Ben Livneh

  • Associate Professor
  • Joint Appointment with CIRES
  • Director, Western Water Assessment
  • HYDROLOGY, WATER RESOURCES & ENVIRONMENTAL FLUID MECHANICS
  • MORTENSON CENTER IN GLOBAL ENGINEERING & RESILIENCE
Address

Office: SEEC C251

Mailing Address:
CIRES
216 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309-0216

Education

  • PhD, Civil Engineering (emphasis in hydrology), University of Washington-Seattle, 2012
  • MESc, Civil Engineering, University of Western Ontario, 2006

Honors and Distinctions

  • College of Engineering Faculty Research Award, CU Boulder, 2025
  • Research Development Award, Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, CU Boulder, 2025
  • Dean’s Research and Policy Advancement Fellow, College of Engineering, CU Boulder, 2025
  • Data + Art + Science for Youth (DASY) Fellow, CU Boulder, 2024-2025              
  • Colorado Art Science Environment (CASE) Fellow, CU Boulder, 2023-2024              
  • Hydrologic Sciences Early Career Award, American Geophysical Union (AGU), 2022
  • Research & Innovation Office (RIO) Faculty Fellow, CU Boulder, 2021
  • Young Researcher Award, CEAE, CU Boulder, 2020
  • New (Early Career) Investigator Award in Earth Sciences, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 2018
  • NASA New Investigator Award, 2018

Professional Affiliations

  • American Geophysical Union

Research Interests

  • Impacts of changing land cover and climate on water resources
  • Drought and terrestrial water cycling
  • Regionalization of land surface processes and parameters
  • Snowpack dynamics and water supply prediction

