Our current research lines are:

  • Use of satellite precipitation estimates and other hydrological variables for drought monitoring and as forcings for hydrological modeling.
  • Assessment of global change impacts on the water resources of a basin.
  • Analysis of extreme hydrometeorological events.
  • Development of open-source tools for the management and analysis of hydrometeorological data.
  • Landscape and water regulation: Adaptation measures to address climate change.

Between 2020 and 2024, our observatory will focus on achieving the objectives of the international Chile-China collaboration project NSFC190018 , which aims to deliver territorial management proposals to reduce the negative impacts of global change on extreme hydrological events in four basins, each facing unique water resource challenges.

The four basins selected for this project are the Petorca Basin in Longotoma (Valparaíso Region), the Mapocho Basin in Los Almendros (Metropolitan Region), the Cauquenes Basin in Desembocadura (Maule Region), and the Trancura Basin before Llafenco (La Araucanía Region).

Research Projects

The research projects led by a member of Kimün-Ko are:

  • 2022-2025: Fondecyt Postdoctorado 3220382. Landscape patterns and water Regulation: Adaptation measures to face the climate change. Funding agency: ANID , Chile.
  • 2022-2025: ANID Doctorado Nacional 21221783. Unravelling the effect of native vegetation on catchment’s hydrological responses to extreme event. Funding agency: ANID , Chile.
  • 2021-2024: Fondecyt Regular 1212071. The catchment’s memory: understanding how hydrological extremes are modulated by antecedent soil moisture conditions in a warmer climate. Funding agency: ANID , Chile.
  • 2020-2023: PCI CONICYT Chile - NSFC China NSFC190018. Management of global change impacts on hydrological extremes by coupling remote sensing data and an interdisciplinary modelling approach . Funding agency: CONICYT -NSFC , Chile and China.
  • 2016-2018: Fondecyt Iniciación 11150861. Understanding the relationship between the spatio-temporal characteristics of meteorological drought and the availability of water resources, by using satellite-based rainfall and snow-cover data. A case study in a data-scarce Andean Chilean catchment. Funding agency: CONICYT , Chile.

Other Research Projects

The research projects in which at least one member of Kimün-Ko is or has been involved are:

  • 2023-2026: Fondecyt Regular 1230792. Triggers of Rainfall-Induced Landslides in volcanic soils EXperiment: towards a fully understating of the water role in slope instability in the Southern Andes (TRILEX). Funding agency: ANID , Chile.
  • 2022-2023: ANID-Sequía FSEQ210001. Drought and water security platform for catchment planning: historical evolution and future trajectories under global change. Funding agency: ANID , Chile. Concurso Fondo de Investigación Estratégica en Sequía (Asignación Rápida) año 2021.
  • 2021-2024: Fondecyt Regular 1210932. Improving forest water yield and productivity quantification at the catchment scale by mapping root depth and eco-physiological thresholds with remote sensing and water transfer modeling. Funding agency: ANID , Chile.
  • 2021-2022: Regulación hídrica en cuencas pre-cordilleranas del centro sur de Chile ante escenarios futuros de uso/cobertura del suelo y cambio climático. FONDAP 15130015. **Funding agency: ANID , Chile.
  • 2017-2020: Fondecyt Regular 1171560. Assessing spatio-temporal impacts of global change on water and biomass production processes at catchment scale: a synergistic approach based on remote sensing and coupled hydrological models to improve sustainable management of forest ecosystems. Funding agency: CONICYT , Chile.
  • 2016-2018: Fondecyt Regular 1160656. Hillslope water storage and runoff processes: linking climate variability and interannual storage. Funding agency: CONICYT , Chile.
  • 2016: 14ENI2-26866. Prototipo de una arquitectura de big data para encontrar asociaciones espacio-temporales entre las variables hidrometeorológicas de una cuenca del sur de Chile, Región de La Araucanía.. Funding agency: CORFO , Chile.

Publications

38 publications

2026

hydroMOPSO: A flexible and model-independent multi-objective optimisation R package for environmental and hydrological models

Rodrigo Marinao, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini & Oscar M. Baez-Villanueva

Environmental Modelling & Software · 2026

DOI PDF Record

From grid to ground: how well do gridded products represent soil moisture dynamics in natural ecosystems during precipitation events?

