Biography
Dr. Sivapalan's research has focused on making predictions in ungauged basins, increasingly in the context of human-induced environmental changes. A basic aim of his research has been to understand observed space-time variability of rainfall-runoff processes at a wide range of scales, including their extremes, and to interpret these in terms of underlying climate-soil-vegetation-topography interactions. Increased focus on hydrologic change has led him to launch the new sub-field of socio-hydrology that aims to explore the dynamic feedbacks between social and hydrological systems lying at the heart of the many critically important water management challenges. Dr. Sivapalan is especially keen towards ensuring that advances in predictions based on socio-hydrologic understanding are used to address acute water management challenges in developing countries where resources are scarce and social and environmental vulnerabilities are intertwined. He has led major efforts towards developing an international network of scientists to address critical water management challenges in the emergent Anthropocene.
Education
- Ph.D., Civil Engineering, Princeton University
- M.A., Civil Engineering, Princeton University
- M.Eng., Water Resources Engineering, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand
- B.S., Civil Engineering, University of Ceylon, Sri Lanka
Additional Campus Affiliations
Professor, Geography and Geographic Information Science
Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Professor, Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Recent Publications
Kreibich, H., Sivapalan, M., AghaKouchak, A., Addor, N., Aksoy, H., Arheimer, B., Arnbjerg-Nielsen, K., Vail-Castro, C., Cudennec, C., Madruga de Brito, M., Di Baldassarre, G., Finger, D. C., Fowler, K., Knoben, W., Krueger, T., Liu, J., Macdonald, E., McMillan, H., Mendiondo, E. M., ... Blöschl, G. (2025). Panta Rhei: a decade of progress in research on change in hydrology and society. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 70(7), 1210-1236. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2025.2469762
Wu, S., Zhao, J., & Sivapalan, M. (2025). A parsimonious daily water balance model based on the proportionality hypothesis. Journal of Hydrology, 649, Article 132414. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2024.132414
Yang, Y., Guan, K., Peng, B., Feng, X., Xu, X., Pan, M., Sloan, B. P., Zhang, J., Zhou, W., Li, L., Sivapalan, M., Ainsworth, E. A., Novick, K. A., Yang, Z. L., & Wang, S. (2025). A Unified Framework to Reconcile Different Approaches of Modeling Transpiration Response to Water Stress: Plant Hydraulics, Supply Demand Balance, and Empirical Soil Water Stress Function. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 17(4), Article e2023MS003911. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023MS003911
Arheimer, B., Cudennec, C., Castellarin, A., Grimaldi, S., Heal, K. V., Lupton, C., Sarkar, A., Tian, F., Kileshye Onema, J. M., Archfield, S., Blöschl, G., Chaffe, P. L. B., Croke, B. F. W., Dembélé, M., Leong, C., Mijic, A., Mosquera, G. M., Nlend, B., Olusola, A. O., ... Xia, J. (2024). The IAHS Science for Solutions decade, with Hydrology Engaging Local People IN one Global world (HELPING). Hydrological Sciences Journal, 69(11), 1417-1435. https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2024.2355202
Dey, P., Mathai, J., Sivapalan, M., & Mujumdar, P. P. (2024). On the regional-scale variability in flow duration curves in Peninsular India. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 28(7), 1493-1514. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-1493-2024