Kate Brauman

Kate Brauman is the lead scientist for Global Water Initiative at the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, where she studies the coupled interaction of land-use change and water resources. Kate brings together the study of hydrology and plant-water relations with economics and policy to explore the effects of land cover on water delivery to downstream users. She is focused on hydrologic ecosystem services and global water availability and use, particularly by agriculture.

Kate received her doctorate from the Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources at Stanford University, where she designed and led a project on the Big Island of Hawai’i quantifying the effects of pasture and forest on groundwater recharge and calculating the associated costs of water extraction