Vitali Diaz Mercado

Biography

Vitali Diaz is currently pursuing a PhD at IHE Delft and Delft University of Technology (TU Delft). His research interests include hydrological extreme events, hydrological modelling, integration of models and remote sensing data, development of GIS-based applications, water accounting, data visualization, and machine learning. These lines of research have arisen during different stages of Vitali's professional journey.

He holds a BSc degree (Civil Engineer, 2007) and an MSc degree (cum laude) on Water Sciences (Specialty on Surface Hydrology, 2010) from the Faculty of Engineering, Autonomous University of the State of Mexico (UAEMex), in Toluca, Mexico. His BSc thesis and MSc research were financed and supported by the Mexican National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT). His MSc thesis is entitled “GIS-based design of the CEQUEAU hydrological model and its implementation in Idrisi”. 

Topic

Research Summary

Vitali’s PhD research aims to increase understanding of the mechanisms by which drought moves in space and time. This, to have a better characterization of drought, i.e., higher accuracy in the calculation of its onset, duration, intensity and area. Both process-based and data-driven models (and their integration) are being explored to unravel those mechanisms. Expected outcomes of this PhD research will help to better monitor drought. Although the investigation is focused on Latin America which faces droughts severely and more frequently, the developed methodology is also being tested in other parts of the world, such as India, where drought causes serious agricultural damage. More details of the development of this research can be found at (Spatio-Temporal ANalysis of Drought) STAND project

Publications

A complete listing via ResearchGate

Other information

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