Recent Publications

  1. Modi, P. A., Carbone, J. C., Jennings, K. S., Kamen, H., Kasprzyk, J. R., Szafranski, B., Wobus, C. W., and Livneh, B., 2025: Understanding the relationship between streamflow forecast skill and value across the western US. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 29(20), 5593-5623, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-5593-2025.
  2. Elkouk, A., Y. Pokhrel, L. Luo, E. Payton, and B. Livneh, 2025: Modeling the Effects of Aridification on Hydrologic Fluxes and Reservoir Dynamics in the U.S. Southwest, Earth’s Future, 13(9), e2025EF006372, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EF006372.
  3. Cooley, S.W., J. Wang, H. Gao, *F. Yao, B. Livneh, Y. Li, J. Hou, Z. Hao, X. Cai, and F. Ling, 2025: Global Intercomparison of Satellite-Derived Variability in Reservoir Storage, Environmental Research Letters, 20, 084035, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ade903.
  4. Brucker, C.P., B. Livneh, F.L. Rosario-Ortiz, F. Yao, A.P. Williams, W.C. Becker, S. Kampf, and B. Rajagopalan, 2025: Wildfires drive multi-year water quality degradation over the western U.S., Communications Earth & Environment, 6, 489, https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02427-6.
  5. Pernat, M, J., Kasprzyk, E. Zagona, S. Walker, and B. Livneh, 2025: The Relative Importance of Model Structure and Input Features for Water Supply Forecasting in Snow-Dominated River Basins of the US Southwest, Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, 60, 102548, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2025.102548.
  6. Garland, J., K. Baker, B. Rajagopalan, and B. Livneh, 2025: Exploring the importance of Environmental Justice variables for predicting Energy Burden in the Contiguous United States, iScience, 28(6), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.112559.
  7. Modi, P. A., K.S. Jennings, J.R. Kasprzyk, E.E. Small, C.W.Wobus, and B. Livneh, 2025: Using Deep Learning in Ensemble Streamflow Forecasting: Exploring the Predictive Value of Explicit Snowpack Information. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 17, e2024MS004582. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024MS004582.
  8. *Pflug, J. M., S. V. Kumar, B. Livneh, E. D. Gutmann, S. Gangrade, and S. Kao, 2025: Comparisons of Montane Snow Water Equivalent Projections: Calculating Total Snow Mass in Regions with Projection Agreement and Divergence in the Western United States. J. Climate, 38, 855-874,  https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-24-0128.1.
  9. Livneh B., *N.R. Bjarke, P.A. Modi, A. Furman, D. Ficklin, *J.M. Pflug, and K.B. Karnauskas, 2024: Can precipitation intermittency predict flooding?, Science of the Total Environment, 945, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.173824.
  10. Brucker, C.P., B. Livneh, C. Butler, and F.L. Rosario-Ortiz, 2024: A laboratory-scale simulation framework for analyzing wildfire hydrologic and water quality effects, International Journal of Wildland Fire, 33, WF23050, https://doi.org/10.1071/WF23050.
  11. F. Yao, B. Livneh, B. Rajagopalan. 2023: Earth’s large lakes are shrinking. TheScienceBreaker, 9(4). https://doi.org/10.25250/thescbr.brk774
  12. Williams, A.P., B. Livneh, K.A. McKinnon, W.D. Hansen, J.S. Mankin, B.I. Cook, J.E. Smerdon, A.M. Varuolo-Clarke, N.R. Bjarke, C.S. Juang, and D.P. Lettenmaier, 2022: Growing impact of wildfire on western United States water supply, Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, 119(10) e2114069119, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2114069119.
  13. Culler, E.S., *A.M. Badger, J.T. Minear, K.F. Tiampo, S. Zeigler, and B. Livneh, 2021: A Multi-sensor Evaluation of Precipitation Uncertainty for Landslide-triggering Storm Events, Hydrological Processes, 35(7), e14260, https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.14260.
  14. Heldmyer, A.J., B. Livneh, B. Rajagopalan, and N. Molotch, 2021: Investigating the Relationship Between Peak Snow-Water Equivalent and Snow Timing Indices in the Western U.S. and Alaska, Water Resources Research, 57, e2020WR029395, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020WR029395.
  15. Abolafia-Rosenzweig, R., M. Pan, J.L. Zeng, and B. Livneh, 2021: A remotely sensed ensemble to observe the terrestrial water budget over major global river basins, Remote Sensing of Environment, 252, 112191, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2020.112191.
  16. Bjarke, N.R., B. Livneh, S. Elmendorf, N. Molotch, E. Hinckley, J. Morse, N. Emery, P. Johnson, and K. Suding, 2021: Catchment scale observations at the Niwot Ridge Long-Term Ecological Research site, Hydrological Processes, https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.14320.
  17. Abolafia-Rosenzweig, R., *A.M. Badger, E.E. Small, and B. Livneh, 2020: A Continental-scale Soil Evaporation Dataset Derived from Soil Moisture Active Passive Satellite Drying Rates, Scientific Data, 7(1), 1-10, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-020-00748-z.
  18. Barsugli, J. J., A. Ray, B. Livneh, C. Dewes, A. Heldmyer, I. Rangwala, J. Guinnotte, and S. Torbit, 2020: Projections of mountain snowpack loss for wolverine denning elevations in the Rocky Mountains, Earth’s Future, 8(10), https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EF001537.
  19. Kampf, S., B. Gannon, C. Wilson, F. Saavedra, M. E. Miller, A. Heldmyer, B. Livneh, P. Nelson, and L. MacDonald, 2020: PEMIP: Post-fire Erosion Model Inter-comparison Project, Journal of Environmental Management, 268, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.110704.
  20. Livneh, B., and *A.M. Badger, 2020: Drought less predictable under declining future snowpack, Nature Climate Change, 10, 452–458, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0754-8.
  21. Williams, A.P., E.R. Cook, J.E. Smerdon, B.I. Cook, R. Seager, J.T. Abatzoglou, K. Bolles, S.H. Baek, *A. Badger, and B. Livneh, 2020: Large contribution from anthropogenic warming to an emerging North American megadrought, Science, 368(6488), 314-318, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaz9600.