Duke Probability Theory and Applications
   Search Help Login Join pdf version printable version

Amilcare M. Porporato, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Amilcare M. Porporato

Amilcare Porporato earned a Master's Degree in Civil Engineering (summa cum laude) in 1992. He obtained his Ph.D. in Hydraulic Engineering from Polytechnic of Turin, in 1996. Porporato was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Hydraulics of the Polytechnic of Turin in May 1995 and received tenure in January 1998. From November 2001 to August 2003 he was Associate Professor at the same Polytechnic. Since September 2003, he is an Associate Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of Duke University.

In June 1996, Porporato received the Arturo Parisatti International Price, awarded by the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere e Arti. He was Research Associate at the Texas A&M University (USA) in 1998 and Research Associate at Princeton University (USA), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, from 1999 to 2001.

His main research interests regard near-wall turbulence dynamics, nonlinear analysis of hydrologic time series, stochastic soil moisture dynamics and water balance, soil-atmosphere interaction, and ecohydrology.

Since 2004, Porporato is Editor of Water Resources Research (AGU) and has also been referee and reviewer for various international journals and agencies. He has been chairman and convener of the Ecohydrology sessions of the AGU Spring Meeting in 2001 and 2002 and of the EGU in 2004-2006. Porporato has been part of the Italian research groups of Turbulence and Vorticity and of Climate, Soil and Vegetation Interaction, an advisor for the real-time forecasting in the Piedmont Region.

Porporato's didactic experience comprises courses in Fluid Mechanics, Hydraulics, Hydraulic Constructions, Statistical and Physical Hydrology, Environmental Fluid Mechanics, Ecohydrology, Engineering Data Analysis, Nonlinear Dynamics and Stochastic Processes. He has also been the didactic coordinator for the International School "Hydroaid: Water for Development", co-organized by the Polytechnic of Turin and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Porporato is author of more than 80 peer-reviewed papers, several publications presented at national and international conferences and invited talks. He is also co-author of the book "Ecohydrology of water controlled ecosystems" (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004) and edited the book "Dryland Ecohydrology" (Springer, 2005).

Contact Info:
Office Location:  2459 CIEMAS
Office Phone:  (919) 660-5511
Email Address: send me a message

Teaching (Fall 2013):

  • CEE 690.03, ADVANCED TOPICS Synopsis
    TBA, TuTh 04:40 PM-05:55 PM
Education:

PhDPolytechnic of Turin, Italy1996
MSPolytechnic of Turin, Italy1992
Specialties:

Hydrology
Geophysics
Nonlinear Dynamics
Water, Resources and Treatment
Environmental Impacts
Environmental Engineering
Research Interests:

Near-wall turbulence, nonlinear analysis of hydrologic time series, stochastic soil moisture dynamics and water balance, soil-atmosphere interaction, and ecohydrology, complexity in the environment.

Representative Publications   (More Publications)

