Bio

Currently, I am a post-doctoral researcher at Ghent University where I work with satellite observations and the Global Land Evaporation Amsterdam Model (GLEAM). During my master, I started specializing in hydrology. As part of my MSc thesis, I developed a rainfall-runoff model for a Kenyan river basin to estimate among others the water availability. Afterwards, during my PhD research, I continued with hydrological modelling in a poorly gauged, semi-arid river basin focusing on the added value of satellite observations for process understanding, model structure development and model calibration.

Contact

Address: Coupure links 653 - Room A2.010

               9000 Ghent, Belgium

Phone: +32 9 264 61 40

E-mail: Petra.Hulsman@UGent.be

Trajectory

2021 – now: Post-doctoral research fellow - Ghent University, Hydro-Climate Extremes Lab

2017 – 2021: Doctoral research fellow - TUDelft, Civil Engineering, Watermanagement

2016 – 2016: Junior Researcher - TUDelft, Civil Engineering, Watermanagement

2012 – 2015: Double degree master (Hydraulic Engineering & Water Resources Management) – TUDelft, Netherlands & NUS, Singapore

Recent and ongoing projects

4DMED–Hydrology: High-resolution satellite-based hydrology in the Mediterranean (2021-2023)

ET–Sense: High resolution terrestrial evaporation from Sentinels (2019–2021)

ZAMSECUR: Enhancing Water, Food and Energy Security in the Lower Zambezi (2018 – 2022)

MaMaSe: Mau Mara Serengeti Sustainable Water Initiative (2014 – 2017)

Selected publications

• Hulsman, P., Hrachowitz, M., and Savenije, H. H. G. (2021). Improving the representation of long-term storage variations with conceptual hydrological models in data-scarce regions. Water Resources Research, 57, e2020WR028837.
• Hulsman, P., Savenije, H. H. G., and Hrachowitz, M. (2021). Learning from satellite observations: increased understanding of catchment processes through stepwise model improvement. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 957–982.
• Hulsman, P., Savenije, H. H. G., and Hrachowitz, M. (2021). Satellite-based drought analysis in the Zambezi River Basin: Was the 2019 drought the most extreme in several decades as locally perceived?. Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, 34, 100789.
• Hulsman, P., Winsemius, H. C., Michailovsky, C. I., Savenije, H. H. G., and Hrachowitz, M. (2020). Using altimetry observations combined with GRACE to select parameter sets of a hydrological model in a data-scarce region. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 3331–3359.
• Hulsman, P., Bogaard, T. A., and Savenije, H. H. G. (2018). Rainfall-runoff modelling using river-stage time series in the absence of reliable discharge information: a case study in the semi-arid Mara River basin. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 5081–5095.