Daniel A. Núñez-Ibarra, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini & Mauricio Galleguillos

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences · 2026

DOI PDF Record

Developing Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) curves using sub-daily gridded and in situ datasets: characterising precipitation extremes in a drying climate

Cristóbal Soto-Escobar, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, Violeta Tolorza & René Garreaud

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences · 2026

DOI PDF Record

2025

Technical note: What does the Standardized Streamflow Index actually reflect? Insights and implications for hydrological drought analysis

Fabián Lema, Pablo A. Mendoza, Nicolás A. Vásquez, Naoki Mizukami, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini & Ximena Vargas

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences · 2025

DOI Record

Hyperdroughts in central Chile: drivers, impacts, and projections

René Garreaud, Juan Pablo Boisier, Camila Alvarez-Garreton, Duncan A. Christie, Tomás Carrasco-Escaff, Iván Vergara, Roberto O. Chávez, Paulina Aldunce, Pablo Camus, Manuel Suazo-Álvarez, Mariano Masiokas, Gabriel Castro, Ariel Muñoz, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, Rodrigo Fuster & Lintsiee Godoy

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences · 2025

DOI PDF Record

Hydropedological clustering: improving the representation of low streamflows in a semi-distributed hydrological model

Fernando Gimeno, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, Camila Alvarez-Garreton & Mauricio Galleguillos

Journal of Hydrology · 2025

DOI PDF Record

2024

PatagoniaMet: A multi-source hydrometeorological dataset for Western Patagonia

Rodrigo Aguayo, Jorge León-Muñoz, Mauricio Aguayo, Oscar Manuel Baez-Villanueva, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, Alfonso Fernández & Martin Jacques-Coper

Scientific Data · 2024

DOI PDF Record

On the timescale of drought indices for monitoring streamflow drought considering catchment hydrological regimes

Oscar M. Baez-Villanueva, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, Diego G. Miralles, Hylke E. Beck, Jonatan F. Siegmund, Camila Alvarez-Garreton, Koen Verbist, René Garreaud, Juan Pablo Boisier & Mauricio Galleguillos

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences · 2024

DOI PDF Record

Land Management Drifted: Land Use Scenario Modeling of Trancura River Basin, Araucanía, Chile

Alejandro Díaz-Jara, Daniela Manuschevich, Aarón Grau & Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini

Land · 2024

DOI PDF Record

HESS Opinions: The unsustainable use of groundwater conceals a 'Day Zero'

Camila Alvarez-Garreton, Juan Pablo Boisier, René Garreaud, Javier González, Roberto Rondanelli, Eugenia Gayó & Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences · 2024

DOI PDF Record

Exotic tree plantations in the Chilean Coastal Range: balancing the effects of discrete disturbances, connectivity, and a persistent drought on catchment erosion

Violeta Tolorza, Christian H. Mohr, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, Benjamín Sotomayor, Dagoberto Poblete-Caballero, Sebastien Carretier, Mauricio Galleguillos & Oscar Seguel

Earth Surface Dynamics · 2024

DOI PDF Record

Disponibilidad y seguridad hídrica en el desarrollo de enfermedades crónicas no transmisibles. ¿ Nuevos factores de riesgo?

Fanny Petermann-Rocha, Alonso Pizarro, Gabriela Nazar, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, Angela Plaza-Garrido, Felipe Díaz-Toro, Claudia Troncoso-Pantoja, Andrés Celis, Daniela Sugg & Carlos Celis-Morales

Revista médica de Chile · 2024

DOI PDF Record

2023

Panta Rhei benchmark dataset: socio-hydrological data of paired events of floods and droughts

Kreibich, H., Schröter, K., Di Baldassarre, G., Van Loon, A. F, Mazzoleni, M., Abeshu, G. W, Agafonova, S., AghaKouchak, A., Aksoy, H., Alvarez-Garreton, C., Aznar, B., Balkhi, L., Barendrecht, M. H, Biancamaria, S., Bos-Burgering, L., Bradley, C., Budiyono, Y., Buytaert, W., Capewell, L., Carlson, H., Cavus, Y., Couasnon, A., Coxon, G., Daliakopoulos, I., de Ruiter, M. C, Delus, C., Erfurt, M., Esposito, G., François, D., Frappart, F., Freer, J., Frolova, N., Gain, A. K, Grillakis, M., Grima, J. O, Guzmán, D. A, Huning, L. S, Ionita, M., Kharlamov, M., Khoi, D. N, Kieboom, N., Kireeva, M., Koutroulis, A., Lavado-Casimiro, W., Li, H.-Y., LLasat, M. C, Macdonald, D., Mård, J., Mathew-Richards, H., McKenzie, A., Mejia, A., Mendiondo, E. M, Mens, M., Mobini, S., Mohor, G. S, Nagavciuc, V., Ngo-Duc, T., Nguyen, H. T. T, Nhi, P. T. T, Petrucci, O., Quan, N. H, Quintana-Seguí, P., Razavi, S., Ridolfi, E., Riegel, J., Sadik, M. S, Sairam, N., Savelli, E., Sazonov, A., Sharma, S., Sörensen, J., Souza, F. A. A, Stahl, K., Steinhausen, M., Stoelzle, M., Szalińska, W., Tang, Q., Tian, F., Tokarczyk, T., Tovar, C., Tran, T. V. T, van Huijgevoort, M. H. J, van Vliet, M. T. H, Vorogushyn, S., Wagener, T., Wang, Y., Wendt, D. E, Wickham, E., Yang, L., Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, Ward & P. and J

