SHUO WANG

I received my Bachelor’s degree (Hons) from Monash University, Australia in 2008, and then I received my Master’s degree (2011) and Ph.D. (2015) in Environmental Systems Engineering from the University of Regina, Canada. Prior to joining PolyU, I was a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Geosciences at Texas Tech University, USA.
The overarching purpose of my research group is to advance understanding of the dynamics of hydroclimatic extremes and their impacts in a changing environment through the use of Earth observation technologies and physically-based models. Specifically, my research focuses on the following three areas: 1) investigation of the dynamics of weather and climate extremes and their impacts on the environment and society, 2) application of remote sensing techniques, Earth system models, and spatial modeling methods for addressing environmental and water-related challenges under a warming climate, and 3) development of high-resolution urban climate projections to assess future changes in extreme weather and climate events for enhancing climate change adaptation and resilience.
I am always looking for RAs/Postdocs and students working in the interdisciplinary field of hydroclimatology. Please contact me at shuo.s.wang@polyu.edu.hk with your CV for inquiry.
News
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May 2023: As of January/February 2023, our flash drought paper was recognized as “ESI Highly Cited Paper” - in the top 1% of the academic field of Geosciences.
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April 2023: Our work reveals the historical evolution and the future change of spatially compounding drought and pluvial events over Eastern China under a warming climate. This work was published in Earth's Future.
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February 2023: My MSc student, Bowie Tong, won the 2022 Dissertation Award for Postgraduate Students, conferred by The Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors (HKIS). The title of his dissertation is "Machine Learning and Big Data Analytics of Sea Level for Evaluating Formation Levels of Reclaimed Land in Hong Kong". Congratulations!
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December 2022: After the two-round intense competitions, my PhD student, Yamin Qing, achieved excellence in the highly competitive Young Scientist Award in Physical & Mathematical Science, conferred by the Hong Kong Institution of Science. Her achievement was highlighted in the PolyU Pulse Newsletter. Congratulations!
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October 2022: We develop a vine copula-based ensemble projection of precipitation intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) curves for China at sub-daily to multi-day time scales. This work was published in Water Resources Research. A web-based data platform was also developed for China’s Urban Precipitation IDF Curves Considering Climate Change Impacts (http://chinaidf.com).
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October 2022: Our work reveals that approximately three-fifths of global land area is projected to experience an accelerated transition between dry and wet extremes due to an increase in precipitation and evapotranspiration variabilities in a warming climate. This work was published in Geophysical Research Letters.
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September 2022: My first PhD student, Boen Zhang, successfully defended his dissertation entitled "Probabilistic Projections of Hydrologic Extremes under A Warming Climate". Congratulations!
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August 2022: Our flash drought work received widespread media coverage from more than 80 news outlets (source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28752-4/metrics). It was ranked in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric (source: https://nature.altmetric.com/details/124049117#score).
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July 2022: Our compound hazard work was selected as Research Highlight in Nature.
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June 2022: Our work reveals a recent increase in the occurrence of snow droughts followed by extreme heatwaves in a warmer world, which was published in Geophysical Research Letters.
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June 2022: Our flash drought work was featured in PolyU Pulse Newsletter and 2nd Issue of the PolyU PAIR Newsletter.
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May 2022: Our paper titled "A vine copula-based polynomial chaos framework for improving multi-model hydroclimatic projections at a multi-decadal convection-permitting scale" was published in Water Resources Research. We develop a deep neural network-based polynomial chaos expansion that significantly improves the efficiency and reliability of predicting regional hydrologic responses to the changing climate.
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May 2022: Our paper titled "Development of a joint probabilistic rainfall-runoff model for high-to-extreme flow projections under changing climatic conditions" was published in Water Resources Research. Our proposed model outperforms three well-known machine learning models (i.e., random forest, artificial neural networks, and long short-term memory) in the challenging high-to-extreme flow predictions.
