Climate Scientist
Terrestrial
dlswain@ucla.edu
Daniel is the California Climate Fellow in the Conservancy's California chapter. In this role, which is part of a trilateral partnership between the Conservancy, UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, and the Capacity Center for Climate and Weather Extremes at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Daniel engages in physical science research aimed at developing empirically-supported approaches to natural hazard mitigation that benefit both society and the environment in an era of increasing climate whiplash. Together with colleagues at TNC, UCLA, NCAR, and a wide range of other institutions, his research focuses on the atmospheric and Earth system processes that lead to droughts, floods, and wildfires--with a particular focus on how these phenomena are changing in a warming climate and how nature-based interventions can act to reduce risks and improve environmental outcomes.
Prior to working with the Conservancy, Daniel was a NatureNet Postdoctoral Fellow at UCLA. Daniel received a B.S. in Atmospheric Science from the University of California, Davis and a Ph.D. in Earth System Science from Stanford University.
What Daniel is working on now:
Two key projects focused on flood and wildfire risk, respectively, in a warming California. The first project seeks to understand the scope of the expanded flood hazards that climate change pose for California, and the degree to which interventions such as strategic floodplain management (including levee setbacks, floodways/bypasses, and flood-managed aquifer recharge) can be used to mitigate those risks. The second project is aimed at quantifying how California's rapidly accelerating wildfire crisis can be partially addressed through the increased use of prescribed fire, and how best to manage the meteorological constraints on such an approach as climate change shifts traditional seasonal windows of opportunity.