research
I study compound hydrological extremes as a PhD student in Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. I'm interested in how severe hazards will change under warming and the vulnerability of people and ecosystems to these changes.
Drought Termination
At the intersection of drought and precipitation extremes is drought termination. Investigating the interplay between extreme precipitation and droughts, as compound events, is necessary to understand the physical processes that drive changes in these events and improve our ability to assess future impacts and risks. Like many compound events, drought termination is less well understood than its constituent components. I use large global climate model ensembles, experiments with the NASA GISS climate model, and observations to investigate how changes in precipitation affect drought termination in the context of future warming.
Flash Floods
Floods are one of the most dangerous and deadly natural hazards. But not all floods are the same. Flood research, forecasting and response often concentrates on large-scale river floods at the expense of faster and often deadlier flash flood events. I am leading a systematic review of flash flood risk and response as part of the NASA-GEO Global Flash Flood Impact team to better understand the global state of flash flood research.
Publications
[8] Wannewitz, M., Ajibade, I., Mach, K. J., Magnan, A., Petzold, J., Reckien, D., ... Nielsen, M. , et al. (2024). Progress and gaps in climate change adaptation in coastal cities across the globe. Nature Cities , 1(9), 610–619. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44284-024-00106-9
[7] Nielsen, M., Cook, B. I., Marvel, K., Ting, M., & Smerdon, J. E. (2024). The Changing Influence of Precipitation on Soil Moisture Drought With Warming in the Mediterranean and Western North America. Earth’s Future , 12(5), e2023EF003987. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023EF003987
[6] Singh, H., Nielsen, M., & Greatrex, H. (2023). Causes, impacts, and mitigation strategies of urban pluvial floods in India: A systematic review. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 93, 103751. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.103751
[5] Lowrie, C., Kruczkiewicz, A., McClain, S. N., Nielsen, M., & Mason, S. J. (2022). Evaluating the usefulness of VGI from Waze for the reporting of flash floods. Scientific Reports , 12(1), 5268. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-08751-7
[4] Kruczkiewicz, A., Braun, M., McClain, S., Greatrex, H., Padilla, L., Hoffman‐Hernandez, L., ... Nielsen, M. , et al. (2021). Flood Risk and Monitoring Data for Preparedness and Response: From Availability to Use. Global Drought and Flood: Observation, Modeling, and Prediction , 289–306. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119427339.ch16
[3] Fischer, A. P., Callaghan, M., Berrang-Ford, L., Nielsen, M., Sotnik, G., Canosa, I. V., et al. (2021). The global adaptation mapping initiative (GAMI): Part 2–Screening protocol. Available at Protocol Exchange https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.pex-1241/v1
[2] Araos, M., Jagannathan, K., Shukla, R., Ajibade, I., Coughlan de Perez, E., Davis, K., ... Nielsen, M. , et al. (2021). Equity in human adaptation-related responses: A systematic global review. One Earth , 4(10), 1454–1467. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.09.001
[1] Berrang-Ford, L., Siders, A. R., Lesnikowski, A., Fischer, A. P., Callaghan, M. W., Haddaway, N. R., ... Nielsen, M. , et al. (2021). A systematic global stocktake of evidence on human adaptation to climate change. Nature Climate Change , 11(11), 989–1000. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01170-y