Joan Q. Wu
Joan Q. Wu, registered professional civil engineer and associate professor in biological systems engineering, conducts research in the broad area of hydrology. She has specific interests in modeling of vadose-zone flow (the area between the earth and groundwater) and solute transport. During the last decade, Dr. Wu and other WSU researchers have been developing and improving the USDA's Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) model, designed by the USDA-ARS as a replacement for the empirical Universal Soil Loss Equation.
WEPP has the potential to provide reliable predictions of soil erosion by water, thus helping alleviate associated environmental and economic impact, but its most notable advantages include its ability to estimate spatial and temporal distributions of soil detachment and deposition during an event or on a continual basis. Dr. Wu has collaborated with the USDA-Agricultural Research Service-Pacific West Area, the USDA-Forest Service, and the USDA-ARS-National Soil Erosion Research Laboratory, to carry out studies involving laboratory and field investigations and computer simulation of soil erosion by water.
Contact Info
E-mail: jwu@wsu.edu