Xia Zhang

Xia Zhang is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Industrial Ecology Programme at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), affiliated with the Department of Energy and Process Engineering. She collaborates with Prof. Francesco Cherubini, focusing on climate change, regional climate modeling, land-use dynamics, and drought mechanisms.

Her research emphasizes three core areas: sustainable agricultural land management using land-atmosphere coupled models (e.g., WRF, CESM), drought detection via evapotranspiration-based indices, and improving land-atmosphere interaction representations in climate models through dynamic canopy-height-dependent schemes. She has developed a global drought index dataset and contributed to studies on deforestation impacts, forest management effects in Fennoscandia, and regional cooling potential from perennial grass expansion.

Xia’s publications span 2018–2025, addressing topics like drought severity quantification, heavy precipitation modeling, and surface coupling effects in WRF/Noah-MP models. Her work bridges theoretical climate science with practical applications in agriculture and environmental policy.

Her academic outreach includes presentations at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) conferences, discussing drought forecasting and forest management impacts. She actively collaborates with international teams on global climate models and regional climate adaptation strategies.