SCOTT W. TYLER
Professor
Department of Geological
Sciences and Engineering
MS 175
University of
Nevada,
Reno
(775) 784-6250
(775)
784-1953 fax
email:
styler@unr.edu
EDUCATION
Ph.D. Hydrology/Hydrogeology, 1990, University of Nevada, Reno,
Dissertation Title: Fractal Applications to Soil Hydraulic Properties.
M.S. Hydrology, 1983, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology
Thesis Title: Field Results of Borehole Infiltration Tests.
B.S. Mechanical Engineering, 1978, University of Connecticut
My areas of focus span the wide range of arid region hydrology, with particular interest in bridging the gap between hydrogeology and soil physics in the newly emerging area of vadose zone hydrology. I have an appointment with the Department of Geological Sciences and Engineering and participate in UNR interdisciplinary Graduate Program of Hydrologic Sciences (www.hydro.unr.edu).
I am currently involved with a variety studies of moisture flux, groundwater recharge and energy balances in the vadose zone. My group is also a leader in the development of distributed fiber optic temperature sensing. We have taken this technology to the study of soil moisture, aquatic stream and lake ecology, cave air circulation and the study of soil temperatures during forest fires. We have just received the go-ahead from the National Science Foundation to develop, in collaboration with Oregon State University, a national facility for the development and dissemination of distributed environmental temperature sensing. Other work includes the development of coupled solar energy/desalinization systems for water reclamation, modeling the limnology of complex aquatic ecosystems, the study of ground-water/brine interactions in terrestrial environments, the development of fundamental models of root water uptake and root physics, the reconstruction of paleoclimates from soil water chemistry, and reactive transport of contaminants in fractured, dual porosity unsaturated media and mine waste materials.
As a member of the UNR Graduate Program of Hydrologic Sciences I have the opportunity to guide and work with over 70 faculty at UNR, the Desert Research Institute and the U.S. Geological Survey in our nationally recognized Masters and doctoral degree programs in both hydrogeology and hydrology.
In addition, I have focused some of my energy towards educating U.S. students on the problems and issues faced by citizens of developing countries with respect to safe drinking water. I lead volunteer graduate and undergraduate trips to Chile, Haiti and to west Africa to train local villagers in well drilling and well repair and am currently collaborating with colleagues at EPFL (http://eflum.epfl.ch/) in Switzerland on a multidisciplinary project in Burkina Faso. At the same time, students from UNR in our Student Association for International Water Issues (http://www.unr.nevada.edu/~saiwi/) and other universities sponsored through our National Science Foundation funded REU site (www.nd.edu/~reuwater/ ) had the opportunity to learn first hand the difficulties faced by more than one billion people who do not have access to safe drinking water.
MOST RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Tyler, S.W., J.S. Selker, M.B. Hausner, C.E. Hatch, T. Torgersen and S. Schladow.2009. Environmental temperature sensing using Raman spectra DTS fiber optic methods. Water Resources Res. doi: 10.1029/2008WR007052.PDF version
Tyler, S.W., S. Burak, J. McNamara, A. Lamontagne, J. Selker and J. Dozier. 2008. Spatially distributed temperatures at the base of two mountain snowpacks measured with fiber-optic sensors. Journal of Glaciology. 54(187):673-679. PDF version
Webb, G., S. W. Tyler, D. Van Zyl, J. Collard, T. Halihan and T. Fenstemaker. 2008. Field scale analysis of flow mechanism in highly heterogeneous mining media. Vadose Zone Journal.7(2):899-908. PDF version
Moffett, K., S. Tyler, T. Torgersen, M. Menon, J. Selker and S. Gorelick. 2008, Distributed temperature sensing of thermal trends and anomalies in the bed of an intertidal salt marsh and channel: The tidal thermal blanket effect. Environ. Science and Tech. 42(3); 671-676. DOI: 10.1021/es071309m. PDF version
Assouline, S., S. Tyler, J. Tanny, S. Cohen, E. Bou-Zeid, G. Katul and M. Parlange. 2008. Evaporation from three water bodies of different size and climates under unstable conditions: Measurements and scaling analysis. Advances in Water Resources. 31(1):160-172. PDF version
Suarez, F., J. Bachmann, J.F. Munoz, C. Ortiz, S. Tyler, C. Alister and M. Kogan. 2007. Transport of Simazine in unsaturated sandy soils and prediction of leaching under field conditions. Journ. of Contaminant Hydrology 94(3/4):166-177.PDF version
Kampf, S.K. and S. W. Tyler, 2006 Spatial characterization of evaporation and land surface energy budgets at the Salar de Atacama using ASTER image classification. Advances in Water Resources. Vol. 29(2):336-354. PDF version
Albright, W.H., C. H. Benson, G. W. Gee, T. Abichou, S. W. Tyler, and S. A. Rock. 2006. Field Performance of Three Compacted Clay Landfill Covers .Vadose Zone J. 2006 5: 1157-1171. PDF version