Impacts of global change and emerging contaminants on groundwater sustainability
Integrated studies of hydrologic and ecological processes at watershed scales
Surface water–groundwater interactions and their ecological and environmental effects
Effects of physical and chemical heterogeneities on contaminant transport and remediation
Novel technologies integrating sustainable environmental remediation with nature-based carbon sequestration
Professional Overview
Chunmiao Zheng is an internationally recognized hydrogeologist and environmental engineer whose work has made fundamental contributions to contaminant transport modeling, groundwater–surface water interactions, ecohydrology, and sustainable water resources management. He currently serves as Chair Professor and Vice President at the Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT) in Ningbo, China. His previous academic and leadership appointments have included Founding Dean of the School of Environmental Science and Engineering and Vice Provost for Global Strategies at the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in Shenzhen; Inaugural Director of the Institute of Water Sciences at Peking University; and George Lindahl III Endowed Professor at the University of Alabama, United States.
Professor Zheng was elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in 2019. His major honors include the 11th Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water in 2024, the O.E. Meinzer Award and the M. King Hubbert Award in 2013, and the John Hem Excellence in Science and Engineering Award in 1998. He is widely known for developing the MT3D/MT3DMS solute transport models, which have been used in more than 100 countries. Over the past three decades, these models have become standard tools for groundwater contamination assessment, remediation design, and water resources management worldwide, and have helped shape the way contaminant transport problems are analyzed in research, consulting, and regulatory settings.
He is the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Sustainable Horizons. He has also served as President of the International Commission on Groundwater of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) and as Associate Editor of five leading hydrology journals, including Water Resources Research. He is the author or co-author of more than 500 peer-reviewed publications and six books, including Applied Contaminant Transport Modeling. He has been named a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher, and his publications have been cited more than 42,880 times on Google Scholar as of July 2026.
Education
1985–1988 Ph.D., Hydrogeology; minor in Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin–Madison, WI, USA.
1983–1984 Postgraduate Studies in Geology and Applied Mathematics, Chengdu University of Technology (formerly Chengdu College of Geology), China.
1979–1983 B.S., Geology, specializing in Hydrogeology, Chengdu University of Technology (formerly Chengdu College of Geology), China.
Employment History
2010–2018 Chair Professor and Founding Director, Institute of Water Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China (joint appointment after 2015).
1993–2018 George Lindahl III Endowed Professor (2010–2018; on leave after 2013), Professor (2002–2010), Associate Professor (1997–2002), Assistant Professor (1993–1997), Department of Geological Sciences, University of Alabama.
1988–1993 Senior Hydrogeologist, S.S. Papadopulos & Associates, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland.
Professional Experience
2025–present Guest Professor, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
2018–present Lindahl Professor Emeritus and Adjunct Professor, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Alabama.
2006–2009 Visiting Professor and Founding Director, Center for Water Research, Peking University, Beijing, China.
2001 Visiting Fellow, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom.
2000 Visiting Associate Professor, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.
2000 Visiting Scientist, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, California.
1995 Visiting Fellow, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, Sydney.
1991 Assistant Professional Lecturer, George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
Awards and Honors
2024, 2025 Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher (https://clarivate.com/highly-cited-researchers/)
2024 Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water (PSIPW) (Groundwater category); PSIPW is a leading global scientific award focusing on cutting-edge innovation in water research(https://www.psipw.org)
2019 Fellow, American Geophysical Union (AGU) (https://eos.org/agu-news/2019-class-of-agu-fellows-announced)
2014 Distinguished Alumni Award, Department of Geoscience, University of Wisconsin–Madison, WI.
2013 O.E. Meinzer Award, Hydrogeology Division, Geological Society of America (https://community.geosociety.org/hydrodivision/awards/meinzer/past)
2013 M. King Hubbert Award, National Ground Water Association.(https://www.ngwa.org/members/awards/m-king-hubbert-award-recipients)
