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 Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory: Beltsville, MD
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ARS Home Northeast Area Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) Beltsville Agricultural Research Center Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory People





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William P Kustas

(Bill)    Hydrologist /ARSUserFiles/3166/images/Kustas_web.jpg
**William P. Kustas, Ph.D.*****Research Hydrologist*****USDA-ARS Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory****Bldg. 007, Rm. 104, BARC-West****Beltsville, MD 20705-2350 USA****Voice: (301) 504-8498****Fax: (301) 504-8931****Bill.Kustas@usda.gov**  **Research Interests:**(click here to see a list of current research projects) Modeling radiation and turbulent energy flux exchange across the soil-vegetation-atmosphere interface.
Remote sensing-based models for evapotranspiration estimation over complex landscapes.
Develop synergistic techniques that combine optical and microwave remote sensing for computing land surface fluxes.  **Education:** 1981 B.S. (Forest Engineering) State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY.
1983 M.S. (Hydrology and Hydraulics) School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
1986 Ph.D. (Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences) School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.  **Professional Experience:** 1986 - 2007: Research Hydrologist, USDA-ARS Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory, Beltsville, MD.
2007 - 2013: Supervisory Research Hydrologist (Research Leader), USDA-ARS Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory, Beltsville, MD.
2014 - 2015: Research Hydrologist, USDA-ARS Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory, Beltsville, MD.
2015 - present: ST (Supergrade Scientist), USDA-ARS Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory, Beltsville, MD.  **Honors and Awards:** Fellow of the American Geophysical Union for "Pioneering leadership in large-scale experiments and analysis of land-surface atmosphere interactions", 2003.
Fellow of the American Meteorological Society for "Major accomplishments and contributions to the atmospheric and hydrologic sciences", 2009.
USDA-ARS Beltsville Area Scientist of the Year, 2009.
American Meteorological Society Award for Outstanding Achievement in Biometeorology, 2011.
Promoted to Supergrade (ST) Scientist, 2015.
Recipient of the American Geophysical Union Hydrologic Sciences Award for outstanding contributions to the Science of Hydrology over a career, with an emphasis on the past five years, 2019.
USDA-ARS Science Hall of Fame Inductee "For pioneering research in the theory and application of remote sensing for soil-plant-atmosphere modeling and plant water use in agroecosystems.", 2021.  **Committee Memberships and Offices held in AMS and other Scientific Organizations:** American Meteorological Society (AMS) Committee on Hydrology, 1989-1996.
Chair, AMS Committee on Hydrology, 1995-1996.
AMS Conference Organizer, Conference on Hydrology, 1995.
American Geophysical Union (AGU) Hydrology Section Executive Committee, 1994-1998.
AGU Spring Program Chair, 1994-1996.
AGU Remote Sensing Committee,1990-present.
Chair, AGU Remote Sensing Committee 1996-1998.
AGU Special Session Convener, 1993, 1995, 1996-1998, 2003-2008.
EOS Physical Climate and Hydrology Panel 1994-2000.
World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Commission for Hydrology Member 1994-2000.
Associate Rapporteur of the WMO Commission for Hydrology, 1995-1999.
Member of CASES (Cooperative Atmosphere -Surface Exchange Study) project organized by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 1995-1998.
Panel Member to IAHS Workshop Use of Remotely Sensed Data for the Estimation of Evapotranspiration, 1995.
NASA Review Panel Member for the Land Surface Hydrology Program. 1999.
International Scientific Committee Member for the 2nd International Conference on Environment-Water 1999.
Committee Member for the Anheuser Busch Coastal Research Center, 2000.
Committee Member "Validation of Hydrologic Remote Sensing" Workshop for Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Sciences, 2004.
Publications Steering Committee for IAHS Prediction of Ungaged Basins (PUB), 2007.
Deputy Chair of the AGU Hydrology Section Large Scale Field Experiment Committee, 2008-2010.
Co-Chair of the Scientific Steering Committee and Co-Convener of The International Conference on Land Surface Radiation and Energy Budgets: Observations, Modeling and Analysis, 2009.
International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) Member of the Technical and Scientific Steering Committee for Remote Sensing and Hydrology 2010 Symposium.
