Defense Presentation Title: Linking Forests and Freshwater across the Southern Appalachian Forest Landscape

Advisor: Dr. Katherine Martin, faculty fellow and assistant professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources

Abstract: Forests act as natural water towers, provisioning freshwater downstream to support aquatic biodiversity and supply drinking water, agriculture and energy. Understanding how climate change will impact relationships between forests and water is important to plan for a future that will minimize ecological and societal water stress. However, quantifying changes in the forest water budget across montane landscapes is difficult due to a lack of in-situ information, complex topography and changing forest dynamics. This dissertation leverages remote sensing to detect changes in forest water cycling and then expands species ecohydrology in a forest landscape model to improve our ability to model the effects of changing forests on hydrology under current and future climates in the southern Appalachian mountains.