Environmental Internship Program - 2023 Booklet
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Ashley DeFrates ’25<br />
CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING<br />
PROJECT TITLE<br />
The Interface of Hydrology<br />
and Machine Learning:<br />
Generating Better<br />
Information for Decisionmakers<br />
and Educating the<br />
Decision-makers of the<br />
Future<br />
ORGANIZATION(S)<br />
Integrated GroundWater<br />
Modeling Center (IGWMC),<br />
Department of Civil<br />
and <strong>Environmental</strong><br />
Engineering, Princeton<br />
University<br />
LOCATION(S)<br />
Princeton, New Jersey<br />
MENTOR(S)<br />
Reed Maxwell,<br />
William and Edna Macaleer<br />
Professor of Engineering<br />
and Applied Science,<br />
Professor of Civil and<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong> Engineering<br />
and the High Meadows<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong> Institute;<br />
Lisa Gallagher, Education<br />
and Outreach Specialist,<br />
IGWMC, Department of Civil<br />
and <strong>Environmental</strong><br />
Engineering<br />
Meteorological forcings are the weather inputs<br />
that drive hydrological models and govern the<br />
behavior of water in hydrologic simulations.<br />
Therefore, the accuracy of a model is heavily<br />
dependent on the accuracy of the forcings used<br />
in its development. My research focused on<br />
analyzing the temperature and precipitation<br />
forcing products used in the ParFlow-CONUS2<br />
model, an integrated hydrologic model developed<br />
by the Integrated GroundWater Modeling Center<br />
that resolves groundwater flow across the United<br />
States at 1 km resolution. I compared forcing<br />
products to observed data for multiple water<br />
years, making visual representations of spatial<br />
statistics such as relative bias. In addition to<br />
this research, I also helped develop and deliver<br />
educational modules at The Watershed Institute’s<br />
Watershed Academy for High School Students.<br />
It is becoming increasingly important that<br />
we understand our groundwater resources as<br />
the impacts of climate change persist, making<br />
both hydrologic modeling and scientific<br />
education crucial in the fight for a sustainable<br />
future. Engaging in this morally fulfilling<br />
work while improving my coding and scientific<br />
communication skills made this project a<br />
rewarding experience that inspired me to pursue<br />
further studies in hydrology.<br />
99<br />
WATER AND THE<br />
ENVIRONMENT