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September 1, 2025

The Schmitt Lab
for River System,
Science and Sustainability

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publications

Featured Publications

Please see below for some publications that highlight recent progress in river system science. (Full list of publications below)

Paper title (shortened)

Authors: J. Smith, A. Brown 
Journal name, year

One short paragraph here that explains why this publication
is important/relevant.

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Paper title (shortened)

Authors: J. Smith, A. Brown 
Journal name, year

One short paragraph here that explains why this publication
is important/relevant.

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Paper title (shortened)

Authors: J. Smith, A. Brown 
Journal name, year

One short paragraph here that explains why this publication
is important/relevant.

See more
Paper title (shortened)

Authors: J. Smith, A. Brown 
Journal name, year

One short paragraph here that explains why this publication
is important/relevant.

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Paper title (shortened)

Authors: J. Smith, A. Brown 
Journal name, year

One short paragraph here that explains why this publication
is important/relevant.

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Selected Publications

You can find the full list of publications on our Google Scholar.

Student and postdoctoral authors under my supervision underlined black

Under Review

  • Schmitt, R. J. P., Weatherby, C., Intralawan, A., Junlakarn, C., Kokchang, P., Wood, D., Harou, J. J., Opperman, J. J., Kittner, N. Low-impact pathways for bilateral electricity purchase agreements the Mekong River Basin. Manuscript under review. Environmental Research Letters. 
  • Schmitt, R. J. P., Bhandari, S., Vogl, A., Marc, O. Leveraging hillslope connectivity for improved large-scale assessments of landslide risk. Manuscript under review. Natural Hazards and Earth Systems Science
  • Betz, F., & Schmitt, R. J. P. (2025). Mapping the ecosystem functioning and services in river corridors at the system scale: A case study from the Aral Sea basin, Central Asia. Manuscript under review. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms.
  • Invernizzi, B., Tangi, M., Galelli, S., Schmitt, R. J. P., & Castelletti, A. (2025). Lost opportunities in sustainable hydropower: The cost of neglecting sediment management and coordinated dam operations. Manuscript under review. Earth’s Future.
  • Arakelyan, A., Gasparyan, A., & Schmitt, R. J. P. (2025). Integrating natural capital into basin management planning in Armenia. Manuscript under review. International Journal of River Basin Management.
  • Almeida, R. M., Arantes, C. C., Bhattarai, S., Cardoso, S. J., Chowdhury, A. K., Del Claro, A. T. S., Doria, C. R. C., Fluet-Chouinard, E., Galelli, S., Garrett, K., Heilpern, S., Herrera, G. A., Kelman, R., Laufer, J., Li, Z., McIntyre, P. B., McManamay, R., Miqueleiz, I., Miranda, M., Opperman, J. J., Pacheco, F. S., Royer, T. V., Schmitt, R. J. P., Sethi, S. A., Thomas, S., Upadhyay, Y., Valerio, A., Wild, T. B., Wilcox, A., Gomes, C. P., & Flecker, A. S. (2025). Freezing hydropower’s socio-environmental footprint. Manuscript under review. Science.
  • Polasky, S., Hawthorne, P. L., Chaplin-Kramer, R., Smith, J., Gerber, J., Mamun, S., Ruckelshaus, M., Russ, J., Schmitt, R. J. P., Vogl, A. L., Castonguay, A. C., Douglass, J., Kowal, V., Madden, I., Sharp, R., Sohngen, B., Chang, J., Daily, G., Heger, M. P., Holden, M., Johnson, J., Mandle, L., McDonald-Madden, E., Narain, U., Ray, D., Ruta, G., West, P. C., Wolny, S., Zaveri, E., & Damania, R. (2025). Frontiers for sustainable development through landscape efficiency. Manuscript under review. Science.
  • Liu, W., Lan, Z., Schmitt, R. J. P., Wu, C., Li, Y., Chen, D., Lin, P., Wang, T., Hong, W., Qi, Y., Bai, X., Zheng, K., Liang, W., Feng, Y., Wang, N., & Sun, F. (2025). Mapping global floodplain development disparities highlights drivers behind intensifying flood losses. Manuscript under review. Nature Water.
  • Brumberg, H. D., Dee, L. E., Murayama, H., Alvarado Barrientos, J. J., Bessesen, B., Bouffard, M. G., Burgess, M. G., Cortés Núñez, J., Furey, S., Hernández, N., Luger, A., Madden, M., Pauline, E., Schmitt, R. J. P., Siegel, K. J., Vargas-Araya, L., Whitworth, A., & Newton, P. (2025). Canopy to coral: Riparian buffers reducing coastal turbidity and protect marine ecosystems. Manuscript under review. Nature Communications: Sustainability.
    1.  

