Carlos Antonio Fernandez Palomino - Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research

Dr. Carlos Antonio Fernandez Palomino

Postdoctoral scientist

Contact

Department of Computational Hydrosystems (CHS)
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ

Permoserstraße 15
04318 Leipzig

Building 7.1, Room 420

carlos-antonio.fernandez-palomino@ufz.de

What I do

My research focuses on large-scale hydrological modelling, floodplain–river interactions, seasonal hydrological forecasting, and understanding climate change impacts in Andean–Amazonian river basins.

Throughout my career, I have advanced hydrological modelling in data-scarce regions of the tropical Andes by developing novel climate datasets, applying multi-objective calibration methods, and conducting comprehensive assessments of water resources under climate change. I created high-resolution precipitation (RAIN4PE) and downscaled CMIP6 climate projection datasets (BASD-CMIP6-PE) and integrated them into a hydrological model calibrated using a multi-objective approach to assess present and future hydrological conditions in Peru and Ecuador, offering valuable insights for water resources management.

Currently, at UFZ, I am working on enhancing floodplain–river interactions in the mesoscale Hydrologic Model (mHM) to improve model performance in simulating streamflow in lowland rivers, hydrological forecasting, and climate impact assessments. As part of my work at UFZ, I also contribute to the ULYSSES project, which aims to develop improved seasonal prediction systems.

Educations

2020 - 2024	University of Potsdam, Germany Ph.D. in Hydrology Thesis: Understanding hydrological dynamics in the tropical Andes of Peru and Ecuador and their responses to climate change
2012 - 2015	Universidad Nacional Agraria la Molina (UNALM), Peru M.Sc. in Water resources engineering
2004 - 2010	Universidad Nacional San Cristobal de Huamanga (UNSCH), Peru B.Sc. in Agricultural engineering (Water Resources Science)

Publications

Fernandez-Palomino, C. A. (2024). Understanding hydrological dynamics in the tropical Andes of Peru and Ecuador and their responses to climate change. Universität Potsdam. https://doi.org/10.25932/publishup-65653
Harifidy, R. Z., Ishidaira, H., Souma, K., Magome, J., Rakotoarimanana Zy Misa, H., & Fernandez-Palomino, C. A. (2024). Multi-gauge calibration comparison for simulating streamflow across the major river basins in Madagascar: SWAT + Toolbox, R-SWAT, and SWAT + Editor hard calibration. Hydrology Research, 55(3), 412–430. https://doi.org/10.2166/nh.2024.188
Fernandez-Palomino, C. A., Hattermann, F. F., Krysanova, V., Vega-Jácome, F., Menz, C., Gleixner, S., & Bronstert, A. (2024). High-resolution climate projection dataset based on CMIP6 for Peru and Ecuador: BASD-CMIP6-PE. Scientific Data, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-02863-z
Fernandez-Palomino, C. A., Hattermann, F. F., Krysanova, V., Vega-Jácome, F., Menz, C., Gleixner, S., & Bronstert, A. (2023). BASD-CMIP6-PE: Bias-adjusted and statistically downscaled CMIP6 projections over Peru and Ecuador. GFZ Data Services. https://doi.org/10.5880/pik.2023.001
Fernandez-Palomino, C. A., Hattermann, F. F., Krysanova, V., Lobanova, A., Vega-Jácome, F., Lavado, W., Santini, W., Aybar, C., & Bronstert, A. (2021). Rain for Peru and Ecuador (RAIN4PE). GFZ Data Services. https://doi.org/10.5880/pik.2020.010
Fernandez-Palomino, C. A., Hattermann, F. F., Krysanova, V., Vega-Jácome, F., Menz, C., Gleixner, S., & Bronstert, A. (2021). A novel high-resolution gridded precipitation dataset for Peruvian and Ecuadorian watersheds – Development and hydrological evaluation. Journal of Hydrometeorology. https://doi.org/10.1175/jhm-d-20-0285.1
Fernandez-Palomino, C. A., Hattermann, F. F., Krysanova, V., Vega-Jácome, F., & Bronstert, A. (2020). Towards a more consistent eco-hydrological modelling through multi-objective calibration: A case study in the Andean Vilcanota River basin, Peru. Hydrological Sciences Journal. https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2020.1846740
Aybar, C., Fernandez, C., Huerta, A., Lavado, W., Vega, F., & Felipe-Obando, O. (2019). Construction of a high-resolution gridded rainfall dataset for Peru from 1981 to the present day. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 65(5), 770–785. https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2019.1649411
Fernandez-Palomino, C. A., & Lavado-Casimiro, W. S. (2017). Regional maximum rainfall analysis using L-moments at the Titicaca Lake drainage, Peru. Theoretical and Applied Climatology, 129(3–4), 1295–1307. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-016-1845-3

