While the Amazon River is world-renowned for its massive flow, a significant portion of its water evaporates before it can reach calm water reservoirs or the ocean. Anshul Yadav, a doctoral student in the civil and environmental engineering department at Texas A&M University, has received a prestigious Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) fellowship to measure this invisible loss.
The $100,000 grant supports Yadav’s research into open-water evaporation — the process by which water turns into vapor. Tracking where and when the Amazon “breathes” can help close a long-standing water-balance gap. While scientists have studied evaporation from still lakes and reservoirs for many years, data on evaporation from flowing river channels remains surprisingly limited. In the Amazon Basin, that matters because rivers account for roughly 27,000 square miles of open-water surface area — about three times the area covered by lakes and reservoirs.
“We will compare evaporation from river water with that from surrounding lakes and reservoirs to understand how much it affects regional water availability,” Yadav said. “We also want to identify ‘hotspots,’ or regions where more evaporation occurs or where temperatures are higher.”
Working under the guidance of Dr. Huilin Gao , a professor in the department, Yadav will combine data from next-generation Earth-observing satellites — including the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) and NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) missions — with advanced hydrodynamic modeling. The goal is to create the first basin-wide, 40-year record of evaporation across the Amazon River, covering 1985-2025.
“We are truly excited that Anshul’s proposal was selected and that we now have the opportunity to tackle this important yet challenging problem,” Gao said.
Why it matters
The research comes at a critical time for the region. As climate variability increases the frequency of droughts and heat waves, understanding how much water is lost to the air is vital for those who rely on the river.
The project’s impact is twofold. Scientifically, it helps refine global carbon budgets, as evaporation is closely linked to how rivers “breathe” greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. Socially, mapping these “hotspots” of water loss offers valuable information for navigation agencies, hydropower operators and Indigenous communities planning for a drier future.
By integrating big-data analytics with satellite observations, Yadav is revealing how river geography and climate patterns influence water loss. This work has a broad impact by addressing real-world issues that can influence global environmental sustainability.
Yadav’s proposal was one of only 54 selected from a pool of 539 in the Earth Science Division.
By Justin Agan, Texas A&M University College of Engineering
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