2025

  • Xu, Bo, Zhanwei Liu, Shuyue Yan, Rafael J. P. Schmitt, and Xiaogang He. 2025. “Strategizing Renewable Energy Transitions to Preserve Sediment Transport Integrity.” Nature Sustainability 1–14. doi:10.1038/s41893-025-01626-5.
  • Pereira, K., Wabnitz, C. C. C., Schildt, L., Kuiper, J. J., Schmitt, R. J. P., Barbour, F., & Jouffray, J.-B. (2025). Rethinking sand circularity through sufficiency. One Earth, 8(2). 

2024

  • Li, D., Zhang, T., Walling, D. E., Lane, S., Bookhagen, B., Tian, S., Overeem, I., Syvitski, J., Kettner, A. J., Park, E., Koppes, M., Schmitt, R. J. P., Sun, W., Ni, J., & Ehlers, T. A. (2024). The competing controls of glaciers, precipitation, and vegetation on high-mountain fluvial sediment yields. Science Advances, 10(48), eads6196. 
  • Schmitt, R.J.P., Rosa, L., (2024). Dams for hydropower and irrigation: Trends, challenges, and alternatives. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 199, 114439.
  • Almeida, R.M., Chowdhury, A.-U.-H., Rodrigo, H., Li, M., Schmitt, R.J.P. (2024). Offsetting the greenhouse gas footprint of hydropower with floating solar photovoltaics. Nature Sustainability 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01384-w
  • Barbarossa, V., Schmitt, R.J.P. (2024). Strategic restoration-development mitigates tradeoffs between hydropower and fish habitat fragmentation in the Mekong. One Earth 7, 1096–1107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2024.05.009
  • Carlino, A., Schmitt, R. J. P., Clark, A., Castelletti, A. (2024). Rethinking energy planning to mitigate the impacts of African hydropower. Nature Sustainability 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01367-xhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2024.114439
  • Tangi, M., Schmitt, R. J. P., Almeida, R., Bossi, S., Flecker, A., Sala, F., Castelletti, A. (2024). Robust Hydropower Planning Balances Energy Generation, Carbon Emissions and Sediment Connectivity in the Mekong River Basin. Earth’s Future 12, e2023EF003647. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023EF003647
  • Ding, Z., Angarita, H. Montesinos, C. Lavado, W., Goldstein, J. A., Batista, N., Wu, T., Baudoin, A., Zheng, H., Schmitt, R. J. P. (2024) Navigating trade-offs and sustainable development pathways in the Andean water-energy-food-ecosystem nexus. Nature Communications, Earth and the Environment.

