Mahyar Shafii, PhD

POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW,

Ecohydrology Group,
Dept. of Earth and Environ. Sci.,
University of Waterloo,
200 University Av. W., Waterloo, ON, N2L3G1,
Phone: 519-888-4567 Ext. 37968.

Research Interests

  • - Development of hydrological and biogeochemical models at watershed scale
  • - Multicriteria calibration of environmental models
  • - Uncertainty estimation in environmental modeling using formal and informal techniques
  • - Formulating water resources systems problems in the optimization context
  • - Climate change and its impacts on water quantity and biogeochemistry at different scales
  • - Characterizing nutrients loading from non-point urban sources

Education

  • PH.D. - CIVIL ENGINEERING (2014)
  • Water Resources Engineering (Hydrology), University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada
  • M.Sc. – CIVIL ENGINEERING (2006)
  • Hydraulic Structures, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran
  • B.Sc. - CIVIL ENGINEERING (2003)
  • Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran

Curriculum Vitae

(Last updated on Mar 23 2016)

Research Experience

Postdoctoral Research Fellow,

Dept. of Earth and Environ. Sci.,UWaterloo, Canada, Sep. 14 – Present,

Research project:
Coupled hydrological-biogeochemical modelling of the Grand River watershed.
to address Nitrogen Legacy,

Research Assistant,

Dept. of Civil and Environ. Eng., UWaterloo, Canada, Sep. 09 – Aug. 14,

Field of research:
Identification of environmental models, specifically multicrteria calibration
and uncertainty estimation in hydrological modelling.

Visiting Scholar,

Dept. of Computational Hydrosystems, UFZ, Germany, May-June 2012,

Field of research:
Non-aggregation-based multicriteria calibration of mHM and its impact on the
identifiability of model parameters.

Research Assistant,

Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, Sep. 07 - Aug. 09,

Field of research:
Implementation of optimization-based approaches for calibration of rainfall-runoff
models employed in water resources systems analysis .

TEACHING INTERESTS

I am interested in teaching undergraduate and graduate courses on hydrology and water resources systems analysis, water resources management, mathematics and statistics, risk and reliability analysis, numerical modelling, applied optimization, GIS, etc. In terms of my teaching philosophy, I am keen on adopting effective strategies to promote cooperative and active learning in the classroom, and also implementing techniques to foster creativity among students.


TEACHING EXPERINCE

Lecturer

‘Probability and Statistics’

Dept. of Civil and Environ. Eng., University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada,
Fall 2013, Winter 2014, and Fall 2014

Teaching assistant

‘Environ. Res. Mngmnt.’, ‘Solid Waste Mngmnt', ‘Statistics for Engineers’

Dept. of Civil and Environ. Eng., University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada


TEACHING CERTIFICATES

  • - Certificate of University Teaching, Centre of Teaching Excellence, UWaterloo, 2014
  • - Fundamentals in University Teaching, Centre of Teaching Excellence, UWaterloo, 2011
  • - ExpecTAtions, Faculty of Engineering, UWaterloo, 2010

Refereed Journal Papers

  • SHAFII, M., and Tolson, B.A., 2015, “Optimizing Hydrological Consistency by Incorporating Hydrological Signatures into Model Calibration Objectives”, Water Resources Research, 51(5), 3796-3814, doi:10.1002/2014wr016520
  • SHAFII, M., Tolson, B.A., and Matott, L.S., 2015, “Improving the Efficiency of Monte Carlo Bayesian Calibration of Hydrologic Models via Model Pre-emption”, Tech. Note in J. of Hydroinformatics, 17(5), 763-770, doi:10.2166/hydro.2015.043
  • SHAFII, M., Tolson, B.A., and Matott, L.S., 2015, “Addressing Subjective Decision-Making Inherent in GLUE-based Multi-Criteria Rainfall-Runoff Model Calibration”, J. of Hydrology, 523(0), 693-705, doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2015.01.051
  • SHAFII, M., Tolson, B.A., and Matott, L.S., 2014, “Uncertainty-based multi-criteria calibration of rainfall-runoff models: A comparative study”, Stoch. Environ. Res. Risk. Assess., 28(6), 1493-1510, doi:10.1007/s00477-014-0855-x
  • Afshar, A., SHAFII, M., and Bozorg Haddad, O., 2011, A. “Optimizing Multi-Reservoir Operation Rules; An improved HBMO Approach”, J. of Hydroinformatics, 13(1), 121-139, doi:10.2166/hydro.2010.061
  • SHAFII, M. and De Smedt, F., 2009, “Multi-objective calibration of a distributed hydrological model (WetSpa) using a genetic algorithm”, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., 6, 243-271, doi:10.5194/hess-13-2137-2009

  • Selected Conference Presentations

  • SHAFII, M., Basu, N., Craig, J., Schiff, S.L., Van Cappellen, P., and Dürr, H.H., 2015, “Assessment of Hydrological Behaviour of a Snowmelt-Dominated Catchment at Different Scales”, Presentation at 2015 Joint Assembly (AGU-GAC-MAC-CG), May 3-7, Montreal, Canada.
  • SHAFII, M., Basu, N., Craig, J., 2015, “Interactive model evaluation and selection via an optimization-based top-down approach using hydrological signatures”, Presentation at 2015 EGU Meeting, April 12-17, Vienna, Austria
  • SHAFII, M., Tolson, B.A., Matott, L. S., 2013, “Developments on informal approaches to multi-criteria calibration and uncertainty analysis of hydrologic models”, Presentation at 2013 American Geosciences Union Fall Meeting, San Francisco, USA, December 9-16, 2013.
  • SHAFII, M., and De Smedt, F., 2009, “Multicriteria Decision Making under Uncertainty in Rainfall-Runoff Calibration; A Fuzzy Compromise Programming Approach”, Proceedings of World Environmental and Water Resources Congress, Kansas City, Missouri, the United States.
  • SHAFII, M., Bozorg Haddad, O., and Afshar, A., 2005, “Optimizing Ajichai Flood Levee‘s Encroachment; A GA Approach”, WSEAS Transactions of Information Science and Applications, 5(2), 611-617.

Contact Info:

Dr. Mahyar Shafii,
Ecohydrology Group,
Dept. of Earth and Env. Sci.,
University of Waterloo,
200 Uni. Av. W., Waterloo,
ON, N2L3G1, CANADA,
EcoHydrology Webpage
LinkedIn

Links and Resources:

University of Waterloo
Ecohydrology Group