Ariana Smith
Education
- Undergraduate student, Environmental Engineering Co-op, University of Alberta, Canada (2020 - present)
Project
Evaluating a novel rainfall-runoff event identification method – A case study of the Bow at Banff basin
Short Bio
Ariana is a recipient of the Dean’s Research Award (DRA) for Fall 2024 and Winter 2025. In Fall 2024, her research focused on evaluating a novel, objective method for identifying rainfall-runoff events: the Detrending Moving-Average Cross-Correlation Analysis-Event Separation Routine (DMCA-ESR) (Giani et al., 2021, WRR). She applied this method to the Bow River Basin at Banff, comparing identified rainfall and runoff events with observed data to assess its effectiveness. Through her research, Ariana has gained expertise in advanced data analysis and programming, contributing valuable insights into flood generation mechanisms and improving our understanding of hydrological processes.
Ariana’s outstanding work was recognized at the Fall 2024 DRA event, where she received the Outstanding Research Performance award! Congratulations!
In Winter 2025, Ariana is working on refining the DMCA-ESR method for application in cold regions. She is modifying it to analyze snowmelt rates based on precipitation and temperature data. Her experiments will span three watersheds across the Rocky Mountains, from north to south, to evaluate its robustness.