2023

  • Schmitt, R. J. P., Virgüez, E., Ashfaq, S., & Caldeira, K. (2023). Move up or move over: mapping opportunities for climate adaptation in Pakistan’s Indus plains. Environmental Research Letters, 18(11),
  • Hatchard, S., Schmitt, R. J. P., Pianosi, F., Savage, J., & Bates, P. (2023). Strategic siting and design of dams minimizes impacts on seasonal floodplain inundation. Environmental Research Letters. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ace122
  • Tangi, M., Bizzi, S., Schmitt, R. J. P., & Castelletti, A. (2023). Balancing sediment connectivity and energy production via optimized reservoir sediment management strategies. Water Resources Research, 59(6), e2022WR034033. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022WR034033
  • Langhans, K.E., Echeverri, A., Daws, S.C., Moss, S.N., Anderson, C.B., Chaplin-Kramer, R., Hendershot, J.N., Liu, L., Mandle, L., Nguyen, O., Ou, S.X., Remme, R.P., Schmitt, R. J. P., Vogl, A., Daily, G.C. (2023). Centering justice in conceptualizing and improving access to urban nature. People and Nature, 5(3), 897–910. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10470
  • Schmitt, R. J. P., & Minderhoud, P. S. J. (2023). Data, knowledge, and modeling challenges for science-informed management of river deltas. One Earth, 6(3), 216–235. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2023.02.010
  • Opperman, J. J., Carvallo, J. P., Kelman, R., Schmitt, R. J. P., Almeida, R., Chapin, E., et al. (2023). Balancing renewable energy and river resources by moving from individual assessments of hydropower projects to energy system planning. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2022.1036653
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2022

  • Schmitt, R. J. P., Rosa, L., & Daily, G. C. (2022). Global expansion of sustainable irrigation limited by water storage. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(47). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2214291119 
  • Kondolf, G. M., Schmitt, R. J. P. (equally contributing first author), Carling, P. A., Goichot, M., Keskinen, M., Arias, M. E., et al. (2022). Save the Mekong Delta from drowning. Science, 376(6593), 583–585. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abm5176
  • Almeida, R.M., Schmitt, R. J. P., Grodsky, S.M., Flecker, A.S., Gomes, C.P., Zhao, L., Liu, H., Barros, N., Kelman, R., McIntyre, P.B., 2022. Floating solar power could help fight climate change — let’s get it right. Nature 606, 246–249. 
  • Almeida, R. M., Schmitt, R. J. P. (equally contributing first author), Castelletti, A., Flecker, A. S., Harou, J. J., Heilpern, S. A., et al. (2022). Strategic planning of hydropower development: balancing benefits and socioenvironmental costs. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 56, 101175. 
  • Langhans, K. E., Schmitt, R. J. P., Chaplin-Kramer, R., Anderson, C. B., Vargas Bolaños, C., Vargas Cabezas, F., et al. (2022). Modeling multiple ecosystem services and beneficiaries of riparian reforestation in Costa Rica. Ecosystem Services, 57, 101470. 
  • Serra-Llobet, A., Jähnig, S.C., Geist, J., Kondolf, G.M., Damm, C., Scholz, M., Lund, J., Opperman, J.J., Yarnell, S.M., Pawley, A., Shader, E., Cain, J., Zingraff-Hamed, A., Grantham, T.E., Eisenstein, W., Schmitt, R. J. P., (2022). Restoring rivers and floodplains for habitat and Flood risk reduction: experiences in multi-benefit floodplain management from California and Germany. Frontiers in Environmental Science 9.  https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2021.778568
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2021

  • Schmitt, R. J. P., Giuliani, M., Bizzi, S., Kondolf, G. M., Daily, G. C., Castelletti, A. (2021). Strategic basin and delta planning increases the resilience of the Mekong Delta under future uncertainty. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(36). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.202612711
  • Schmitt, R.J.P., Kittner, N., Kondolf, G. M., Kammen, D.M. (2021). Joint strategic energy and river basin planning to reduce dam impacts on rivers in Myanmar. Environmental Research Letters 16, 054054. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abe329
  • Bizzi, S., Tangi, M., Schmitt, R. J. P., Pitlick, J., Piegay, H., Castelletti, A. (2021). Sediment transport at the network scale and its link to channel morphology in the braided Vjosa River system. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 46(14), 2946-2962. 
  • Lallemant, D., Hamel, P., Balbi, M., Lim, T. N., Schmitt, R. J. P., Win, S. (2021). Nature-based solutions for flood risk reduction: A probabilistic modeling framework. One Earth, 4(9), 1310–1321. 
  • Li, B., Chen, N., Wang, W., Wang, C., Schmitt, R. J. P., Lin, A., Daily, G. C. (2021). Eco-environmental impacts of dams in the Yangtze River Basin, China. Science of The Total Environment, 774, 145743. 

