Research | polyu

Research Interests

Hydroclimatic Extremes
Compound Extremes
Climate Adaptation and Resilience
Global Change and Sustainability
Remote Sensing Applications
GeoAI and Geo-Informatics

Research Projects

PI, Strengthening Urban Resilience to Compound Weather and Climate Extremes, Hong Kong Scholar Program, 2025–2027.
PI, Unraveling the Spatiotemporal Non-stationarity and Causal Mechanisms of Extreme Precipitation in a Changing Climate, Research Grants Council (RGC) General Research Fund (GRF), 2025–2027.
PI, Elucidating the Mechanisms and Dynamics of Flash Drought from the Perspective of Land‒Atmosphere Feedbacks, Research Grants Council (RGC) General Research Fund (GRF), 2024–2026.
Co-PI, Multi-Sensor Monitoring, Geophysical Interpretation and Prediction of Sea Level Change in Hong Kong, Research Grants Council (RGC) Collaborative Research Fund (CRF), 2024–2027.
PI, Unveiling the Dynamics of Compound Extremes with Air Pollution Interactions in the Context of Climate Change and Urbanization, Joint Research Fund, Research Institute for Sustainable Urban Development (RISUD), 2024–2027.
PI, Drought Hazard Assessment and Projection in A Warming Climate, FCE Young Researcher Collaborative Research Fund, 2023–2025.
PI, Incorporating Spatial Heterogeneity of Rainfall Response to Climate Change into the Design of Slope Drainage Provisions in Hong Kong, Public Policy Research (PPR) Funding Scheme, 2023–2024.
PI, Climate-Resilient Planning and Design for Coastal Stormwater Drainage Systems, Environment and Conservation Fund (ECF), 2022–2024.
PI, Integration of Emerging Drought Risk into Hong Kong’s Climate Adaptation Planning and Environmental Policy, RILS Strategic Supporting Scheme, 2022–2024.
PI, Urban Flood Risk Assessment and Prediction Under Climate Change, Otto Poon Charitable Foundation Smart Cities Research Institute (SCRI) Fund, 2022–2024.
PI, Detection and Projection of Coastal Erosion Hotspots Driven by Extreme Sea Levels under a Changing Climate, RILS Strategic Supporting Scheme, 2021–2023.
PI, Integration of InSAR, GNSS, and Earth System Modeling Techniques for Predicting Future Change in Coastal Inundation Risk, LSGI Collaborative Research Grant, 2021–2023.
PI, Improving Robustness and Reliability of Hydroclimatic Projections through A New Multi-Model Ensemble Framework, Research Grants Council (RGC) Early Career Scheme (ECS), 2020–2022.
PI, A Stochastic Multi-Model Ensemble Framework for Probabilistic Hydrological Forecasting, National Science Foundation of China (NSFC), 2019–2021.
PI, Improving Urban Resilience to Projected Changes of Extreme Weather Events, Hong Kong Polytechnic University Start-up Fund, 2017–2020.

Media Coverage

Drought:

Nature, ScienceDaily, Phys.org, Grist, ScienMag, Mirage News, Iowa Climate, PolyU, PolyU Pulse Newsletter,

UT Austin, TEXAS Global, etc.

Drought-to-Downpour Shift:
Yahoo UK, Mirage News, Earth.com, The Daily Texan, Phys.org, WTX News, Newsweek, Euronews, TechNews, PolyU PAIR,

UT Austin, The Conversation, The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), Global Water Forum,

South Africa Today, Mongabay, Morning Star, Phys.org, etc.

Heatwaves and Extreme Sea Levels:

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), Scientific American, Nature Asia, France 24, Scimex,

Phys.org, CCTV, Xinhua Net, People's Daily, China News, Tencent News, PolyU PAIR, etc.

Research Work

Hydroclimatic Extremes

Selected Research Outputs:

Qing, Y., Wang, S., Yang, Z-L., and Gentine, P. (2023) Soil moisture−atmosphere feedbacks have triggered the shifts from drought to pluvial conditions since 1980. Communications Earth & Environment, 4, 254.

Qing, Y. and Wang, S., Ancell, B., and Yang, Z-L. (2022) Accelerating flash droughts induced by the joint influence of soil moisture depletion and atmospheric aridity. Nature Communications, 13, 1139.

Li, X. and Wang, S. (2022) Recent increase in the occurrence of snow droughts followed by extreme heatwaves in a warmer world. Geophysical Research Letters, 49, e2022GL099925.

Chen, H. and Wang, S. (2022) Accelerated transition between dry and wet periods in a warming climate. Geophysical Research Letters, 49, e2022GL099766.

You, J. and Wang, S. (2021) Higher probability of occurrence of hotter and shorter heat waves followed by heavy rainfall. Geophysical Research Letters, 48, e2021GL094831.

Hydroclimatic Prediction

Selected Research Outputs:

Zhang, B., Wang, S., Moradkhani, H., Slater, L., and Liu, J. (2022) A vine copula-based ensemble projection of precipitation intensity-duration-frequency curves at sub-daily to multi-day time scales. Water Resources Research, 58, e2022WR032658.

Zhang, B., Wang, S., Qing, Y., Zhu, J., Wang, D., and Liu, J. (2022) A vine copula-based polynomial chaos framework for improving multi-model hydroclimatic projections at a multi-decadal convection-permitting scale. Water Resources Research, 58, e2022WR031954.

Zhang, B., Wang, S., and Wang, Y. (2021) Probabilistic projections of multidimensional flood risks at a convection-permitting scale. Water Resources Research, 57, e2020WR028582.

Zhang, B., Wang, S., and Wang, Y. (2019) Copula‐based convection‐permitting projections of future changes in multivariate drought characteristics. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 124, 7460–7483.

Wang, S., Ancell, B.C., Huang, G.H., and Baetz, B.W. (2018) Improving robustness of hydrologic ensemble predictions through probabilistic pre- and post-processing in sequential data assimilation. Water Resources Research, 54, 2129–2151.

Coastal Hazard and Risk Assessment

Selected Research Outputs:

Zhou, M. and Wang, S. (2024) The risk of concurrent heatwaves and extreme sea levels along the global coastline is increasing. Communications Earth & Environment, 5, 144.

Zhang, B. and Wang, S. (2021) Probabilistic characterization of extreme storm surges induced by tropical cyclones. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 126, e2020JD033557.

Carvalho, K.S. and Wang, S. (2019) Characterizing the Indian Ocean sea level changes and potential coastal flooding impacts. Journal of Hydrology, 569, 373–386.

Heat Stress and Temperature Extreme

Selected Research Outputs:

You, J., Wang, S., Zhang, B., Raymond, C., and Matthews, T. (2023) Growing threats from swings between hot and wet extremes in a warmer world. Geophysical Research Letters, 50, e2023GL104075.

Zhu, J., Wang, S., and Fischer E.M. (2022) Increased occurrence of day-night hot extremes in a warming climate. Climate Dynamics, 59, 1297–1307.

Zhu, J., Wang, S., Zhang, B., and Wang, D. (2021) Adapting to changing labor productivity as a result of intensified heat stress in a changing climate. GeoHealth, 4, e2020GH000313.

Wang, S. and Zhu, J. (2020) Amplified or exaggerated changes in perceived temperature extremes under global warming. Climate Dynamics, 54, 117–127.

Zhu, J., Wang, S., and Huang, G. (2019) Assessing climate change impacts on human-perceived temperature extremes and underlying uncertainties. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 124, 3800–3821.