Venkat Sridhar, P.E.

Courses Taught Last 5 Years

• Engineering Hydrology
• Hydrometeorology
• GIS in Water Resources

Program Focus

My research focus covers climate change impact assessment at river basin scales; water management and decision support; vegetation dynamics at the watershed, regional, and continental scale; streamflow modeling; surface water-ground water interactions; and GIS and remote sensing applications in hydrology. A clear knowledge about the interactions of land surface and subsurface processes, as well as human-induced activities in a changing climate, including farming, range, forestry, and other agricultural practices, with ecosystem integrity is needed in order to maintain the water resources, ecosystem health, and to understand the impact of climate change and variability.

I am working towards improving our understanding on the climate change impacts on hydrology and water resources management in various river basins in the US and in the developing world. The timing and volume of runoff is expected to show some shifts which in turn will impact our water management decisions. We adapt and modify a number of macroscale hydrological models such as Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model, Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF)-Noah Land Surface Model, Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) driven by a suite of climate model-derived precipitation and temperature scenarios to understand the water balance at the river basin scales. Additionally, we are developing a systems dynamics model to link the hydrologic streamflow forecasts with decision support tools to provide scenarios for water resources management to optimize the allocation for competing demands (irrigation, hydropower, ecological flows, and navigation).

International Programs

USAID Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research (PEER) Project in collaboration with Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), 2020-2021: This research study is designed to recommend adaptation strategies that will help manage the risks due to climate change in the agricultural sector of the Bhavani River basin in Tamil Nadu. I am responsible for co-advising a PhD student from Asian Institute of Technology who is working on the project and mentoring TNAU researchers and provide expertise in climate change modeling work.

Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC) Project, 2019-2021, Serve as a mentor for studying flood modeling with National Institute of Technology Warangal along with Texas A&M University.

Fulbright Specialist, 2018-2021, The Fulbright-Nehru Specialist grant is awarded through the U. S. Department of State and the United States-India Educational Foundation (USIEF) to collaborate with professional counterparts on research, capacity building and outreach activities in India.

Information Technology Research Academy, Government of India, 2014-2019 Measurement to Management (M2M): Improved Water Use Efficiency and Agricultural Productivity through Experimental Sensor Network at Indian Institute of Technology. Developed techniques to measure and monitor surface water and groundwater resources including capacity building through education and outreach.

National Science Foundation PIRE project, 2015-2020. Advancing research collaboration to study the land use impacts on water resources and receiving environment. In the first phase of this project, Sridhar participated in the workshop organized by Virginia Tech researchers at Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in March, 2016 and interacted with other stakeholders of the project and countries involved (Switzerland, India, China, Portugal, Philippines and U.S.). This project engaged students from Virginia Tech and partner institutions to visit water treatment plants and sampling locations and helped in building solid foundation for research related to water, environment and public health. With collaborators from Civil and Engineering at Virginia Tech and Clemson University,  we have developed a water quality model to simulate land use impacts on pollutant loading to wastewater treatment plants and the spread of antibiotic resistant genes in the receiving environment in India, Sweden and the U.S.

Mekong Basin Project, 2017-2022. Collaboration with Michigan State University as a lead partner, efforts are underway to build research partnership for the NASA Interdisciplinary Sciences-funded project on water-energy-food nexus in the Mekong basin along with Nakhon Phanom University, Thailand and National University of Laos, Laos PDR and Vietnam National Mekong Committee. This project also facilitated cooperation between the member countries (Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam) and field visits in 2018 and 2019. My research group is developing a systems dynamics model by integrating reservoirs in the food-energy-water nexus assessment.

Selected international workshops and short courses organized

• Conducted a workshop titled "Hydropower in Kazakhstan: A Review" at the S. Seifullin Kazakh Agrotechnical Research University (Virtual), II International Summer School-2023 on the topic "Innovative technologies and digitalization in power supply systems", organized by the Faculty of Energy from May 10 to May 22, 2023
• Offered a guest lecture titled "Hydrological Modeling-Tools and Demonstration" at the Royal University of Agriculture, Phnom Penh, Cambodia on the workshop "Introduction to Remote Sensing and Applications" from Febuary 8 to Febuary 10, 2023
• Offered a short course titled "Understanding the Hydrologic Extremes Under Changing Climate" at National Institute of Technology Warangal through SPARC project, Febuary 7 to Febuary 12, 2023
• Offered a 3-day workshop “From Knowledge to Action: A Vision for Resilient Rural India” under the aegis of SPARC Ministry of Human Resources Development Government of India at the School of Infrastructure, Indian Institute of Technology, Bhubaneshwar, India and the participating institutions from the US include Virginia Tech, Texas A&M University, Oregon State University, Indiana University, January 7 to 9, 2020
• Offered a short course titled “Modeling and Analysis of Hydrologic Extremes” at National Institute of Technology, Warangal, India through SPARC project, December 12 to December 17, 2019
• Offered a short course titled “Hydrological and Water Resources Modelling of River basins Under Climate Change Scenarios” at National Institute of Technology, Warangal, India through SPARC project, July 3 to July 4 2019
• Offered a short course titled “Water Resources in a Changing Climate” in Ashoka Trust for Ecology and Environment (ATREE), Bangalore India through the Fulbright Scholar program in January 2019
• Offered a short course titled “Geospatial Technologies for Hydrological Modeling” at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur sponsored by India Information Technology Research Academy, New Delhi, June 16 to June 27, 2014