2012 Distinguished Lecturer for the Hydrology Section, AOGS–AGU (WPGM) Joint Assembly, Singapore.
2009 Birdsall–Dreiss Distinguished Lecturer, Hydrogeology Division, Geological Society of America (https://community.geosociety.org/hydrodivision/aboutus/birdsall-lectures/past)
2008 DuPont Lecturer, University of Delaware, DE.
2005 Oliver Lectureship in Hydrogeology, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, TX.
1999 Fellow, Geological Society of America.
1998 John Hem Excellence in Science and Engineering Award, National Ground Water Association.
Primary Research Interests
• Impacts of global change and emerging contaminants on groundwater sustainability
• Integrated studies of hydrologic and ecological processes at watershed scales
• Surface water–groundwater interactions and their ecological and environmental effects
• Effects of physical and chemical heterogeneities on contaminant transport and remediation
• Novel technologies integrating sustainable environmental remediation with nature-based carbon sequestration
Professional Affiliations
• American Geophysical Union (AGU, Fellow)
• National Ground Water Association (NGWA)
• Geological Society of America (GSA, Fellow)
• International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS)
• Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences (CSES, Fellow)
Teaching and Mentoring
• Established and advanced programs in hydrogeology and environmental science and engineering across four institutions in the United States and China: the University of Alabama; Peking University; Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), Shenzhen; and the Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT), Ningbo.
• Designed and delivered more than 10 distinct undergraduate and graduate courses in hydrogeology, groundwater flow and contaminant transport modeling, geostatistics, integrated hydrological and environmental systems, water resources management, hydrogeological field techniques, and quantitative analysis.
• Supervised and mentored over 120 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers (more than half of whom are women), many of whom have advanced to leadership roles in academia, government, and industry worldwide.
Grants and Research Funding
• Professor Zheng has secured funding for 58 projects, including 50 as Principal Investigator (PI) and 8 as Co‑PI. His portfolio includes approximately RMB 200 million in funding as PI while at Peking University, SUSTech, and the Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT), as well as approximately USD 19 million as PI or Co‑PI during his tenure at the University of Alabama.
• These projects have been supported by major funding agencies in China and the United States, including the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (MOST), the China Geological Survey (CGS), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Representative Publications
10 papers in Hydrological Sciences and 10 papers in Environmental and Interdisciplinary Sciences
(* indicates corresponding author.)
[Summary] Professor Zheng has authored or co-authored more than 500 peer-reviewed journal articles and six books. Selected recent representative publications are listed below.
[Hydrological and groundwater sciences]
1. Kuang, X., J. Liu*, B.R. Scanlon, J.J. Jiao, S. Jasechko, M. Lancia, B.K. Biskaborn, Y. Wada, H. Li, Z. Zeng, Z. Guo, Y. Yao, T. Gleeson, J.-P. Nicot, X. Luo, Y. Zou, C. Zheng*, 2024, The changing nature of groundwater in the global water cycle, Science, 383(6686), eadf0630, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adf0630.
2. Yu, J., Y. Tian*, X. Wang, T. Sun, M. Lancia, C.B. Andrews, C. Zheng*, 2024, Integrated modeling of flow, soil erosion, and nutrient dynamics in a regional watershed: Assessing natural and human-induced impacts, Water Resour. Res., 60(9), e2024WR037531, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024WR037531.
3. Pang, M., E. Du*, C. Zheng*, 2024, Contaminant transport modeling and source attribution with attention‐based graph neural network, Water Resour. Res., 60(6), e2023WR035278, https://doi.org/10.1029/2023WR035278.
4. Ma, R., K. Chen, C.B. Andrews, S.P. Loheide, A.H. Sawyer, X. Jiang, M.A. Briggs, P.G. Cook, S.M. Gorelick, H. Prommer, B.R. Scanlon, Z. Guo, C. Zheng*, 2024, Methods for quantifying interactions between groundwater and surface water, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 49, 623–653, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-111522-104534.
