Dr. Larry Smith focuses on tracking melting water discharge from snowpacks and glaciers using new data from the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission. Before joining Brown, he completed two postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Virginia where he focused his research on the trends and drivers of global lake water storage variability, reservoir sedimentation, environmental consequences of freshwater changes, and hydrological sensitivity of human water use from impoundments. He earned his Ph.D. in Geography from Kansas State University, an M.S. in Geographic Information Systems from the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a B.S. in Geographic Information Systems from Anhui Normal University in China.

Selected publications

  • F. Yao, B. Livneh, B. Rajagopalan, J. Wang, K. Yang, C. Wang, J.-F. Crétaux, J.T. Minear. 2024. Leveraging ICESat-2 and Landsat for global-scale, multi-decadal reconstruction of lake water levels. Water Resources Research, 60, e2023WR035721. doi:10.1029/2023WR035721.     

  • F. Yao, J.T. Minear, B. Rajagopalan, C. Wang, K. Yang, B. Livneh. 2023. Estimating reservoir sedimentation rates and storage capacity losses using high-resolution Sentinel-2 satellite and water level data. Geophysical Research Letters, 50(16), e2023GL103524. doi:10.1029/2023GL103524.

  • C. Wang, T. M. Pavelsky, E. D. Kyzivat, F. Garcia-Tigreros, E. Podest, F. Yao, X. Yang, S. Zhang, C. Song, T. Langhorst, W. Dolan, M.R. Kurek, M.E. Harlan, L.C. Smith, D.E. Dutman, R.G.M. Spencer, C.J. Gleason, K.P. Wichland, R.G. Striegl, D.L. Peters. 2023. Quantification of wetland vegetation communities features with airborne AVIRIS-NG, UAVSAR, and UAV LiDAR data in Peace-Athabasca Delta. Remote Sensing of Environment, 294, 113646, doi:10.1016/j.rse.2023.113646.

  • K. Yang, A. John, D. Shean, J. D. Lundquist, Z. Sun, F. Yao, S. Todoran, N. Cristea. 2023. High-resolution mapping of snow cover in montane meadows and forests using Planet imagery and machine learning. Frontiers in Water, 5, 63, doi:10.3389/frwa.2023.1128758.

  • F. Yao, B. Livneh, B. Rajagopalan, J. Wang, J.-F. Crétaux, Y. Wada, M. Berge-Nguyen. 2023. Satellites reveal widespread decline in global lake water storage. Science, 380(6646), 743-749, doi: 10.1126/science.abo2812.