• People
• ASRC

Charles J. Vörösmarty, PhD

• Director, Environmental CrossRoads Research Group, ASRC
• Director, Environmental Science Initiative, ASRC
• Professor, Civil Engineering, CCNY

• Email: charles.vorosmarty@asrc.cuny.edu
• Phone: +1 212 413 3140

Charles Vörösmarty, PhD is the Founding Director of the Environmental Sciences Initiative at the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center. His research focuses on the development of computer models and geospatial data sets used in synthesis studies of the interactions among the water cycle, climate, biogeochemistry and anthropogenic activities.

His studies are built around local, regional and continental to global-scale modeling of water balance, discharge, constituent fluxes in river systems and the analysis of the impacts of large-scale water engineering on the terrestrial water cycle. His work on human-water interactions includes earth system modeling of the Northeastern United States, development and analysis of databases depicting reservoir construction worldwide and how they generate downstream coastal zone risks, and global threats to human water security and aquatic biodiversity.

He routinely provides scientific guidance to a variety of U.S. and international water consortia. He is a founding member and current co-Chair of the Global Water System Project that represents the input of several hundred international scientists under the International Council for Science’s Global Environmental Change Programs. He is spearheading efforts to develop global-scale indicators of water stress and is working with chief United Nations delegates who are negotiating the Rio+20 Sustainable Development Goals.

He has served on a broad array of national panels, including the U.S. Arctic Research Commission (appointed by Presidents Bush and Obama), the NASA Earth Science Subcommittee, the National Research Council Committee on Hydrologic Science as Chair, a member of the NRC Review Committee on the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the National Science Foundation’s Arctic System Science Program Committee, and the Arctic HYDRA International Polar Year Planning Team. He also was a consultant to the 24-agency United Nations World Water Assessment Programme and represented the International Council of Scientific Unions at the UN Commission on Sustainable Development meetings.