Scientific Steering and Planning Committee for the NASA/USDA Workshop on "Evapotranspiration: An Essential Observation for Climate Understanding and Efficient Water Management", 2011.
Scientific Advisory Committee of Earth Observation for Water Cycle Science, European Space Agency, 2014-2015.
Committee member of the GEWEX-SoilWat Initiative, 2016-2018.
Team member of international consortium of remote sensing scientists for the Thermal Monitoring Advanced eXplorer (TMAX) project proposed to the European Space Agency Earth Observation Envelope Program, 2018-2019.
Committee member of the International Group on Earth Observations Validation of Land Products and the Global Temperature working group, 2019.  **Editorial Appointments:** AGU Water Resources Research Associate Editor 2002-2005.
AMS Board of the Journal of Hydrometeorology, Chief editor 2004-2007.
Advances in Water Resources Editorial Board, 2004-present.
Editorial Committee for the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) Remote Sensing and Hydrology 2000 Symposium Red Book Publication.
Editorial Committee for the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) Remote Sensing and Hydrology 2010 Symposium Red Book Publication.
Editorial Committee for the Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Journal Special Issue on Earth Observation Water Cycle Science Conference, 2010.
Guest Editor for the Special Annual Review Issue for the Hydrological Processes Journal entitled “The role of remote sensing observations and models in hydrology: the science of evapotranspiration“, 2011.
Associate Editor of AGU Book Monograph from Chapman Conference entitled “Remote Sensing of the Terrestrial Water Cycle”, 2012-2014.
Guest Editor for the Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Special Issue on Partitioning the Sources of Evapotranspiration: Modeling, Measurements, and Instrumentation 2017-2018.
Guest Editor for Irrigation Science Special Issue on the Grape Remote sensing Atmospheric Profile and Evapotranspiration eXperiment (GRAPEX) 2017-2019.
Guest Editor for the International Association of Hydrological Sciences Remote Sensing and Hydrology Symposium Proceedings 2018-2019.
Guest Editor for Irrigation Science Special Issue II on the Grape Remote sensing Atmospheric Profile and Evapotranspiration eXperiment (GRAPEX) 2020-.  **Contributions, Impact and Stature:** Dr. Kustas has over 390 scientific publications of which 265 appear in peer reviewed journals and 21 are book chapters. He is recognized world-wide as the leading expert in remote sensing applications for modeling land surface fluxes and soil-vegetation-atmosphere interactions. His international standing and scientific stature in remote sensing research was cited in *Scientometrics* (96:203-209, 2013) where a bibliometric analysis ranked him 5th most productive out of the top 20 remote sensing authors world-wide and in the top 10 in research impacts using three different citation metrics. In addition, in 2020 he was included by Stanford University scientists in a publication of a comprehensive list that identified the top 2% of scientists worldwide. The ISI Web of Science citation report computes an h-index of 74, and Google scholar computes an h-index of 90 for Dr. Kustas, exceeding most of his peers in remote sensing and hydrology.  He has mentored 30 postdoctoral and visiting scientists (4 ARS-funded postdoctoral positions) and 10 M.S. and 14 PhD students. He currently serves on 3 PhD committees and supervises and mentors 2 postdocs.  He has been awarded research grants from NASA and USDA totaling nearly $5 million in support for his research, particularly leading large-scale multidisciplinary experiments selected through peer-review. A key component of these projects was the leadership of large multidisciplinary teams. As principal investigator (PI)/Co-PI, Dr. Kustas designed and coordinated large scale interdisciplinary remote sensing field experiments supported by NASA/USDA in Arizona (Monsoon 90), Oklahoma (Washita 92 Washita 94, SGP 97, SGP 99, CLASIC07), Iowa (SMACEX/SMEX02), Texas (BEAREX08), and California (GRAPEX). These have involved the coordination of field- and post-experiment research activities, including multiple aircraft, for dozens of scientists, postdocs and graduate students. The resulting research has made break-through contributions to basin and regional hydrologic and atmospheric modeling using remote sensing.  **Publication Databases:** Google Scholar  **Selected Publications:** (please contact the author to determine reprint availability) (view author's publications/interpretive summaries/technical abstracts since 1999) Brutsaert, W. and Kustas, W. P.  Surface water vapor and  momentum fluxes under unstable conditions from a rugged-complex area.  J. Atmos. Sci. 44:421-431.  1987. Kustas, W. P. and Brutsaert, W.  Budgets of water vapor in the unstable boundary layer over rugged terrain.  J. Clim. Appl. Meteorol. 26:607-620. 1987. Kustas, W. P. and Daughtry, C. S. T.  Estimation of the soil heat flux/net  radiation ratio from spectral data.  Agric. Forest  Meteorol. 49:205-223. 1990. Kustas, W. P.  Estimates of evapotranspiration with a one- and two-layer model of heat transfer over partial canopy cover.  J. Appl. Meteorol.  29:704-715. 1990. Kustas, W. P., Goodrich,  D. C. and  Moran M. S., et al.  An interdisciplinary field study of the energy and water fluxes in the atmosphere- biosphere system over semiarid rangelands: Description and some preliminary results, Bull. Amer. Meteorol. Soc. 72:1683-1705. 1991. Kustas, W. P., Hipps, L. E. and Humes, K. S. Calculation of basin-scale surface  fluxes by combining remotely sensed data and atmospheric properties in a semiarid landscape.  Bound. -Layer Meteorol. 73:105-124. 1995. Norman, J. M., Kustas, W. P., and Humes, K. S.  A two-source approach for estimating soil and vegetation energy fluxes from observations of directional radiometric surface temperature. Agric. Forest Meteorol. 77:263-293. 1995. Kustas, W. P. and  Norman, J. M. A two-source approach for estimating turbulent fluxes using multiple angle thermal infrared observations. Water Resour. Res. 33:1495-1508.  1997. Kustas, W. P., Zhan, X. and Schmugge, T. J.  Combining optical and microwave remote sensing for mapping energy fluxes in a semiarid watershed.  Remote Sens. Environ. 64:116-131.  1998. Kustas, W. P. and Norman, J. M.  Evaluation of soil and vegetation heat flux predictions using a simple two-source model with radiometric temperatures for partial canopy cover.  Agric. Forest Meteorol. 94:13-29. 1999 Twine, T. E., Kustas, W. P., Norman, J. M., Cook, D. R., Houser, P. R., Meyers, T. P., Prueger, J. H., Starks, P. J. and Wesely, M. L. Correcting eddy-covariance flux underestimates over a grassland.  Agric. For. Meteorol.  103: 279-300. 2000. Norman, J.M., Kustas, W. P., Prueger,  J.H. and Diak, G.R. Surface flux estimation using radiometric temperature: a dual temperature difference method to minimize measurement error.  Water Resour. Res.  36:2263-2274. 2000. Kustas, W. P. and Norman, J. M. A two-source energy balance approach using directional radiometric temperature observations for sparse canopy covered surfaces. Agron. J. 92:847-854. 2000. Kustas, W. P. and Norman.  J. M. Evaluating the effects of sub-pixel heterogeneity on pixel average fluxes.  Remote Sen. Environ. 74:327-342. 2000 Zhan, X. and Kustas, W.P. A coupled model of land surface CO2 and energy fluxes using remote sensing data. Agric. For. Meteorol. 107:131-152. 2001. Albertson, J. D., Kustas, W.P. and  Scanlon, T. M.  Large eddy simulation over heterogeneous terrain with remotely sensed land surface conditions.  Water Resour. Res.  37(7):1939-1953. 2001. Kustas, W.P., Prueger J. H. and Hipps, L.E.  Impact of using different time-averaged inputs for estimating sensible heat flux of riparian vegetation using radiometric surface temperature.  J. Appl. Meteorol. 41:319-332. 2002. Kustas W.P., Bindlish, R., French, A. N., and Schmugge, T. J. Comparison of energy balance modeling schemes using microwave-derived soil moisture and radiometric surface temperature.  Water Resour. Res.  30:1039-1049. 