Saurav Bhattarai Hydrologist
Portrait of Saurav Bhattarai
Ph.D. Candidate · Civil & Environmental Engineering
Jackson State University · Jackson, Mississippi

Saurav Bhattarai

Data that speak, physics that translates.

I am a hydrologist who builds open tools that carry free Earth observation data all the way to local flood predictions. I make the data reachable without code, refine coarse satellite products to the scale of a valley, and feed them to MRRpy, the open, modular, parsimonious flood model I develop.

Defending February 10, 2027 · Seeking postdoctoral positions
Explore the research Download CV
Email Google Scholar ORCID GitHub LinkedIn
Fig. 0 · A storm on a drainage tree Live
Click the basin to drop a storm. Rain lands on grid cells, runs off, and is routed down a D8 drainage tree to the outlet; the orange trace is the outlet hydrograph. A toy model running in your browser, built on the same idea as MRRpy.
14peer-reviewed journal articles since 2023, seven as first author
1,042Earth Engine datasets opened to non-programmers through the GeoClimate platform
0.81median Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency of MRRpy for eight Bagmati floods, without event-wise fitting
2,643in situ stations used to evaluate SERVES root-zone soil moisture worldwide
01 · Research

Models and open data fail in mirror image.

Physics-based hydrological models carry mechanism but lack coverage. Open Earth data carry coverage but lack mechanism. Each is the other's missing half, yet they are rarely joined, and the reason is easy to miss: calibration. A model tuned to observed discharge absorbs the errors of its inputs in its parameters, so it cannot tell good data from bad, and it needs a discharge record that the most flood-exposed places do not have.

My dissertation builds the chain that joins them. Open data are made accessible, refined to the local scale, and combined into records of interacting hazards. They feed an open, modular model with few parameters, each starting from open data or a published equation. With little to tune, errors in the data surface in the hydrograph instead of hiding in the parameters, and the model becomes an instrument for judging the data that drive it.

  1. Chapter 1

    Access

    Hear what single open datasets say about rainfall timing, heat, and water storage, and open them to everyone without code.

    3 published
  2. Chapter 2

    Refine

    Make coarse data fit a valley: mass-conserving downscaling of GRACE and SMAP, IMERG correction, and compound hazards.

    Mostly complete
  3. Core Chapter 3

    Translate

    MRRpy: open, modular, parsimonious physics, solved exactly and stably, verified against analytical solutions and observed floods.

    On PyPIVerification
  4. Chapter 4

    Apply

    Find where open-data flood modeling works and where it fails: observed, design, long-term, outburst, and forecast-driven floods.

    In progress
  5. Chapter 5

    Extend

    Sediment, sea-level boundaries, and machine-learning surrogates that return the model to the platform, closing the loop.

    Proposed
Read the dissertation overview All research, by theme Two study regions in every content chapter: the data-rich Mississippi River Basin and the data-sparse Nepal Himalaya.
02 · Open tools

Tools anyone can run.

Open science is the thread through my work. The tools are free, documented, and already used in classrooms and workshops.

Python package · MIT license · v0.3.0 on PyPI

MRRpy

Rainfall–runoff and flood routing for any basin on Earth, from a DEM and a storm.

  • Runoff physics you can switch: Green–Ampt infiltration with soil recovery, variable source area, impervious surfaces, or SCS curve number, combined without counting rain twice.
  • Routing derived from the Saint-Venant equations: kinematic, Muskingum–Cunge, semi-implicit diffusive, and local-inertial schemes.
  • An exact, linear-time implicit solver on the drainage tree; water conserved to a median of 3 parts per million.
  • Python, a command-line wizard, a Jupyter form, and a QGIS plugin; runs on CPU, or on GPU 34 times faster at 1.38 million cells.
pip install MRRpy
Documentation GitHub PyPI Interactive course
Animation of water depth and river discharge spreading over the Kathmandu Valley terrain during one storm, with the outlet hydrograph
MRRpyOne storm over the whole Kathmandu Valley DEM: water depth, river discharge, and the hydrograph.
Web platform · Google Earth Engine · Streamlit

GeoClimate Intelligence Platform

Earth Engine's catalog, without writing a line of code.