Contact

Head
Prof. Dr. Sabine Attinger
Department of Computational Hydrosystems
tbl-modmon@ufz.de

Deputy Head
Prof. Dr. Luis Samaniego
Department of Computational Hydrosystems
luis.samaniego@ufz.de

Assistance
Nora Pabst
Phone +49 341 6025-2367

Sindy Bleiholder
Phone +49 341 6025-1250

Susanne Gangloff
Phone +49 341 6025-2533

sekces@ufz.de

Permoserstraße 15 | 04318 Leipzig

News / Press

May 2024

New research published in Nature Communications by Hussian et al., (2024) emphasizes the game-changing potential of near-real-time and impact-based flood prediction. Their study demonstrates a 10-meter floodplain inundation hindcast of the 2021 European Summer Flood, showcasing a 17-hour lead time for better disaster preparedness. Impact-based early warnings can empower local authorities with crucial data on citizens at-risk for targeted emergency responses.

July 30, 2023

Hitze und Dürre - Interview with climate researcher Jakob Zscheischler
in Deutschlandfunk (only in German, 10:50 min) Link to interview

May 16, 2023

Start of ESA funded project 4DHydro

The overarching objective of 4DHydro is to foster collaborations between the Earth Observation (EO) water cycle community developing novel high-resolution EO data products, and the land surface and hydrological modelling community (LSM/HM) engaged in advancing hyperresolution modelling of the hydrological cycle at regional and continental scales. By involving several European institutions 4DHydro will assess and improve data sets of EO as well as synchronize EO products and LSM/HM models in order to improve predictions of the hydrological system. Overall, it will assist end-users and decisions-makers as well as the EU Destination Earth initiative. The project’s kick-off meeting will take place in Leipzig on 21st of June 2023.

Jan 30, 2023

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The following paper received the ASCE-EWRI 2023 Award for Best Case Study in the Journal of Hydrologic Engineering.

Mai, J. , B. A. Tolson, H. Shen, É. Gaborit, V. Fortin, N. Gasset, H. Awoye, T. A. Stadnyk, L. M. Fry, E. A. Bradley, F. Seglenieks, A. G. Temgoua, D. G. Princz, S. Gharari, A. Haghnegahdar, M. E. Elshamy, S. Razavi, M. Gauch, J. Lin, X. Ni, Y. Yuan, M. McLeod, N. B. Basu, R. Kumar, O. Rakovec, L. Samaniego, S. Attinger, N. K. Shrestha, P. Daggupati, T. Roy, S. Wi, T. Hunter, J. R. Craig, and A. Pietroniro (2021):
The Great Lakes Runoff Intercomparison Project Phase 3: Lake Erie (GRIP-E)
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering, 26(9), 05021020. Accepted Feb 16, 2021.

https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/%28ASCE%29HE.1943-5584.0002097

Dec 1, 2022

Award Poster Masooma Batool

Masooma Batool won the "Best student poster award" at the XXI International Nitrogen Workshop.
This conference, hosted by ETSIAAB, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, brought together nearly 300 papers from authors from 40 countries in Madrid, Spain, October 24-28, 2022.
At the conference, Masooma and her colleagues presented long-term trends in soil nitrogen (N) surplus across Europe (1850-2019). Excess N provides information on the trends and spatial distribution of N surplus in soil systems across Europe, highlighting agricultural areas in Central Europe as nitrogen hotspots. These areas have undergone dramatic changes over the past 150 years. Importantly, we show that estimates of N surplus are subject to large uncertainties, requiring explicit consideration of these uncertainties when analyzing past trends in N surplus.

Nov 15, 2022

Earthrise - Mission Klima
How our research contributes to climate mitigation and adaptation is demonstrated in this WELT report.

Video at www.welt.de (only in German)

05:50': Hohes Holz research station
10:40': FORMIND in the Vislab
15:45': Fragmentation of forests
43:00': FORMIND and climate scenarios

Oct 12, 2022

Dr. Husain Najafi won the UFZ Young Scientist Award for Applied Research 2022. The award goes to him for his excellence and dedication in development of the operational drought forecasting system in Germany and investigation of 2021 summer flood predictability. Hydrological forecasting systems are the fundamental component of early warning systems - disaster risk reduction.