2003. Kustas, W.P. and Albertson, J.D. Effects of surface temperature contrast on land-atmosphere exchange: A case study from Monsoon 90. Water Resour. Res. 39(6), 1159. doi: 10.1029/2001WR001226. 2003. Kustas, W.P., Anderson, M.C., Norman, J.N. and French, A.N.  Estimating subpixel surface temperatures and energy fluxes from the vegetation index-radiometric temperature relationship. Remote Sen. Environ. 85:429-440. 2003. Kustas, W.P., Li, F., Jackson, T.J., Prueger, J.H., MacPherson, J.I., Wolden, M. Effects of remote sensing pixel resolution on modeled energy flux variability of croplands in Iowa.  Remote Sens. Environ. 92:535-547. 2004. Crow, W.T. and Kustas, W.P. Utility of assimilating surface radiometric temperature observations for evaporative fraction and heat transfer coefficient retrieval. Bound.-Layer Meteorol. 115:105-130.  2005 Li, F., Kustas, W.P., Prueger, J.H., Neale, C.M.U. and Jackson, T.J. Utility of remote sensing based two source energy balance model under low- and high- vegetation cover conditions. J. Hydromet. 6:878-891. 2005. Kustas, W.P., Prueger, J.H., MacPherson, J.I., Wolde, M. and  Li F. Effects of land use and meteorological conditions on local and regional momentum transport and roughness for midwestern cropping systems. J. Hydromet. 6:825-839. 2005. Kustas, W.P., Anderson, M.C., French, A.N., Vickers, D.  Using a remote sensing field experiment to investigate flux footprint relations and flux sampling distributions for tower and aircraft based observations. Adv. Water Resour. 29:355-368.2006. Kustas, W.P., Anderson, M.C., Norman, J.M. and Li, F. Utility of radiometric aerodynamic temperature relations for heat flux estimation. Bound.- Layer Meteorol. 122:167-187. 2007. Anderson, M.C., Kustas, W.P. and Norman, J.M.  Upscaling tower and aircraft fluxes from local to continental scales using thermal remote sensing. Agron. J. 99:240 254. 2007. Li, F., Kustas, W.P., Anderson, M.C., Prueger, J.H. and Scott, R.L. Effect of remote sensing spatial resolution on interpreting tower based flux observations.  Remote Sens. Environ. 112: 337 349. 2008. Agam, N., Kustas, W.P., Anderson, M.C., Li, F. and Colaizzi, P.D. Utility of thermal image sharpening for monitoring field scale evapotranspiration over rainfed and irrigated agricultural regions. Geophys. Res. Letters. 35, L02402, doi:10.1029/2007GL032195. 2008. Crow, W.T., Kustas, W.P. and Prueger, J.H. Monitoring root zone soil moisture though the assimilation of a thermal remote sensing based soil moisture proxy into a water balance model. Remote Sens.Environ. 112(4):1268-1281. 2008. Bertoldi, G., Kustas, W.P. and Albertson, J.D. Estimating spatial variability in atmospheric properties over remotely sensed land surface conditions. J. Appl. Meteorol. 47: 2147-2165. 2008. Kustas, W.P., and Anderson, M.C. Advances in thermal infrared remote sensing for land surface modeling. Agric. Forest Meteorol. 149: 2071–2081. 2009. Agam, N., Kustas, W.P., Anderson, M.C., Norman, J.M. et al. Application of the Priestly-Taylor approach in a two-source surface energy balance model.  J. Hydromet. 11 :185-198. 2010. Scanlon, T.M., and Kustas, W.P., Partitioning carbon dioxide and water vapor fluxes using correlation analysis. Agric. Forest Meteorol. 150: 89–99. 2010. Li, F., Crow, W.T., and Kustas, W.P., Towards the estimation of root-zone soil moisture via the simultaneous assimilation of thermal and microwave soil moisture retrievals, Adv. Water Resour., 33: 201-214. 2010. Anderson, M. C., Kustas, W. P., Norman, J. M., Hain, C. et al.  Mapping daily evapotranspiration at field to continental scales using geostationary and polar orbiting satellite imagery.  Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 15, 223–239, 2011. Anderson M.A., Kustas, W.P., Alfieri, J.G., Gao, F., Hain. C. et al. Mapping daily evapotranspiration at Landsat spatial scales during the BEAREX08 field campaign. Adv. Water Resour. 50:162–77. 2012. Bertoldi, G., Kustas, W.P. and Albertson, J.D. Evaluating source area contributions from aircraft flux measurements over heterogeneous land cover by large eddy simulation. Bound-Layer Meteorol. 147:261-279. 2013. Kongoli, C., Kustas, W.P., Anderson, M.C., Norman, J.M. et al.  