Science Magazine Cover Feature
Shaping Rivers | July 2025
Welcome to the homepage of the River Origins, Evolution, & Response Lab (ROER Lab), led by Professor Austin Chadwick at the Columbia Climate School & Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Started in Sept 2025, the ROER Lab tackles fundamental questions about the origin and organization of river systems on Earth, as well as societal challenges in riverside hazards and sustainability.
What we do
River systems are the arteries of the Earth. Water and sediment naturally self-organize on their journey from the mountains to the sea, forging ever-changing channels that come in diverse shapes and sizes. [Image Credit: NASA Landsat 1985–2021]
More than 3 billion people worldwide live along river systems and rely upon them directly for food, water, and energy. Many of Earth's river systems today are facing rapid changes associated with human activities (e.g., damming, deforestation, man-made levees) and climate change (e.g. sea-level rise, extreme weather, cyclones). [Image Credit: Austin Chadwick]
The ROER Lab vision is defined by two common threads. First, we seek answers to fundamental questions about the origin and organization of river systems on Earth. Second, we investigate how rivers today are responding to human activities and global climate change to address twenty-first-century concerns about geologic hazards and environmental sustainability. We tackle this vision with a blend of approaches, including geologic fieldwork, satellite remote sensing, theoretical modeling, and laboratory flume experiments.
Highlights
AAAS Video Interview
How rivers flow, split, and change | July 2025
Grant Awarded: NSF WaLCZ
Collaborative Research: Disentangling Subsidence - Integrated observations and modeling of vertical land-surface dynamics in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta (Co-PI) | July 2025
Press Features
Our 2025 Science Paper was featured in USA Today, The Hindu, UC Santa Barbara's The Current, and the Columbia Climate School's State of the Planet. | July 2025
People
Austin J. Chadwick
Paros Assistant Professor of Geohazards & Climate Mitigation at the Columbia Climate School
Nell Bowen
LDEO Staff Associate II
ROER Lab Manager
JeongYeon Han
Columbia Climate School Postdoc Fellow
Riverside erosion, flooding, & land use
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Yuda (Peter) Pan
Graduate Student (MSc), Columbia Climate School
Timescales of river response to environmental change
Divine Siam
Graduate Student (MSc), Columbia Climate School
River flood hazards under climate & human pressures; Lab experiments
Kate Matthews
Undergraduate, Barnard College
Timescales of river response to environmental change; Lab experiments
Gwendolyn Anderson
Undergraduate, Bates College
Riverbank erosion hazards in a changing climate; Lab experiments
Past group members
Bethany Duncan
Undergraduate, Columbia Applied Math (2026)
River mobility
[Now at LSU MCE program with a concentration in Water Resources Engineering]
Joining The ROER Lab
We are planning to hire a postdoc in coastal processes soon: stay tuned. For other inquiries email me at achadwick at ldeo dot columbia dot edu.