  1. Molini, Annalisa and Katul, Gabriel G. and Porporato, Amilcare, Maximum discharge from snowmelt in a changing climate, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, vol. 38 (March, 2011), pp. L05402, ISSN 0094-8276 [doi]  [abs]
  2. Porporato, A. and Rigby, J.R. and Daly, E., Irreversibility and fluctuation theorem in stationary time series, Physical Review Letters, vol. 98 no. 9 (2007), pp. 094101 - [PhysRevLett.98.094101]  [abs]
  3. Manzoni, Stefano and Katul, Gabriel and Fay, Philip A. and Polley, H. Wayne and Porporato, Amilcare, Modeling the vegetation-atmosphere carbon dioxide and water vapor interactions along a controlled CO2 gradient, ECOLOGICAL MODELLING, vol. 222 no. 3 (February, 2011), pp. 653--665, ISSN 0304-3800 [doi]  [abs]
  4. Daly, E. and Porporato, A., Intertime jump statistics of state-dependent Poisson processes, Phys. Rev. E, Stat. Nonlinear Soft Matter Phys. (USA), vol. 75 no. 1 (2007), pp. 11119 - 1 [PhysRevE.75.011119]  [abs]
  5. Vico, Giulia and Porporato, Amilcare, From rainfed agriculture to stress-avoidance irrigation: I. A generalized irrigation scheme with stochastic soil moisture, ADVANCES IN WATER RESOURCES, vol. 34 no. 2 (February, 2011), pp. 263--271, ISSN 0309-1708 [doi]  [abs]
  6. Daly, E. and Porporato, A., State-dependent fire models and related renewal processes, Phys. Rev. E, Stat. Nonlinear Soft Matter Phys. (USA), vol. 74 no. 4 (2006), pp. 41112 - 1 [PhysRevE.74.041112]  [abs]
  7. Vico, Giulia and Porporato, Amilcare, From rainfed agriculture to stress-avoidance irrigation: II. Sustainability, crop yield, and profitability, ADVANCES IN WATER RESOURCES, vol. 34 no. 2 (February, 2011), pp. 272--281, ISSN 0309-1708 [doi]  [abs]
  8. Daly, E. and Porporato, A., Impact of hydroclimatic fluctuations on the soil water balance, Water Resources Research, vol. 42 no. 6 (2006), pp. 06401 - [2005WR004606]  [abs]
  9. Ceola, Serena and Botter, Gianluca and Bertuzzo, Enrico and Porporato, Amilcare and Rodriguez-Iturbe, Ignacio and Rinaldo, Andrea, Comparative study of ecohydrological streamflow probability distributions, WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH, vol. 46 (September, 2010), pp. W09502, ISSN 0043-1397 [doi]  [abs]
  10. Rodriguez-Iturbe, I. and Isham, V. and Cox, D.R. and Manfreda, S. and Porporato, A., Space-time modeling of soil moisture: Stochastic rainfall forcing with heterogeneous vegetation, Water Resources Research, vol. 42 no. SUPPL (2006), pp. 06 - 05 [2005WR004497]  [abs]
  11. Rigby, J. R. and Porporato, Amilcare, Precipitation, dynamical intermittency, and sporadic randomness, ADVANCES IN WATER RESOURCES, vol. 33 no. 8 (August, 2010), pp. 923--932, ISSN 0309-1708 [doi]  [abs]
  12. Katul, G. and Porporato, A. and Cava, D. and Siqueira, M., An analysis of intermittency, scaling, and surface renewal in atmospheric surface layer turbulence, Physica D (Netherlands), vol. 215 no. 2 (2006), pp. 117 - 26 [004]  [abs]
  13. Molini, Annalisa and Katul, Gabriel G. and Porporato, Amilcare, Causality across rainfall time scales revealed by continuous wavelet transforms, JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-ATMOSPHERES, vol. 115 (July, 2010), pp. D14123, ISSN 0148-0227 [doi]  [abs]
  14. Daly, E. and Porporato, A., Probabilistic dynamics of some jump-diffusion systems, Phys. Rev. E, Stat. Nonlinear Soft Matter Phys. (USA), vol. 73 no. 2 (2006), pp. 26108 - 1 [PhysRevE.73.026108]  [abs]
  15. Konings, Alexandra G. and Katul, Gabriel G. and Porporato, Amilcare, The rainfall-no rainfall transition in a coupled land-convective atmosphere system, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, vol. 37 (July, 2010), pp. L14401, ISSN 0094-8276 [doi]  [abs]
  16. Isham, V. and Cox, D.R. and Rodriguez-Iturbe, I. and Porporato, A. and Manfreda, S., Representation of space-time variability of soil moisture, Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A, Math. Phys. Eng. Sci. (UK), vol. 461 no. 2064 (2005), pp. 4035 - 55 [1568]  [abs]
  17. Thompson, Sally E. and Katul, Gabriel G. and Porporato, Amilcare, Role of microtopography in rainfall-runoff partitioning: An analysis using idealized geometry, WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH, vol. 46 (July, 2010), pp. W07520, ISSN 0043-1397 [doi]  [abs]
  18. Daly, E. and Porporato, A., Some self-similar solutions in river morphodynamics, Water Resources Research, vol. 41 no. 12 (2005), pp. 12503 - [2005WR004488]  [abs]
  19. Daly, Edoardo and Porporato, Amilcare, Effect of different jump distributions on the dynamics of jump processes, PHYSICAL REVIEW E, vol. 81 no. 6 (June, 2010), pp. 061133, ISSN 1539-3755 [doi]  [abs]
  20. Camporeale, C. and Perona, P. and Porporato, A. and Ridolfi, L., On the long-term behavior of meandering rivers, Water Resources Research, vol. 41 no. 12 (2005), pp. 12403 - [2005WR004109]  [abs]
  21. Racca, E. and Porporato, A., Langevin equations from time series, Physical Review E - Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics, vol. 71 no. 2 (2005), pp. 027101 - [PhysRevE.71.027101]  [abs]
  22. Daly, E. and Porporato, A., Similarity solutions of nonlinear diffusion problems related to mathematical hydraulics and the Fokker-Planck equation, Phys. Rev. E, Stat. Nonlinear Soft Matter Phys. (USA), vol. 70 no. 5 (2004), pp. 56303 - 1 [PhysRevE.70.056303]  [abs]
  23. Poggi, D. and Porporato, A. and Ridolfi, L. and Albertson, J.D. and Katul, G.G., The effect of vegetation density on canopy sub-layer turbulence, Boundary-Layer Meteorology, vol. 111 no. 3 (2004), pp. 565 - 587 [73]  [abs]
  24. Poggi, D. and Porporato, A. and Ridolfi, L. and Albertson, J.D. and Katul, G.G., Interaction between large and small scales in the canopy sublayer, Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 31 no. 5 (2004), pp. 05102 - 1 [2003GL018611]  [abs]
  25. Porporato, A. and D'Odorico, P., Phase transitions driven by state-dependent Poisson noise, Phys. Rev. Lett. (USA), vol. 92 no. 11 (2004), pp. 110601 - 1 [PhysRevLett.92.110601]  [abs]
  26. D'Odorico, P. and Laio, F. and Porporato, A. and Rodriguez-Iturbe, I., Hydrologic controls on soil carbon and nitrogen cycles. II. A case study, Advances in Water Resources, vol. 26 no. 1 (2003), pp. 59 - 70 [S0309-1708(02)00095-7]  [abs]
  27. Laio, F. and Porporato, A. and Revelli, R. and Ridolfi, L., A comparison of nonlinear flood forecasting methods, Water Resources Research, vol. 39 no. 5 (2003), pp. 21-24 - [2002WR001551]  [abs]
  28. Poggi, D. and Porporato, A. and Ridolfi, L., Analysis of the small-scale structure of turbulence on smooth and rough walls, Physics of Fluids, vol. 15 no. 1 (2003), pp. 35 - 46 [1.1521728]  [abs]
  29. Porporato, A. and D'Odorico, P. and Laio, F. and Rodriguez-Iturbe, I., Hydrologic controls on soil carbon and nitrogen cycles. I. Modeling scheme, Advances in Water Resources, vol. 26 no. 1 (2003), pp. 45 - 58 [S0309-1708(02)00094-5]  [abs]
  30. Ridolfi, L. and D'Odorico, P. and Porporato, A. and Rodriguez-Iturbe, I., Stochastic soil moisture dynamics along a hillslope, Journal of Hydrology, vol. 272 no. 1-4 (2003), pp. 264 - 275 [S0022-1694(02)00270-6]  [abs]

