SUT Student Samirasadat Soltani Wins University of Strasbourg’s Scholarship
Samira Sadat Soltani is a PhD student of Civil Engineering at Sharif University of Technology whose research area is related to groundwater storage estimation using remotely- sensed data and hydrological models. Her outstanding performance in this study resulted in the publication of an innovative paper in the prestigious Journal of Hydrology. Ms. Soltani also succeeded in grasping the opportunity to study Dual Degree between Sharif University of Technology and University of Strasbourg. She recently received a scholarship (€1250) for covering travel expenses to France from the University of Strasbourg. She has also applied for a scholarship for living expenses in France, which is hoped to be accepted.
She commented on her research study as follows. “Global climate change and anthropogenic impacts lead to the alteration in the water cycle, water resource availability and the frequency and intensity of floods and droughts. As a result, developing effective techniques such as hydrological modeling is essential to monitor and predict water storage changes. However, inaccuracies and uncertainties in different aspects of modeling, due to simplification of meteorological physical processes, data limitation and inaccurate climate forcing data limit the reliability of hydrological models. Satellite remote sensing dataset specially, Terrestrial Water Storage (TWS) data which can be obtained from Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) provides a new and valuable source of data which can augment our understanding of the hydrologic cycle. Merging these new observations with hydrological models can effectively enhance the model performance using advanced statistical and numerical methods, which is known as data assimilation. Assimilation of GRACE TWS data into hydrological models is a difficult challenge as provision should be made for handling the errors and then merging them with hydrological models using an efficient assimilation technique.”
Her supervisor, Prof. Behzad Ataie-Ashtiani, has collaborated extensively with the Laboratory of Hydrology and Geochemistry of Strasbourg (LHyGeS) in the past five years. One of his master students with a scholarship from the University of Strasbourg is currently taking a six-month research opportunity in France. Another group of two master students also experienced the same opportunity. In addition, two of his master students are pursuing doctoral studies at the University of Strasbourg with full scholarships. He carried out a plethora of projects, namely, modeling of saltwater intrusion in coastal region, modelling variable density flow problems in heterogeneous porous media, using groundwater resources for energy production, and double convection flow modeling due to heat and differences in concentration of solute.
SUT congratulates Samira on her achievement and wish her success in her academic journey!