  • 1,042 datasets and 23 climate indices across nine tools, from data download, climate indices, and return periods to raster math and multi-geometry export.
  • No install and no code: a 30-year daily rainfall analysis for a 784 km² area runs in under a minute.
  • Earth Engine implementations of two ERDC algorithms: GLOBAL-SAM snow depth and SERVES root-zone soil moisture.
  • Used by 16 undergraduates in Advanced Water Resources Engineering (Fall 2025) and in a faculty workshop with 28 registered faculty.
  • Best in Show and first place, Microsoft × AUC Data Science Initiative Data Challenge (2025).
Launch the platform GitHub Paper (EMS 2026)
geeclimate.streamlit.appOpen app
Animated walkthrough of the GeoClimate Hydrology Analyzer: choosing the tool, setting an area around Jackson, Mississippi, running 30 years of rainfall, reading statistics, return periods, IDF curves, and downloading results
GeoClimateA real run of the Hydrology Analyzer: 30 years of CHIRPS rainfall for 784 km² around Jackson, Mississippi, from picking the tool to downloading the results. Step through it.
Earth Engine app

Cooling Efficiency Analyzer

Estimates how much urban green and blue spaces cool their surroundings, from Landsat land surface temperature.

Open the app Interactive course

Learn hydrology with MRRpy

The science behind the model, from terrain and runoff to routing, taught interactively.

Start the course Course platform

Advanced Water Resources

Interactive materials I built for CIV 465: big-data analytics, machine learning, extreme values, and climate projections.

Open the platform Everything else

All software and code

Install guides, screenshots, and the code behind published papers.

See the software page
03 · Publications

First-author articles.

Fourteen peer-reviewed journal articles since 2023, seven as first author; 130 citations and an h-index of 7 on Google Scholar (September 2026).

  1. 2026J13

    Do the wettest days occur together? A global analysis on disentangling precipitation intensity from seasonal timing

    Bhattarai, S., Pradhan, N. R., & Talchabhadel, R.

    Earth and Space Science, 13(4), e2025EA004845

  2. 2026J11

    Rainfall relief or humidity havoc? The boon and curse of precipitation during heatwaves

    Bhattarai, S., He, C., Sharma, S., Kumar, S., & Talchabhadel, R.

    Natural Hazards, 122(5), 172

  3. 2026J9

    GeoClimate Intelligence Platform: A web-based framework for environmental data analysis

    Bhattarai, S., Pradhan, N. R., & Talchabhadel, R.

    Environmental Modelling & Software, 197, 106826

  4. 2025J8

    Quantifying the cooling effects of blue-green spaces across urban landscapes: A case study of Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

    Bhattarai, S., Banjara, P., Pandey, V. P., Aryal, A., Pradhan, P., Al-Douri, F., Pradhan, N. R., & Talchabhadel, R.

    Urban Climate, 61, 102493

  5. 2025J6

    Understanding spatiotemporal variation of heatwave projections across US cities

    Bhattarai, S., Bokati, L., Sharma, S., & Talchabhadel, R.

    Scientific Reports, 15, 10643

  6. 2024J4

    Spatiotemporal characterization of heatwave exposure across historically vulnerable communities

    Bhattarai, S., Bista, S., Sharma, S., White, L. D., Amini, F., & Talchabhadel, R.

    Scientific Reports, 14, 20882

  7. 2024J3
All publications, manuscripts, and data In preparation: the MRRpy software paper (Journal of Open Source Software), GRACE groundwater downscaling, the 2017 IMERG shift, compound heatwave–drought, and compound coastal flooding.
04 · Recent

What's new.

