Xander Huggins

My research at UBC has two overarching objectives. The first is to assess the resilience of groundwater-dependent ecosystems (GDEs) globally to groundwater storage dynamics across land use and socioeconomic contexts. The second is to use resilience-based insights to refine global mapping of GDE location, type, and function.

These objectives are linked by an underlying goal of conducting interdisciplinary, applied science to improve integrated groundwater management across land and water systems. Specific objectives include:

(i) Globally identify the location and timing of changes in dynamic groundwater storage behaviour and identify regions where changes have preceded or co-occurred with losses in ecosystem resilience

(ii) Quantify large-scale biophysical and socioeconomic controls on GDE resilience

(iii) Develop a global intercomparison of GDE datasets, generate spatially explicit mapping of ecosystem services provided by GDEs, and assess their vulnerability using insights from (i) and (ii)

(iv) Develop a management indicator based on the proportion of global GDEs experiencing resilience loss