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April 2022: Our paper titled "Accelerating flash droughts induced by the joint influence of soil moisture depletion and atmospheric aridity" was published in Nature Communications. We explore the rapid onset speed of flash droughts and underlying mechanisms. The press release was published by PolyU and UT Austin. The paper was featured on ScienceDaily, Phys.org, EurekAlert, Grist, etc.
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March 2022: Our research work on the topic of compound heatwave and heavy rainfall events was featured by PolyU RILS and in the Inaugural Issue of the PolyU PAIR Newsletter.
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February 2022: The Editorial for our special issue of "Hydroclimatic Extremes and Impacts in a Changing Environment: Observations, Mechanisms, and Projections" was published in Journal of Hydrology. This special issue is a timely collection of 50 high-quality articles that cover a variety of topics in the field of hydroclimatic extremes. The special issue received about 150 submissions and the acceptance rate was about 32%. It is one of the most popular special issues published in Journal of Hydrology.
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February 2022: Our paper titled "A stepwise clustered hydrological model for addressing the temporal autocorrelation of daily streamflows in irrigated watersheds" was published in Water Resources Research.
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December 2021: Dr Wang was invited to join the Editorial Board of Environmental Research Communications, representing areas of research relevant to hydrology and climate change studies.
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September 2021: Our work reveals a higher probability of occurrence of hotter and shorter heat waves followed by heavy rainfall in China, which was published in Geophysical Research Letters.
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June 2021: Wong Chun Keung Michael from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering won a scholarship under the Undergraduate Research and Innovation Scheme (URIS) 2021/22. He will work, under the supervision of Dr Wang, on a project titled "Development of a machine learning model for the prediction of extreme storm surges in Hong Kong". Congratulations!
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March 2021: Our paper titled "Multi-decadal convection-permitting climate projections for China’s Greater Bay Area and surroundings" was published in Climate Dynamics. A web-based China's Greater Bay Area Climate Data Portal, http://www.gbacdp.cn/, was also developed to disseminate future projected climate change information derived from convection-permitting climate simulations and to support climate change impact and adaptation research.
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March 2021: Our paper titled "Adapting to changing labor productivity as a result of intensified heat stress in a changing climate" was published in GeoHealth.
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December 2020: Our paper about improving the characterization of extreme storm surges induced tropical cyclones was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
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December 2020: Our paper about probabilistic projections of multidimensional flood risks at a convection-permitting scale was published in Water Resources Research.
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November 2020: Our paper titled "Projected changes in abrupt shifts between dry and wet extremes over China through an ensemble of regional climate model simulations" was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
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September 2020: My student, Chue Cheuk Ying Cherry, won the HKIS Outstanding Dissertation Award 2020. The title of her dissertation is "Digital Geospatial Flood Inundation Mapping with the Aid of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles". Congratulations!
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July 2020: Our paper about developing probabilistic projections of hydrological droughts through convection-permitting climate simulations and multi-model hydrological predictions was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
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April 2020: Our paper about exploring abrupt alternations between wet and dry conditions on the basis of historical observations and convection-permitting climate model simulations was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
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June 2019: Our paper about developing copula-based convection-permitting projections of future changes in multivariate drought characteristics was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
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March 2019: Our paper about assessing climate change impacts on human-perceived temperature extremes was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
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March 2019: Our paper about probabilistic hydroclimatic projections through high-resolution convection-permitting climate modeling was published in Climate Dynamics.
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August 2018: Dr Wang received an Outstanding Reviewer Award for Ecological Indicators.
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March 2018: Our paper about hydrologic ensemble predictions using data assimilation was published in Water Resources Research.
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January 2018: Dr Wang was invited to serve as an Associate Editor for Journal of Hydrology.
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December 2017: Our paper titled "A multi-level Taguchi-factorial two-stage stochastic programming approach for characterization of parameter uncertainties and their interactions: An application to water resources management" was recognized as the top 1% highly cited paper in Essential Science Indicators.
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August 2017: Dr Wang received an Outstanding Reviewer Award for Journal of Hydrology.