Earth System Science Data · 2023

DOI PDF Record

2022

The challenge of unprecedented floods and droughts in risk management

Heidi Kreibich, Anne F. Van Loon, Kai Schröter, Philip J. Ward, Maurizio Mazzoleni, Nivedita Sairam, Guta Wakbulcho Abeshu, Svetlana Agafonova, Amir AghaKouchak, Hafzullah Aksoy, Camila Alvarez-Garreton, Blanca Aznar, Laila Balkhi, Marlies H. Barendrecht, Sylvain Biancamaria, Liduin Bos-Burgering, Chris Bradley, Yus Budiyono, Wouter Buytaert, Lucinda Capewell, Hayley Carlson, Yonca Cavus, Anaïs Couasnon, Gemma Coxon, Ioannis Daliakopoulos, Marleen C. de Ruiter, Claire Delus, Mathilde Erfurt, Giuseppe Esposito, Didier François, Frédéric Frappart, Jim Freer, Natalia Frolova, Animesh K. Gain, Manolis Grillakis, Jordi Oriol Grima, Diego A. Guzmán, Laurie S. Huning, Monica Ionita, Maxim Kharlamov, Dao Nguyen Khoi, Natalie Kieboom, Maria Kireeva, Aristeidis Koutroulis, Waldo Lavado-Casimiro, Hong-Yi Li, María Carmen LLasat, David Macdonald, Johanna Mård, Hannah Mathew-Richards, Andrew McKenzie, Alfonso Mejia, Eduardo Mario Mendiondo, Marjolein Mens, Shifteh Mobini, Guilherme Samprogna Mohor, Viorica Nagavciuc, Thanh Ngo-Duc, Thi Thao Nguyen Huynh, Pham Thi Thao Nhi, Olga Petrucci, Hong Quan Nguyen, Pere Quintana-Seguí, Saman Razavi, Elena Ridolfi, Jannik Riegel, Md Shibly Sadik, Elisa Savelli, Alexey Sazonov, Sanjib Sharma, Johanna Sörensen, Felipe Augusto Arguello Souza, Kerstin Stahl, Max Steinhausen, Michael Stoelzle, Wiwiana Szalińska, Qiuhong Tang, Fuqiang Tian, Tamara Tokarczyk, Carolina Tovar, Thi Van Thu Tran, Marjolein H. J. Van Huijgevoort, Michelle T. H. van Vliet, Sergiy Vorogushyn, Thorsten Wagener, Yueling Wang, Doris E. Wendt, Elliot Wickham, Long Yang, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, Günter Blöschl & Giuliano Di Baldassarre

Nature · 2022

DOI PDF Record

A coupled modeling approach to assess the effect of forest policies in water provision: A biophysical evaluation of a drought-prone rural catchment in south-central Chile

Fernando Gimeno, Mauricio Galleguillos, Daniela Manuschevich & Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini

Science of the Total Environment · 2022

DOI PDF Record

2021

Towards best default configuration settings for NMPSO in multi-objective optimization

Rodrigo Marinao-Rivas & Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini

2021 IEEE Latin American Conference on Computational Intelligence (LA-CCI) · 2021

DOI PDF Record

On the selection of precipitation products for the regionalisation of hydrological model parameters

Oscar M. Baez-Villanueva, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, Pablo A. Mendoza, Ian McNamara, Hylke E. Beck, Joschka Thurner, Alexandra Nauditt, Lars Ribbe & Nguyen Xuan Thinh

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences · 2021

DOI PDF Record

How well do gridded precipitation and actual evapotranspiration products represent the key water balance components in the Nile Basin?

Ian McNamara, Oscar M. Baez-Villanueva, Ali Zomorodian, Saher Ayyad, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, Modathir Zaroug, Azeb Mersha, Alexandra Nauditt, Milly Mbuliro, Sowed Wamala & Lars Ribbe

Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies · 2021

DOI PDF Record

Disentangling the effect of future land use strategies and climate change on streamflow in a Mediterranean catchment dominated by tree plantations

Mauricio Galleguillos, Fernando Gimeno, Cristóbal Puelma, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, Antonio Lara & Maisa Rojas

Journal of Hydrology · 2021

DOI PDF Record

2020

RF-MEP: A novel Random Forest method for merging gridded precipitation products and ground-based measurements

