Growing crops and raising animals under solar panels helps cool down the Earth and gives us delectable food. But the question remains, are we truly prepared for such an innovation?

As a postdoctoral researcher, my focus is on the water cycle, which tracks water's journey from rainfall to the earth, through rivers and lakes, into the ground, and eventually to the ocean or back into the atmosphere through evaporation. Human actions—like extracting groundwater, constructing roads and buildings, converting forests into agricultural land, and reshaping the landscape—significantly influence this cycle. Such activities can lead to drastic changes in local and regional water cycles, causing water scarcity in some places and flooding in others. The movement of water through the environment is governed by intricate processes. Nevertheless, by monitoring the variations in ground water absorption, we can gain insights into how human interventions affect the water cycle.

Agrivoltaics is an innovative approach that merges agriculture with solar power production, allowing for dual use of land to both grow crops and generate electricity, offering significant benefits to rural communities. However, since it's a relatively recent concept, the full scope of its environmental impacts is not yet completely understood. The effect of agrivoltaics on local water cycles can vary with the climate, potentially decreasing or increasing ground water absorption and surface runoff to bodies of water.

Dr. Han's fellowship is under the supervision of Prof. Steven P. Loheide II who leads the Hydroecology Lab in UW-Madison's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.