Spotlights
Jamshid Jalali defends thesis modeling water availability for agriculture
Jamshid Jalali successfully defended his Master's thesis on November 22, 2024 titled "Assessing contributions of agricultural land use and climate change to water scarcity in Serbia". His thesis committee included AWRI's Dr. Sean Woznicki, Dr. Nishan Bhattarai (University of Oklahoma), and Dr. Subhasis Giri (Rutgers University).
Climate change is making water supply for agriculture increasingly unpredictable, particularly in Serbia's Danube River Basin, where most crops rely on rainfall rather than irrigation. Jamshid's research used advanced hydrological modeling and climate projections to examine how shifting weather patterns will impact water availability for agriculture between 2041 and 2070 compared to the observed period of 1991-2020. The findings reveal that declining rainfall and rising temperatures will intensify soil moisture scarcity and crop water stress, especially for rainfed crops during the critical growing season. Irrigated systems, which currently offset some of this stress, will require 10-20% more water to maintain productivity. This increased irrigation demand could strain already limited freshwater resources, highlighting a difficult balance between meeting agricultural needs and conserving water. These results emphasize the need for innovative water management strategies, expanded irrigation systems, and increased agricultural efficiency to ensure food security in a changing climate.
Jamshid has accepted a water resources engineer position at Geosyntec Consultant in Tampa, FL, where he will be working on diverse worldwide water issues and addressing them using hydrodynamic, hydrologic, and machine learning models.
Share this spotlight
Return to the listing of spotlights.