Evaluation of a two-source snow-vegetation energy balance model for estimating surface energy fluxes in a rangeland ecosystem.  J. Hydromet. 15(1): 143-158. 2014. Kustas, W.P., Alfieri, J.G., Agam, N. and Evett, S.R. Reliable estimation of water use at field scale in an irrigated agricultural region with strong advection. Irrig. Sci. DOI 10.1007/s00271-015-0469-1. 2015. Ting, X., Kustas, W.P., Anderson, M.C., Alfieri, J.G. et al. Mapping evapotranspiration with high resolution aircraft imagery over vineyards using one and two source modeling schemes Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 20:1523-1545. 2016. Cristobal, J., Prakash, A., Anderson, M.C., Kustas, W.P. et al. Estimation of surface energy fluxes in the Arctic tundra using the remote sensing thermal-based Two-Source Energy Balance model. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 21 (3):1339-1358. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-1339-2017. 2017. Andreu, A., Kustas, W.P., Polo, M.J., Carrara, A. and Gonzalez-Dugo, M.P. Modeling surface energy fluxes over a dehesa (oak savanna) ecosystem using a thermal based Two-Source Energy Balance Model ( TSEB) I. Remote Sen. 10 (567). https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10040567. 2018. Kustas, W.P., Anderson, M.C., Alfieri, J.G., Knipper, K. et al. The grape remote sensing atmospheric profile and evapotranspiration eXperiment (GRAPEX). Bull. Am Meteorol Soc 9:1791–1812. https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/BAMS-D-16-0244.1. 2018. Knipper, K.R., Kustas, W.P., Anderson, M.C. et.al. Evapotranspiration estimates derived using thermal-based satellite remote sensing and data fusion for irrigation management in California vineyards. Irrig. Sci. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00271-018-0591-y. 2018. Kustas, W.P., Alfieri, J.G., Nieto, H., Gao, F., et al. Utility of the two-source energy balance model TSEB in vine and inter-row flux partitioning over the growing season. Irrig. Sci. https://doi.org/10.1007/s0027 1-018-0586-8. 29018. 2018 Nieto, H., Kustas, W.P., Torres-Rúa, A., Alfieri, J.G. et al. Evaluation of TSEB turbulent fluxes using different methods for the retrieval of soil and canopy component temperatures from UAV thermal and  multispectral imagery. Irrig. Sci. https://doi.org/10.1007/s0027 1-018-0585-9. 2018. Li, Y., Kustas, W. P., Huang, C., Nieto, H., Haghighi, E., Anderson, M. C. et al. Evaluating soil resistance formulations in thermal-based two-source energy balance (TSEB) model: Implications for heterogeneous semiarid and arid regions. Water Resour. Res. 55:1059–1078. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018WR022981. 2019. Kool, D., Kustas, W.P., Ben-Gal,A., Agam, N. Energy partitioning between plant canopy and soil, performance of the two-source energy balance model in a vineyard Agric.  Forest Meteorol. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2021.108328. 2020. Li, Y., Huang, Ch., Kustas, W.P., Nieto, H., Sun, L., Hou, J. Evapotranspiration partitioning at field scales using TSEB and multi-satellite data fusion in the middle reaches of Heihe river basin, northwest China. Remote Sens. https://doi.org/doi:10.3390/rs12193223.2020. Song, L., Ding, L., Kustas, W.P., Xu,Y., Liu, S. et al. Applications of a thermal-based two-source energy balance model coupled to surface soil moisture Remote Sens. Environ. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2022.112923. 2021. Kustas, W.P., Nieto, H., Garcia-Tejera, O., Bambach, N. et  al.  Impact of advection on Two-Source Energy Balance (TSEB) canopy transpiration parameterization for vineyards in the California Central Valley.  Irrig. Sci. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00271-022-00778-y  2022. Burchard-Levine, V., Nieto, H., Riaño, D., Kustas, W. P. et al. A remote sensing-based three-source energy balance model to improve global estimations of evapotranspiration in semi-arid tree-grass ecosystems. Global Change Bio. 28(4), 1493–1515. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16002. 2022.


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