5. Chen, K., X. Chen, J.C. Stegen, …,E.E. Roden*, C. Zheng*, 2023, Vertical hydrologic exchange flows control methane emissions from riverbed sediments,Environ. Sci. Technol., 57(9), 4014–4026, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c07676.
6. Du, E., Y. Tian, X. Cai, Y. Zheng, F. Han, X. Li, M. Zhao, Y. Yang, C. Zheng*, 2022, Evaluating distributed policies for conjunctive surface water–groundwater management in large river basins: Water uses versus hydrological impacts, Water Resour. Res., 58(1), e2021WR031352, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021WR031352.
7. Yin, M., R. Ma, Y. Zhang*, K. Chen, Z. Guo, C. Zheng*, 2022, A dual heterogeneous domain model for upscaling anomalous transport with multi-peaks in heterogeneous aquifers, Water Resour. Res.,58(4), e2021WR031128, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021WR031128.
8. Lancia, M., Y. Yao, C.B. Andrews, X. Wang, X. Kuang, J. Ni, S.M. Gorelick, B.R. Scanlon, Y. Wang, C. Zheng*, 2022, The China groundwater crisis: A mechanistic analysis with implications for global sustainability, Sustainable Horizons, 4, 100042, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.horiz.2022.100042.
9. Zheng, C. and Z. Guo, 2022, Plans to protect China’s depleted groundwater, Science, 375 (6583), 827, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abn8377.
10. Yao, Y., C. Zheng*, C.B. Andrews, B.R. Scanlon, X. Kuang, Z. Zeng, S. Jeong, 2021, Role of groundwater in sustaining northern Himalayan rivers, Geophysical Research Letters, 48, e2020GL092354, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL092354.
[Environmental and interdisciplinary sciences]
1. Chen, H., Z. Liu, W. Qiu, …, C. Zheng, 2026, Tumour recurrence, gastrointestinal symptoms and inflammation associated with microplastic-positive intestinal tumours, Nature Health, https://doi.org/10.1038/s44360-026-00123-z.
2. Qiu, W., G. Yang, L. Cao, …, C. Zheng*, 2025, Risks of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance exposure through marine fish consumption, Science, 390 (6779), 1305–1309, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adr0351.
3. Fan, L., X. Kuang, C. Ouyang, K. Chen, C. Zheng*, 2025, Climatic controls on hydrological landslide triggering in the northern Himalayas, Water Resour. Res., 61(2), e2024WR039611, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024WR039611.
4. Wu, Y., L. Feng*, S. Yang, C. Zheng*, 2025, Satellite observations reveal recent increases in water clarity in Chinese coastal waters, Environ. Sci. Technol., 59(38), 20452–20461, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5c07097.
5. Feng, L., Y. Wang, X. Hou, B. Qin, T. Kutser, F. Qu, N. Chen, H.W. Paerl, C. Zheng, 2024, Harmful algal blooms in inland waters, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 5, 631–644, https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-024-00578-2.
6. Gu, X., X. Feng, …, C. Zheng, Z. Xu, H. Chen, 2024, Photovoltaic-driven dual-oxidation seawater electrolyzer for sustainable lithium recovery, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(43), e2414741121, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2414741121.
7. Dai, Y., S. Yang, D. Zhao, …, C. Zheng, L. Feng, 2023, Coastal phytoplankton blooms expand and intensify in the 21st century, Nature, 615 (7951), 280–284, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05760-y.
8. Lin, S., H. Zhang, C. Wang, …, Z. Cai*, and C. Zheng*, 2022, Metabolomics reveal nanoplastic-induced mitochondrial damage in human liver and lung cells, Environ. Sci. Technol., 56(17), 12483–12493, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c03980.
9. Feng, Y., Z. Zeng*, T.D. Searchinger, …, C. Zheng*, 2022, Doubling of annual forest carbon loss over the tropics during the early twenty-first century,Nature Sustainability, 5, 444–451, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00854-3.
10. Ben, Y., C. Fu, M. Hu, L. Liu, M. H. Wong, C. Zheng*, 2019, Human health risk assessment of antibiotic resistance associated with antibiotic residues in the environment: A review, Environmental Research, 169, 483–493, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2018.11.040.
