Munoz-Carpena, Rafael

My training as a physical hydrologist and engineer with a focus on developing computer models has led me to appreciate the limitations we face when modeling complex coupled human and natural systems (CNH). During recent years we have applied advanced global sensitivity and uncertainty analysis techniques to a wide range of environmental models in an effort to identify the components of the models that control model uncertainty, and also as a tool to explore complex system responses in terms of higher order interactions. Using these approaches, we have investigated unexpected coastal habitat responses as a result of climate change scenarios, dynamic factors that control surface water pesticide pollution under a wide range of land uses, and interactions between ecology and surface water flow and their effects in current environmental restoration projects. Currently we participate in an NSF-CNH project that builds on our previous work and proposes that the behavior of a complex CNH system, beyond its current observed state, can be represented by the probabilities of alternative states explored through models of varying complexity, both in terms of added feedbacks and additional components. To facilitate this work, I am actively involved with the University of Florida’s High Performance Computing Center and I am currently one of its advisory board members. We seek to utilize not only novel concepts and tools developed by our team, but also scientific personnel trained by us, and in particular postdoctoral researchers. I currently lead a substantial research group (10 Ph.D. students, 2 postdoctoral researchers and 1 technician) that cooperates closely with the proposal team through existing projects with University of Florida's  Drs. Perz (Sociology), Kiker (Ecological Modeling) and Southworth (Geography).  We are driven by the believe that a quantitative understanding of the resilience of CNH systems will serve to better response to daunting environmental challenges posed by human stressors and climate change on them.