Research Interests

My main research intererest is understanding how the natural systems at the landscape scale work.

I am interested in the role of vegetation in regulating the fluxes of water and sediments in a catchment, and the logic behind the distribution of vegetation on the catchment. The distribution of vegetation in a catchment is intimately related to climate, soil properties, and the form of the terrain. On the other hand, soil properties, and climate and terrain form to a lesser extent depend on vegetation distribution.

Vegetation significantly affects the fluxes of sediments and water in a basin, and so the distribution of soil and moisture in the landscape.

For my Mater's thesis I studied gully dynamics in the American Southwest. I constructed a model for gully extension due to plunge pool erosion and implemented it in a landscape evolution model, the CHILD model. With CHILD I explored the circumstances where gully extension is likely to happen in the landscape. Gully extension is promoted where plunge pool erosion is relatively large compared to sheetwash erosion, for example, on gentle sloping surfaces where water discharge is significant, and water flows over a scarp.

In my PhD thesis I explore the interaction between vegetation distribution and the shape of the terrain at the catchment scale. For this I use the CHILD model and remote sensed data from two field sites in Arizona and New Mexico.

Publications

[1] Flores-Cervantes, J.H., Istanbulluoglu, E., and R.L. Bras Development of gullies on the landscape: A model of headcut retreat resulting from plunge pool erosion Journal of Geophysical Research -Earth Surface (2006)

[2] Istanbulluoglu, E., Bras, R.L. Bras, Flores-Cervantes, H., and G.E. Tucker Implications of bank failures and fluvial erosion for gully development: Field observations and modeling Journal of Geophysical Research -Earth Surface (2005)

[3] Tucker, G.E., Arnold, L., Bras, R.L., Flores, H., Istanbulluoglu, E., and P. Sólyom Headwater channel dynamics in semiarid rangelands, Colorado high plains, USA The Geological Society of America Bulletin (2006)

Contact Information

Homero Flores
Doctoral Candidate
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ralph M. Parsons Laboratory, 48-212
Cambridge, MA 02139
ph: +1 617 253 5483
fx: +1 617 253 7475
Email