Major Books and Computer Software
1. National Research Council (NRC), 2012, Challenges and Opportunities in the Hydrologic Sciences, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 188 pp. (Chunmiao Zheng was a member of the NRC committee that authored this consensus study report, https://doi.org/10.17226/13293).
2. Zheng, C., 2010, MT3DMS v5.3 Supplemental User’s Guide, Report to the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Alabama, https://web.archive.org/web/20170129200934/http://hydro.geo.ua.edu/mt3d/.
3. Zheng, C. and G.D. Bennett, 2009, Applied Contaminant Transport Modeling, Chinese Edition, Higher Education Press, Beijing, China, in collaboration with John Wiley & Sons, New York, 417 pp.
4. Zheng, C. and others (Committee on Chinese Groundwater Science), 2009, Challenges and Opportunities in Chinese Groundwater Science, Science Press, Beijing, China, 200 pp. (Chunmiao Zheng was chair of the committee that authored this report.)
5. Zheng, C. and G.D. Bennett, 2002, Applied Contaminant Transport Modeling, Second Edition, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 621 pp. (Available at the Wiley website).
6. Zheng, C. and P.P. Wang, 1999, MT3DMS:A Modular Three-Dimensional Multispecies Transport Model for Simulation of Advection, Dispersion, and Chemical Reactions of Contaminants in Groundwater Systems; Documentation and User’s Guide, Contract Report SERDP-99-1, U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Vicksburg, MS, 221 pp., https://web.archive.org/web/20170129200934/http://hydro.geo.ua.edu/mt3d/.
7. Zheng, C. and G.D. Bennett, 1995, Applied Contaminant Transport Modeling: Theory and Practice, Van Nostrand Reinhold (now John Wiley & Sons), New York, 440 pp.
8. Zheng, C., 1990, MT3D: A Modular Three-Dimensional Transport Model for Simulation of Advection, Dispersion and Chemical Reactions of Contaminants in Groundwater Systems, Report to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, 170 pp.
Major Committees and Editorial Boards
2025–present Board of Directors, The Groundwater Project, a global, freely accessible online platform for groundwater knowledge and education, based in Ontario, Canada
2024–present Steering Group, GEWEX Global Groundwater Network, International GEWEX Project Office, Fairfax, Virginia
2023–2025 Hydrology Section Fellows Committee, Hydrology Section, American Geophysical Union (AGU)
2021–present Founding Editor-in-Chief, Sustainable Horizons, an international open-access journal in partnership with Elsevier
2019–present Advisory Panel, Section on Environmental Earth Science, National Natural Science Foundation of China
2016–present Associate Editor, Vadose Zone Journal
2015–present Deputy Chair, Steering Committee, Major Research Program “Runoff Change in the Headwater Region of China’s Southwestern Rivers and Their Adaptive Management”, National Natural Science Foundation of China
2013–2018 Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Acta Geologica Sinica (English Edition)
2010–2018 Member, Steering Committee, Major Research Program “An Integrated Study of Ecohydrological Processes in the Heihe River Basin”, National Natural Science Foundation of China
2010–2015 Associate Editor, Water Resources Research
2009–2013 Blue Ribbon Panel on “Challenges and Opportunities in the Hydrologic Sciences”, National Research Council, Washington, D.C.
2007–2014 Associate Editor, Journal of Hydrology
2007–2013 President-elect and President, International Commission on Groundwater, International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS)
2005–2015 Standing Committee on Hydrologic Science, National Research Council, Washington, D.C.
2005–2007 Treasurer, Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI), Washington, D.C.
2004–2008 Science and Technology Center Site Review Team, National Science Foundation, United States
2003–2007 Associate Editor, Hydrogeology Journal, International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH) and Geological Society of America (GSA)
1998–2010 Associate Editor and Software Column Editor (2002–2010), Ground Water (now Groundwater), National Ground Water Association
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