Yonggen Zhang 

Associate Professor and PhD Supervisor from School of Earth System Science, Tianjin University

Expertise Summary

Dr. Zhang specializes in computational and experimental approaches to solve fundamental physical problems in subsurface porous media, such as soil and groundwater. His work applies to practical engineering challenges including groundwater resources, soil and groundwater environments, and energy extraction. Key contributions include the development of the Rosetta3 model for predicting soil hydraulic parameters and the creation of global high-resolution soil hydraulic and thermal datasets.

Education

• B.S. in Hydrogeology, Jilin University, Changchun, China (2007)

• Ph.D. in Hydrogeology, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), China (2014)

• Joint Ph.D. Training, Department of Hydrology and Water Resources, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA (2012–2014), under Prof. Shlomo P. Neuman and Prof. Marcel Schaap

Positions

• Visiting Student, Department of Hydrology and Water Resources, University of Arizona (February 2012 – March 2014)

• Research Specialist/Postdoctoral Researcher, Departments of Hydrology and Water Resources and Soil, Water, and Environmental Science, University of Arizona (September 2013 – July 2017); collaborated with Prof. Marcel Schaap, Regents' Prof. Shlomo P. Neuman, and Prof. Alberto Guadagnini (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)

• Associate Professor and PhD Supervisor, School of Earth System Science, Tianjin University (July 2017 – present); selected for "Beiyang Scholars · Talented Associate Professor" and "Beiyang Scholars · Young Backbone Teacher" programs

Research Interests

• Subsurface flow dynamics in saturated and unsaturated soils

• Determination of saturated and unsaturated soil hydraulic properties

• Parameter estimation, geostatistics, and uncertainty assessment

• Development of soil parameterization schemes, including the Rosetta3 model

• Global high-resolution land surface soil datasets for hydrological, soil, and climate models

• Pore-scale simulations using methods like Lattice Boltzmann

  
  

For detailed resources:

• Rosetta3 Model: Improves prediction accuracy of soil hydraulic parameters and provides covariance matrices for stochastic simulations, data assimilation, and fusion. Available implementations include:

• Web interfaces: Handbook60 (by Todd Skaggs, USDA-ARS) and DSIWeb (by Ehsan Ghane, Michigan State University;

• Python version (compatible with Python 2/3): GitHub Repository with user manual; works on Linux, Windows 7+, Mac OS X;

• Rosetta-soil Python package: PyPI (install via pip install rosetta-soil); project page at GitHub;

• R version: Installation and usage details at NCSS-Tech (by Dr. Todd Skaggs, USDA-ARS)

• Global High-Resolution Soil Datasets: Parameters such as residual/saturated water content, permeability, field capacity, and plant-available water; supports models for water/pollutant transport, land surface, and climate simulations

• Pore-Scale Simulations: Flow field visualizations for varying soil particle sizes using Lattice Boltzmann methods and pore network models

Awards and Honors

• Three-time recipient of American Geophysical Union (AGU) most-read article author awards: Reviews of Geophysics (2017–2018), Water Resources Research (2018–2019), Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems (2018–2019)

• Selected ESI highly cited papers

• Work featured in reports by Xinhua News Agency, People's Daily, National Natural Science Foundation of China, and AGU's EOS publication

Publications

Over 60 peer-reviewed publications (see Google Scholar for full list: Profile). Research focuses on soil hydraulic parameter prediction, global soil datasets, and subsurface modeling.

Professional Activities

• Editor, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (October 2025 – present)

• Associate Editor, Water Resources Research (April 2026 – present)

• Associate Editor, Vadose Zone Journal (American Society of Agronomy; January 2020 – present)

• Executive Chair, 4th International Soil Modeling Conference (first held in China in 2024)

• Co-Leader, Soil Parameters Working Group, International Soil Modeling Consortium (ISMC)

• Committee Member, First Groundwater Working Committee, China Water Resources Strategy Research Association

• Invited speaker in inernational conferences, such as European Geosciences Union (EGU) meeting, etc

• Principal Investigator for funded projects: National Natural Science Foundation of China (two general projects, one youth project), Tianjin Natural Science Foundation, Tianjin University Young Backbone Teacher Project

  
  

We warmly welcome applications from students in subsurface hydrology, soil physics, agricultural water conservancy, hydrology and water resources, geological engineering, and physical geography for graduate studies.