Honors and Awards

  • 1992, Magna Cum Laude distinction, Polytechnic of Turin, Italy.
  • 1996, Arturo Parisatti International Prize, awarded by the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Venice (Italy), for the paper “Nonlinear analysis of river flow time sequences” by Amilcare Porporato and Luca Ridolfi.
  • 2007, Professor Senol Utku Award, for best graduate student peer reviewed paper "A theoretical analysis of nonlinearities and feedbacks in soil carbon and nitrogen cycles" in Soil Biology and Biogeochemistry written with S. Manzoni, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Duke University
Professional and Service Activities
  • Editor of Water Resources Research (AGU) 2004-present.
  • Reviewer for various international journals and agencies.
  • Member of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) since 1999, European Geophysical Union (AGU), International Association of Hydrologic Sciences (IAHS).
  • Didactic Coordinator, Hydroaid: International School "Water for Development", co-organized by the Polytechnic of Turin and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Turin, Italy, 2002-2003.
  • National Research Group for Studies on the Impact of climate, soil, and vegetation on flood dynamics, Italian Ministry of University and Scientific and Technologic Research, MURST. 2001-2004.
  • Scientific Coordinator, Project for the study the geomorphological evolution of the Pellice river. Polytechnic of Turin and the Province of Turin, Italy, 2001-2004
  • Chairman and Convener of the Ecohydrology sessions of the AGU Spring Meeting 2001 and 2002 and EGU 2004-06.
  • Scientific Coordinator, Project for real time flood forecasting for Piemonte rivers. Polytechnic of Turin and Piemonte Region, Italy.
  • Primary Investigator, National Research Group for Studies of Turbulence and Vorticity, Italian Ministry of University and Scientific and Technologic Research, MURST. 1996-2000.
  • Scientific Coordinator, Project for the study of a flood forecasting procedure for the Tanaro river, Polytechnic of Turin and City of Alba, Italy. 1996-1997.