Older news are stored in the news archive.

New publications

Najafi, H., Shrestha, P.K., Rakovec, O. et al. High-resolution impact-based early warning system for riverine flooding. Nat Commun 15, 3726 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-48065-y
Henniger, H., Huth, A., Frank, K., & Bohn, F. J. (2023). Creating virtual forests around the globe and analysing their state space. Ecological Modelling, 483, 110404. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2023.110404

In this paper we present the "Forest Factory 2.0″ algorithm, which generates various virtual forest stands for different biomes on Earth. To demonstrate the potential of this approach, we analyse different forest-structure->ecosystem-function relationships across biomes.
Friedrich Boeing, Oldrich Rakovec, Rohini Kumar, Luis Samaniego, Martin Schrön, Anke Hildebrandt, Corinna Rebmann, Stephan Thober, Sebastian Müller, Steffen Zacharias, Heye Bogena, Katrin Schneider, Ralf Kiese, Sabine Attinger, and Andreas Marx. High-resolution drought simulations and comparison to soil moisture observations in Germany. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 5137–5161, 2022. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-5137-2022

In this paper, we deliver an evaluation of the second generation operational German drought monitor ( https://www.ufz.de/duerremonitor ) with a state-of-the-art compilation of observed soil moisture data from 40 locations and four different measurement methods in Germany. We show that the expressed stakeholder needs for higher resolution drought information at the one-kilometer scale can be met and that the agreement of simulated and observed soil moisture dynamics can be moderately improved.
Mahnken, M., Cailleret, M., Collalti, A., Trotta, C., Biondo, C., D’Andrea, E., ... & Reyer, C. P. O. (2022). Accuracy, realism and general applicability of European forest models. Global Change Biology. DOI: 10.1111/gcb.16384
Pacheco-Labrador, J., Weber, U., Ma, X., Mahecha, M. D., Carvalhais, N., Wirth, C., Huth, A., Bohn, F. J., Kraemer, G., Heiden, U., FunDivEUROPE members, and Migliavacca, M.: EVALUATING THE POTENTIAL OF DESIS TO INFER PLANT TAXONOMICAL AND FUNCTIONAL DIVERSITIES IN EUROPEAN FORESTS, Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci., XLVI-1/W1-2021, 49–55, 2022. DOI: 10.5194/isprs-archives-XLVI-1-W1-2021-49-2022
Bevacqua, E., De Michele, C., Manning, C., Couasnon, A., Ribeiro, A.F.S., Ramos, A.M., Vignotto, E., Bastos, A., Blesić, S., Durante, F., Hillier, J., Oliveira, S.C., Pinto, J.G., Ragno, E., Rivoire, P., Saunders, K., van der Wiel, K., Wu, W., Zhang, T., Zscheischler, J. (2021): Guidelines for Studying Diverse Types of Compound Weather and Climate Events. Earth Future. 10.1029/2021EF002340
Najafi H, Robertson AW, Massah Bavani AR, Irannejad P, Wanders N, Wood EF. Improved multi-model ensemble forecasts of Iran's precipitation and temperature using a hybrid dynamical-statistical approach during fall and winter seasons. Int
J Climatol. 2021;1–28. DOI: 10.1002/joc.7148

Hari, V., Rakovec, O., Markonis, Y. et al. Increased future occurrences of the exceptional 2018–2019 Central European drought under global warming. Sci Rep 10, 12207 (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-68872-9

Schmidt, L., Heße, F., Attinger, S., Kumar, R., (2020): "Challenges in applying machine learning models for hydrological inference: A case study for flooding events across Germany", Water Resources Research DOI: 10.1029/2019WR025924

Jing, M., Kumar, R., Heße, F., Thober, S., Rakovec, O., Samaniego, L., Attinger, S., (2020): "Assessing the response of groundwater quantity and travel time distribution to 1.5, 2, and 3 °C global warming in a mesoscale central German basin", Hydrology and Earth System Sciences DOI: 10.5194/hess-24-1511-2020

Sep 2, 2022

The collaborative project "Standardisiertes Monitoring von Wachstumsreaktionen wichtiger Waldbaumarten auf klimatische Extremereignisse" (MW³) with participation of the UFZ will develop a standardized monitoring system and protocol to record growth responses of important Central European forest tree species with a focus on climatic extremes. Future extreme events and their impact on forest carbon fluxes in Germany will be analyzed using smart models.