• Venkata Rao, G., V.R. Keesara, V. Sridhar, R. Srinivasan, N. V. Umamahesh, D. Pratap. 2024. Real-Time Flood Forecasting Using an Integrated Hydrologic and Hydraulic Model for the Vamsadhara and Nagavali Basins, Eastern India, Natural Hazards, Springer, doi: 10.1007/s11069-023-06366-3
• Kotrike, T., V.R. Keesara, V. Sridhar. 2024. Analysis of the Causes of Extreme Precipitation in Major Cities of Peninsular India Using Remotely Sensed Data, Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment, 33, 101082, doi: 10.1016/j.rsase.2023.101082
• Loukika, K.N., V. R. Keesara, E. Buri, V. Sridhar. 2023. Future Prediction of Scenario Based Land Use Land Cover (LULC) using Dyna-CLUE Model for a River Basin, Ecological Informatics, 77, doi: 10.1016/j.ecoinf.2023.102223
• Ramabrahmam, K., V. R. Keesara, R. Srinivasan, D. Pratap, V. Sridhar. 2023. Climate Change Impact on Water Resources of Tank Cascade Systems in the Godavari sub-basin, India, Water Resources Management, doi: 10.1007/s11269-023-03496-y.
  
• Kamalamma, A.G., M. S. Babel, V. Sridhar, V. Geethalakshmi. 2023. A novel approach to vulnerability assessment for adaptation planning in agriculture: An Application to the Lower Bhavani Irrigation Project, India, Climate Services, 30, 100358, doi:10.1016/j.cliser.2023.100358.
• Nagireddy, N., V.R. Keesara, V. Sridhar, R. Srinivasan. 2022. Streamflow and Sediment Yield Analysis of Two Medium Sized East Flowing River Basins of India, Water, 14 (19), 2960, doi:10.3390/w14192960.
• Venkata Rao, G., V.R. Keesara, V. Sridhar, R. Srinivasan, N. V. Umamahesh, D. Pratap. 2022. Evaluation of GFS based Rainfall Forecasts Over the Nagavali and Vamsadhara Basins, India, Atmospheric Research, 278, 106326, doi: 10.1016/j.atmosres.2022.106326.
• Kang, H., V. Sridhar. 2022. Climate change impacts on flash droughts in the Mekong River Basin, Science of the Total Environment, 838, Part 2, 155845, doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.155845
  
• Kang, H., V. Sridhar, M. Mainuddin, L.D. Trung. 2021. Impact of climate change on the drought and rice productivity of the Lower Mekong Basin, Nature Scientific Reports, 11:9383, doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-88405-2  
• Satish Kumar, K., E. Venkata Ratnam, V. Sridhar. 2021. Tracking seasonal fluctuations of drought indices with GRACE terrestrial water storage over major river basins in South India, Science of the Total Environment, 763, doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142994 
• Kang, H., and V. Sridhar. 2021. A novel approach combining simulated soil moisture and stochastic techniques to forecasting drought in the Mekong River basin, International Journal of Climatology, 41, S1, E2497-E2516, doi.org/10.1002/joc.6860
• Ali, S.A., V. Sridhar. 2019. Deriving the dam characteristics from remote sensing to assess the cascading effect of dams in the Mekong River Basin, Remote Sensing, 11, 2872, doi.org/10.3390/rs11232872
  
• Kang, H., V. Sridhar. 2019. Drought assessment with a surface-groundwater coupled model in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, Environmental Modelling & Software, 119, 379-389, doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2019.07.002
• Sridhar, V., S.A. Ali, V. Lakshmi. 2019. Assessment and validation of total water storage in the Chesapeake Bay watershed using GRACE, Journal of Hydrology Regional Studies, 24, doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2019.100607
• Kang, H., V. Sridhar, B. Mills, W. C. Hession, J.A. Ogejo. 2019. Economy-wide climate change impacts on green water droughts based on the hydrologic simulations, Agricultural Systems, 171, 76-88, doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2019.01.006

Selected Recent Funding

• Field Investigation to assess the glacier-melt induced peak flows and landslide in the Chamoli region, Uttarakhand, India, NSF, 2021-2023
• Collaborative adaptation pathways for agricultural water management in the Bhavani Basin, India; Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research (PEER), USAID,  2021-2023
•  Real-time Forecasting of floods using SWAT model, Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC), A Government of India Initiative, 2019-2023
•  The economic impacts of salinity intrusion on coastal rice production: A comprehensive micro-macro analysis, USDA NIFA,  2019-2023
•  The Coupling of Land, Water, and Livelihoods under a Changing Climate in the Lower Mekong Region, National Aeronautics and Space Administration,  2017-2022
•  Transportation Infrastructure Flooding: Sensing water levels and clearing and rerouting traffic out of danger, Mid-Atlantic Transportation Sustainability Center Regional University Transportation Center Consortium (MATS-UTC), Virginia Center for Transportation Innovation and Research, 2016-2017
•  Impact of Climate Change and Sea Level Rise on Stormwater Design and Reoccurring Flooding Problems in the Hampton Roads Region, Competitive Collaborative Proposals from Mid-Atlantic Transportation Sustainability Center Regional University Transportation Center Consortium led by the University of Virginia;  2015-2016