Biography

2003-2007

BSc. Civil Engineering, University of Piura, Peru

2008 - 2010

MSc. in Desert Studies, Water Resources Management, Zuckerberg Inst. for Water Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

04/2010

PhD. Student at Institute of Earth and Environmental Science

Research

Research Interest

• Estimation of soil water content under different scales.
• Use of ground albedo neutron sensing (or cosmic ray neutrons) in Subsurface Hydrology.
• Mechanisms of water flow and solute transport under variable-saturation conditions, e. g. multiphase and multi-component phenomena in unsaturated porous media under physical and non-physical equilibrium conditions.
• Inverse modeling to estimate soil hydraulic properties and solute transport parameters.
• Direct modeling of water and solute transports in the vadose zone, saturated zone and coupled-simulation unsaturated/saturated systems.

Actual Research in PhD Study

Soil water content is a critical variable for regulation of water and heat energy between soils, plants and atmosphere; moderates the regional climate; and affects processes such as solute transport, biochemical transformations of nutrients, and aquifer recharge. In my PhD project, I study the novel Ground Albedo Neutron Sensing (GANS) approach that utilizes the dependence of low-energy cosmic-ray neutron intensity on the hydrogen content of the land surface materials (soil, snow, biomass, etc.) in order to carry out integral measurements of soil water content data at lthe intermediate catchment scale. This apporach is applied in several experimental locations in Germany.

Publications

Peer-reviewed Articles

• Rivera Villarreyes, C.A., Baroni, G., and Oswald, S.E. Integral quantification of seasonal soil moisture changes in farmland by cosmic-ray neutrons. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 15, 3843–3859, 2011.
• Yakirevich, A., Weisbrod, N., Kuznetsov, M., Rivera Villarreyes, C.A., Benavente, I., Chavez, A.M., and Ferrando, D. Modeling the impact of solute recycling on groundwater salinization under irrigated lands: A study of the Alto Piura aquifer, Peru. Journal of Hydrology (Submitted).

Contribution to Conferences

• Estimation of Effective Soil Hydraulic Properties at the Field Scale via Ground Albedo Neutron Sensing. European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly. Vienna, Austria. 23-27 April 2012. (Talk)
• Integral Quantification of Soil Water Content at the Intermediate Catchment Scale by Ground Albedo Neutron Sensing (GANS). European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly. Vienna, Austria. 23-27 April 2012. (Talk)
• Messung der Hintergrundstrahlung als Maß der mittleren Bodenfeuchte. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Bodenkundlichen Gesellschaft 2011. Berlin, Germany. 03-09 September 2011. (Talk)
• Measurements of Cosmic-Ray Neutrons for Hydrology at the Catchment Scale: Soil Moisture and Snow. European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly. Vienna, Austria. 03-08 April 2011.
• Cosmic-Ray Neutrons for Estimation of Areal Mean Soil Moisture in Agricultural and Forest Sites. European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly. Vienna, Austria. 03-08 April 2011.
• Non-Invasive Detection of Soil Water Content at Intermediate Field Scale Using Cosmic-Ray
  Neutrons. American Geophysical Union (AGU), San Francisco, USA. 13-17 December 2010.
• Non-Invasive Detection of Soil Water Content at Intermediate Scale Using Cosmic-Ray Neutrons. AQUAMETRY 2010, Weimar, Germany. 5-7 October 2010.
• Quantifying Mechanisms of Salinization at the Alto Piura Aquifer: A Field Study and Modeling. First International Conference "Structures and Processes of the Initial Ecosystem Development", Cottbus, Germany. 20-24 September 2010.
• Development of Non-Invasive Method for Estimating Soil Water Content at Intermediate Scale using Cosmic-Ray Neutrons. First International Conference "Structures and Processes of the Initial Ecosystem Development", Cottbus, Germany. 20-24 September 2010.
• Quantifying Mechanisms of Aquifer Salinization at the Alto Piura Valley, Northern Part of Peru. American Geophysical Union (AGU), Fall Meeting 2009, San Francisco, USA.

Thesis

• Mechanisms of Aquifer Salinization at the Alto Piura Aquifer, Northern Part of Peru. Thesis of Master Degree in Desert Studies with specialization in Water Resources Management. Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.