Ali Ameli

Assistant Professor

262 EOAS-South
(604) 827-2662
Accepting students
faculty

I am a hydrologist interested in exploring how water and solutes move and react within watersheds, how these movements and reactions change with climate variability and land-use alteration, and ultimately how these changes impact terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. I currently lead national and international projects on the developments of interdisciplinary approaches for water security assessments and watershed management, in collaboration with geochemists, ecologists, agricultural (and forestry) scientists, as well as water conservation and protection agencies. Through these works, we develop science-based evidence on the interaction amongst hydrological, geochemical and ecological processes to inform watershed management, planning and engineering designs with the end-goal of managing the environmental impacts of climate variability and land-use alteration on groundwater (and surfacewater) resources.

RESEARCH INTERESTS:​
Groundwater Ecohydrology
Hydro-geological Engineering 
Watershed Management
Applied Hydro-geochemistry
Groundwater - Surfacewater & Land Interaction
Water Resources Engineering
Statistical Machine Learning
Functional Data Analysis

EOSC 325 · Principles of Physical HydrogeologyEOSC 428 · Field Techniques in Groundwater Hydrology

2019-Current, Assistant Professor & Director of HydroGeoScience for Watershed Management (HGS-WM) Research Group: Department  of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric sciences, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

2015-2018, Research Associate: University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada & Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden 

2011-2015, PhD: University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada

Graduate Students

  • PhD Geological Sciences
  • MASc Geological Engineering
  • MASc Geological Engineering
  • MASc Geological Engineering
  • PhD Geological Engineering

  1.   Li & Ameli (2023). Upland Hillslope Groundwater Subsidy Affects Low-Flow Storage–Discharge Relationship. Water Resources Research, 59, 10, e2022WR034155

  2. Le, Janssen, Hammond and Ameli (2023). The persistence of snow on the ground affects the shape of streamflow hydrographs over space and time: a continental-scale analysis. Front. Environ. Sci. 11:1207508.

  5.   Ameli, Laudon, Teutschbein and Bishop (2021). Where and when to collect tracer data to diagnose hillslope permeability architecture? Water Resources Research, 57 (8)
  6.   Janssen, Radic, Ameli (2021).  Assessment of future risks of seasonal municipal water shortages across North America.  Frontiers in Earth Science.  https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2021.730631
  7.  McDonnell, Gabrielli, Ameli, Ekanayake, Fenicia, Freer, Graham, McGlynn, Morgenstern, and Pietroniro (2021). The Maimai M8 experimental catchment database: Forty years of process‐based research on steep, wet hillslopes, Hydrological Processes, 35 (5)
  8.  Arsenault, Brissette, Martel, Troin, Lévesque, Davidson-Chaput, Gonzalez, Ameli,  Poulin (2020). A comprehensive, multisource database for hydrometeorological    modeling of 14,425 North American watersheds, Nature Scientific Data, 7(1), 1-12
  9.  Erlandsson, Sverdrup, Bishop, Belyazid, Ameli and Köhler (2020). Catchment export of base cations: Improved mineral dissolution kinetics influence the role of water transit time, Soil, 6, 231–244
  10. Ameli & Creed (2019). Does wetland location matter when managing wetlands for watershed-scale flood and drought resilience?, Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 55 (3), 529-542.
  11. Jones, Ameli, Neff, Evenson,  McLaughlin, Golden & Lane (2019). Modeling connectivity of  non-floodplain wetlands: Insights, approaches, and recommendations, Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 55 (3), 559-577.
  12. Ameli, Gabrielli, Morgenstern & McDonnell (2018). Groundwater subsidy from headwaters to their parent watershed: A combined field‐modeling approach, Water Resources Research, 54(7).
  13. Ameli & Craig (2108). Semi-Analytical 3D solution for assessing radial collector well pumping impacts on groundwater-surface water interaction, Hydrology Research, 49 (1)​.
  14. Ameli & Creed (2018). Groundwaters at risk: wetland loss changes sources, lengthens pathways, and decelerates rejuvenation of groundwater resources, Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 55 (2), 294-306.
  15. Ameli, Beven, Erlandsson, Creed, McDonnell & Bishop (2017). Primary weathering rates, water transit times and concentration-discharge relations: A theoretical analysis for the critical zone, Water Resources Research, 53 (1), 942-960.
  16. Ameli & Creed (2017). Quantifying hydrologic connectivity of wetlands to surface water systems, Hydrology and Earth System Science, 21, 1791–1808.
  17. Golden, Creed, Ali, Basu, Neff, Rains, McLaughlin, Alexander, Ameli, Christensen, Evenson, Jones, Lane & Lang (2017). Integrating geographically isolated wetlands into land management decisions, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 15 (6), 319–327.
  18. Serran, Creed, Ameli, Aldred (2017). Estimating rates of wetland loss using power-law function, Wetlands, 38(1).
  19. Ameli (2017). Controls on subsurface transport of sorbing contaminants, Hydrology Research, 48 (5), 1226-1239.
  21. Ameli, Amvrosiadi, Grabs, Creed, Laudon, McDonnell & Bishop (2016). Hillslope permeability architecture controls on subsurface transit time distribution and flow paths, Journal of Hydrology, 543, 17-30.
  24. Ameli  &  Craig (2014). Semi-analytical series solutions for three dimensional groundwater-surface water interaction, Water Resources Research, 50 (5).
  25. Ameli, Craig & Wong (2013). Series solutions for saturated–unsaturated flow in multi-layer unconfined aquifers, Advances in Water Resources, 60: 24-33.