  • MRRpy 0.3.0 released on PyPI, adding a local-inertial dynamic-wave routing scheme.
  • Defended my dissertation proposal before the advisory committee. Read the overview.
  • First public release of MRRpy on PyPI: pip install MRRpy.
  • Earth and Space Science published our global analysis of whether the wettest days occur together.
  • Presented the GeoClimate teaching platform at the ASCE-EWRI World Environmental and Water Resources Congress in Mobile, Alabama; the paper is in the Congress proceedings. Passed the FE Civil exam.
  • The GeoClimate Intelligence Platform paper appeared in Environmental Modelling & Software, and "Rainfall relief or humidity havoc?" in Natural Hazards.
  • Talk at the 106th AMS Annual Meeting in Houston on democratizing hydroclimatic science education.
  • Talk on groundwater downscaling at the XIX World Water Congress in Marrakech; a talk, two posters, and three co-authored abstracts at AGU Fall Meeting in New Orleans.
  • Best in Show at the Microsoft × AUC Data Science Initiative Data Challenge for the GeoClimate platform; NCAR Graduate Visitor Program in Boulder; CUAHSI-SINTER Snow Measurement Field School.
05 · About

Civil engineer turned hydrologist.

Saurav Bhattarai
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Jackson State University, Jackson, Mississippi.

I trained as a civil engineer at Pulchowk Campus in Nepal and came to Jackson State University in 2023 to work with Prof. Rocky Talchabhadel. From 2024 to 2026 I was also an ORISE research fellow at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center's Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory, working with Dr. Nawa Raj Pradhan. My work moves between two very different places: the data-rich Mississippi River Basin and the data-sparse Nepal Himalaya, where the same open data have to do very different jobs.

Before flood modeling I worked on heat: my M.S. thesis followed heatwaves from risk assessment to nature-based cooling and produced four of my papers. Teaching is part of the same project. I have built course platforms, taught Python and Earth Engine workshops, and mentored undergraduates at three universities.

Education and positions

  • 2023–2027

    Ph.D. in Engineering, Jackson State University

    Defense February 10, 2027; degree expected May 2027. Advisor: Prof. Rocky Talchabhadel.

  • 2023–now

    Graduate Research Assistant, Jackson State University

    HICORPS partnership with ERDC and Woolpert.

  • 2024–2026

    ORISE Research Fellow, U.S. Army ERDC

    Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory, Vicksburg. Mentor: Dr. Nawa Raj Pradhan.

  • 2026

    Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) Civil

    Passed April 2026 (NCEES).

  • 2023–2025

    M.S. in Engineering, Jackson State University

    Earned en route to the Ph.D.; GPA 4.0. Thesis: Heatwave Dynamics and Urban Cooling: From Risk Assessment to Nature-Based Solutions.

  • 2024

    Summer Research Intern, U.S. Army ERDC

    Coupled ADCIRC storm surge to GSSHA to simulate compound rainfall and surge flooding.

  • 2017–2022

    Bachelor of Civil Engineering

    Tribhuvan University, Institute of Engineering, Pulchowk Campus, Nepal.

Recognition

  • 2026Academic Excellence Award, International Students Association, Jackson State University
  • 2026National finalist (team leader), Mastercard IGS × AUC Data Science Initiative Data Challenge; top 26 of 106 teams from 13 HBCUs
  • 2025Best in Show and first place (lead developer, GeoClimate platform), Microsoft × AUC Data Science Initiative Data Challenge
  • 2025Honorable Mention (team leader), Mastercard × AUC Data Science Initiative Data Challenge; top 18 of 70+ teams
  • 2025NCAR Graduate Visitor Program, Boulder, Colorado
  • 2024–26ORISE Research Fellowship, U.S. Department of Defense, ERDC Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory; extended on research performance
  • 2024Winner, AGU Catchment Hydrology Subcommittee Early Career Competition (LSTM rainfall–runoff modeling)
  • 2024–25Co-Investigator, Microsoft–AUC Mini-Grant on climate impact training for undergraduates with planetary-scale data
  • 2017–21Merit-based full scholarship, Institute of Engineering, Pulchowk Campus; ranked 19th of about 15,000 applicants
06 · Contact

Let's talk.

I am looking for postdoctoral positions in hydrological modeling and Earth observation from 2027, and I am always glad to hear from people who want to use MRRpy or the GeoClimate platform in research or teaching.

saurav.bhattarai.1999@gmail.com
Google Scholar ORCID GitHub LinkedIn CV (PDF)