 

2020

  • Opperman, J.J., Orr, S., Baleta, H., Garrick, D., Goichot, M., McCoy, A., Morgan, A., Schmitt, R. J. P., Turley, L., Vermeulen, A. (2020). Achieving water security’s full goals through better integration of rivers’ diverse and distinct values. Water Security 10, 100063. h
  • Barbarossa, V., Schmitt, R. J. P., Huijbregts, M.A.J., Zarfl, C., King, H., Schipper, A.M. (2020). Impacts of current and future large dams on the geographic range connectivity of freshwater fish worldwide. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, 3648–3655
  • Hamel, P., Valencia, J., Schmitt, R. J. P., Shrestha, M., Piman, T., Sharp, R. P., et al. (2020). Modeling seasonal water yield for landscape management: Applications in Peru and Myanmar. Journal of Environmental Management, 270, 110792. 

 

2019

  • Schmitt, R. J. P.., Bizzi, S., Castelletti, A., Opperman, J.J., Kondolf, G. M. (2019). Planning dam portfolios for low sediment trapping shows limits for sustainable hydropower in the Mekong. Science Advances 5, eaaw2175. 
  • Schmitt, R. J. P., N. Kittner, G. M. Kondolf, Kammen, D. M. (2019). Deploy diverse renewables to save tropical rivers. Nature 569, 330. 
  • G. Grill, B. Lehner, M. Thieme, B. Geenen, D. Tickner, F. Antonelli, S. Babu, P. Borrelli, L. Cheng, H. Crochetiere, H. E. Macedo, R. Filgueiras, M. Goichot, J. Higgins, Z. Hogan, B. Lip, M. E. McClain, J. Meng, M. Mulligan, C. Nilsson, J. D. Olden, J. J. Opperman, P. Petry, C. R. Liermann, L. Sáenz, S. Salinas-Rodríguez, P. Schelle, Schmitt, R. J. P., J. Snider, F. Tan, K. Tockner, P. H. Valdujo, A. van Soesbergen, C. Zarfl (2019). Mapping the world’s free-flowing rivers. Nature 569, 215.
  • Tangi, M., Schmitt R. J. P., S. Bizzi, A. Castelletti (2019). The CASCADE toolbox for analyzing river sediment connectivity and management. Environmental Modelling & Software 119, 400–406.

2018

  • Schmitt, R. J. P., Bizzi, S., Castelletti, A., Kondolf, G. M. (2018). Improved trade-offs of hydropower and sand connectivity by strategic dam planning in the Mekong. Nature Sustainability 1, 96–104. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-018-0022-3. FEATURED ON TITLE PAGE: https://www.nature.com/natsustain/volumes/1/issues/2 
  • Kondolf, G. M., Schmitt, R. J. P., Carling, P., Darby, S., Arias, M., Bizzi, S., Castelletti, A., Cochrane, T.A., Gibson, S., Kummu, M., Oeurng, C., Rubin, Z., Wild, T. (2018). Changing sediment budget of the Mekong: Cumulative threats and management strategies for a large river basin. Science of The Total Environment 625, 114–134. 

 

2017

  • Schmitt, R. J. P., Rubin, Z., & Kondolf, G. M. (2017). Losing ground – scenarios of land loss as consequence of shifting sediment budgets in the Mekong Delta. Geomorphology, 294, 58–69. 
  • Schmitt, R. J. P., Morgenroth, E., Larsen, T.A.  (2017). Robust planning of sanitation services in urban informal settlements: An analytical framework. Water Research 110, 297–312. 

2016

  • Schmitt, R. J. P., Bizzi, S., Castelletti, A. (2016). Tracking multiple sediment cascades at the river network scale identifies controls and emerging patterns of sediment connectivity. Water Resources Research 3941–3965.

2014

  • Schmitt, R. J. P., Bizzi, S., Castelletti, A. (2014). Characterizing fluvial systems at basin scale by fuzzy signatures of hydromorphological drivers in data scarce environments. Geomorphology 214, 69–83. 

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