Oscar M. Baez-Villanueva, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, Hylke E. Beck, Ian McNamara, Lars Ribbe, Alexandra Nauditt, Christian Birkel, Koen Verbist, Juan Diego Giraldo-Osorio & Nguyen Xuan Thinh

Remote Sensing of Environment · 2020

DOI PDF Record

Modelling water resources for planning irrigation development in drought-prone southern Chile

Ian McNamara, Alexandra Nauditt, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, Lars Ribbe & Hamish Hann

International Journal of Water Resources Development · 2020

DOI PDF Record

Bias Correction of Global High-Resolution Precipitation Climatologies Using Streamflow Observations from 9372 Catchments

Hylke E. Beck, Eric F. Wood, Tim R. McVicar, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, Camila Alvarez-Garreton, Oscar M. Baez-Villanueva, Justin Sheffield & Dirk N. Karger

Journal of Climate · 2020

DOI PDF Record

2019

Validation of Cryogenic Vacuum Extraction of Pore Water from Volcanic Soils for Isotopic Analysis

Diego Rivera, Karen Gutierrez, Walter Valdivia-Cea, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, Alex Godoy-Faúndez, Amaya Álvez & Laura Farías

Water · 2019

DOI PDF Record

Particle swarm optimization for the estimation of surface complexation constants with the geochemical model PHREEQC-3.1.2

Ramadan Abdelaziz, Broder J. Merkel, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini & Sreejesh Nair

Geoscientific Model Development · 2019

DOI PDF Record

Hydrological Processes Special Issue "Hydrological processes across climatic and geomorphological gradients of Latin America"

Christian Birkel, Georgianne W. Moore & Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini

Hydrological Processes · 2019

DOI PDF Record

2018

Temporal and spatial evaluation of satellite rainfall estimates over different regions in Latin-America

Oscar Manuel Baez-Villanueva, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, Lars Ribbe, Alexandra Nauditt, Juan Diego Giraldo-Osorio & Nguyen Xuan Thinh

Atmospheric Research · 2018

DOI PDF Record

Temporal and spatial evaluation of long-term satellite-based precipitation products across the complex topographical and climatic gradients of Chile

Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini

Proceedings of the SPIE · 2018

DOI PDF Record

2017

The 2010-2015 megadrought in central Chile: impacts on regional hydroclimate and vegetation

René D. Garreaud, Camila Alvarez-Garreton, Jonathan Barichivich, Juan Pablo Boisier, Duncan Christie, Mauricio Galleguillos, Carlos LeQuesne, James McPhee & Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences · 2017

DOI PDF Record

Temporal and spatial evaluation of satellite-based rainfall estimates across the complex topographical and climatic gradients of Chile

Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, Alexandra Nauditt, Christian Birkel, Koen Verbist & Lars Ribbe

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences · 2017

DOI PDF Record

2016

The br2-weighting Method for Estimating the Effects of Air Pollution on Population Health

Goran Krstic, Nikolas S. Krstic & Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods · 2016

DOI PDF Record

Forestry development, water scarcity, and the Mapuche protest for environmental justice in Chile

Robinson Torres-Salinas, Gerardo Azócar García, Noelia Carrasco Henríquez, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, Tatiana Costa & Bob Bolin

Ambiente & Sociedade · 2016

DOI PDF Record

Assessing the role of uncertain precipitation estimates on the robustness of hydrological model parameters under highly variable climate conditions

B. Bisselink, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, P. Burek & A. de Roo

Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies · 2016

DOI PDF Record

2015

Comparison of stationary and dynamic conceptual models in a mountainous and data-sparse catchment in the South-central Chilean Andes

Camila Toledo, Enrique Muñoz & Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini

Advances in Meteorology · 2015

DOI PDF Record

2014

Particle Swarm Optimization for inverse modeling of solute transport in fractured gneiss aquifer

Ramadan Abdelaziz & Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini

Journal of Contaminant Hydrology · 2014

DOI PDF Record

2013

Standard Particle Swarm Optimisation 2011 at CEC-2013: A baseline for future PSO improvements

Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, Maurice Clerc & Rodrigo Rojas

2013 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation · 2013

DOI PDF Record

Hydrological evaluation of satellite-based rainfall estimates over the Volta and Baro-Akobo Basin

Vera Thiemig, Rodrigo Rojas, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini & Ad De Roo

Journal of Hydrology · 2013

DOI PDF Record

A model-independent Particle Swarm Optimisation software for model calibration

Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini & Rodrigo Rojas

Environmental Modelling & Software · 2013

DOI PDF Record

2012

Validation of Satellite-Based Precipitation Products over Sparsely Gauged African River Basins

Vera Thiemig, Rodrigo Rojas, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, Vincenzo Levizzani & Ad De Roo

Journal of Hydrometeorology · 2012

DOI PDF Record