Joseph Pollacco
Research Officer - Catchment ModellerResearch Interests
I am a Senior Researcher with expertise in vadose zone hydrological modeling, focusing on improving predictions of the water balance and contaminant delivery pathways to water. My research aims to derive accurate and cost-effective soil hydraulic parameters that describe soil moisture release and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity curves by applying principles of soil physics and mathematics.
Within the ACP, I will integrate hydrological, agronomic, and environmental data to model scenarios assessing the influence of agriculture and climate on water quality. Hydraulic parameters will be processed using the AquaPore-ToolKit software, which I developed in the Julia programming language.
Education
- PhD: University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Civil Eng. & Geosciences, UK, 2005
View Joseph A.P. Pollacco's publications on ResearchGate
Pollacco, J.A.P., Eger, A., Rajanayaka, C., Fernández-Gálvez, J., (2024b). Improved Partitioning Between Matrix and Macropore Flow: Novel Bimodal Lognormal Functions for Water Retention and Hydraulic Conductivity in Pumice and Non-Pumice Soils. Journal of Hydrology, HYDROL60616R1, in press Q1
Pollacco, J.A.P., Webb, T., Fernández-Gálvez, J., Vickers S., McNeil S., Lilburne L., Rajanayaka C. (2024a). Derivation of physically based soil hydraulic parameters in New Zealand using hydropedology approaches Smap-Hydro. European Journal of Soil Science, Volume 75, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1111/ejss.13502 , Q1
Pollacco, J.A.P., Fernández-Gálvez, J., De Jong Van Lier, Q., (2023b). Bimodal Unsaturated Hydraulic Conductivity Derived from Water Retention Parameters by Accounting for Clay-Water Interactions: Deriving a Plausible Set of Hydraulic Parameters, Journal of Hydrology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2023.130227, Q1
de Melo, M.L.A., de Jong van Lier Q., Rogerio C., Pollacco, J.A.P., Fernández-Gálvez, J. Markus Pahlow (2023a). Sensitivity analysis of land and water productivities predicted with an empirical and a process-based root water uptake model, Journal of Hydrology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2023.130241 , Q1.
Pollacco, J.A.P., Fernández-Gálvez, J., Rajanayaka, C., Zammit, S.C., Ackerer, P., Belfort, B., Lassabatere, L., Angulo-Jaramillo, R., Lilburne, L., Carrick, S., Peltzer, D.A., (2022b). Multistep optimisation of HyPix model for flexible vertical scaling of soil hydraulic parameters. Environmental Modelling & Software, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2022.105472 , Q1
Pollacco, J.A.P., Fernandez-Galvez, J., Ackerer, P., Belfort, B., Lassabatere, L., Angulo-Jaramillo, R., Rajanayaka, C., Lilburne, L., Carrick, S., Peltzer, D.A., (2022a). HyPix: 1D physically based hydrological model with novel adaptive time-stepping management and smoothing dynamic criterion for controlling Newton-Raphson step. Environmental Modelling & Software https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2022.105386 , Q1
Lassabatere, L., Peyneau, P.-E., Yilmaz, D., Pollacco, J.A.P., Fernández-Gálvez, J., Latorre, B., Moret-Fernández, D., Di Prima, S., Rahmati, M., Stewart, R.D., Abou Najm, M., Hammecker, C., Angulo-Jaramillo, R., (2021d). Mixed formulation for an easy and robust numerical computation of sorptivity. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-895-2023 , Q1
Fernández-Gálvez, J., Pollacco, J.A.P., Lilburne, L., McNeill, S., Carrick, S., Lassabatere, L., Angulo-Jaramillo, R. (2021a). Deriving physical and unique bimodal soil Kosugi hydraulic parameters from inverse modelling. Advances in Water Resources, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advwatres.2021.103933, Q1
Pollacco J.A.P., Fernández-Gálvez J., Carrick S. (2019b). Improved prediction of water retention curves for fine texture soils using an intergranular mixing particle size distribution model. Journal of Hydrology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2020.124597 , Q1
Fernández-Gálvez, J., Pollacco, J.A.P., Lassabatere, L., Angulo-Jaramillo, R., Carrick, S., (2019a). A general Beerkan Estimation of Soil Transfer parameters method predicting hydraulic parameters of any unimodal water retention and hydraulic conductivity curves: Application to the Kosugi soil hydraulic model without using particle size distribution data. Advances in Water Resources, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advwatres.2019.05.005 , Q1
Pollacco, JAP, Webb, T., McNeill, S., Hu, W., Carrick, S., Hewitt, A., Lilburne, L.: Saturated hydraulic conductivity model computed from bimodal water retention curves for a range of New Zealand soils, (2017). Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-2725-2017 , Q1