Shaleen Jain

Cooperating Professor, Climate Change Institute
Cooperating Professor, School of Policy and International Affairs

Media Expertise:

  • Flood Management
  • Climate Change
  • Economic Development
  • Geophysics
  • Hydrology
  • Knowledge to Action
  • Water Resource Management

Research Interests

  • Hydroclimatology
  • Water Resources
  • Environmental Data Analytics
  • Risk and Decision Analysis

Research Projects

  • Helping Communities Weather Storms
  • Safeguarding Vulnerable Watersheds

Degrees:

  • Utah State University, Ph.D. (Civil & Environmental Engineering)
  • Utah State University, M.S. (Civil & Environmental Engineering)
  • Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, BTech (Civil Engineering)

Courses

  • CIE 100: Introduction to Civil Engineering
  • CIE 455: Hydrology
  • CIE 456: Groundwater Hydraulics and Hydrology
  • CIE 552: Physical Hydrology
  • CIE 553: Water Resources Sustainability

Profile

Shaleen Jain is an environmental engineer, hydrologist, and a faculty member at the University of Maine. His research examines the interplay of human and natural forces that shape water availability, and distribution on watershed to regional scales. His work emphases on understanding the nature and causes of regional hydrologic change, and using climate information for adaptive environmental management.

Jain’s research with the Sustainability Solutions Initiative focused on adaptation strategies for Maine’s coastal communities, developing decision tools for lake-watershed systems, and conducting analysis of water use policies in Maine. He is expanding this research to understand the nature of climate-hydrologic systems linkages in the northeastern United States, western North American, the Korean peninsula, the African Sahel, and the North Atlantic hurricane region.

In collaboration with schools across Maine and the University of Maine’s New Media Internet Technologies Laboratory, Jain is developing immersive learning approaches centered on teaching watershed sustainability in middle school classrooms. The objective of this project is to provide substantial learning tools that quantify impacts of humans and ecosystems, and tests and assesses the adequacy of policy in the face of changing and uncertain forecasts.

Jain’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Maine Water Resources Research Institute (WRRI), Maine SeaGrant, Maine EPSCoR, U.S. Geological Survey, Maine Department of Environmental Protection, and the Senator George J. Mitchell Center and the Sustainability Solutions Initiative.

He has published in several peer reviewed journals including Climate Change, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, Geophysical Research Letters, International Journal of Climatology, Journal of Environmental Management, Journal of Climate, and Water Resource Research. Jain is currently on the editorial board of the International Water Journal.

Selected Publications

Aljoda, A., & Jain, S. Uncertainties and risks in reservoir operations under changing hydroclimatic conditions. Journal of Water and Climate Change.

Roy, S. G., Daigneault, A., Zydlewski, J., Truhlar, A., Smith, S., Jain, S., & Hart, D. (2020). Coordinated river infrastructure decisions improve net social-ecological benefits. Environmental Research Letters, 15(10), 104054.

Beyene, M. T., & Jain, S. (2020). Climate-related thresholds in lake ice and the associated environmental and social systems. Water Security, 10, 100065.

Abdullah, N., & Jain, S. (2020). Multi-index summer flow regime characterization to inform environmental flow contexts: A New England case study. Ecological Indicators, 111, 106008.

Kim, J. S., Jain, S., Lee, J. H., Chen, H., & Park, S. Y. (2019). Quantitative vulnerability assessment of water quality to extreme drought in a changing climate. Ecological Indicators, 103, 688-697.

Jain, V., Beyene, M., Varay L. S., Wasson, R. J., & Jain, S. (2019, March). Riverine flood hazard: Part A. types, processes and causative factors. In Proc Indian Natn Sci Acad (Vol. 85, No. 1, pp. 43-64).

Beyene, M. T., Jain, S., & Gupta, R. C. (2018). Linear‐Circular Statistical Modeling of Lake Ice‐Out Dates. Water Resources Research, 54(10), 7841-7858.

Beyene, M. T., & Jain, S. (2018). Freezing degree‐day thresholds and Lake ice‐out dates: Understanding the role of El Niño conditions. International Journal of Climatology, 38(11), 4335-4344.

Beyene, M. T., & Jain, S. (2018). North American wintertime temperature anomalies: the role of El Niño diversity and differential teleconnections. Climate Dynamics, 50(11-12), 4365-4377.

Beyene, M. T., & Jain, S. (2015). Wintertime weather‐climate variability and its links to early spring ice‐out in M aine lakes. Limnology and Oceanography, 60(6), 1890-1905.

Dhakal, N., Jain, S., Gray, A., Dandy, M., & Stancioff, E. (2015). Nonstationarity in seasonality of extreme precipitation: A nonparametric circular statistical approach and its application. Water Resources Research, 51(6), 4499-4515.

Hart, D. D., Bell, K. P., Lindenfeld, L. A., Jain, S., Johnson, T. R., Ranco, D., & McGill, B. (2015). Strengthening the role of universities in addressing sustainability challenges: the Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions as an institutional experiment. Ecology and Society, 20(2).

Jain, S., Stancioff, E., & Gray, A. (2012). Coastal Climate Adaptation in Maine’s Coastal Communities: Governance Mapping for Culvert Management. Maine Climate News.

John Peckenham, David Hart, Sean Smith, Shaleen Jain, and Whitney King. (2012). The Path to Sustainable Water Resources Solutions. Maine Policy Review Volume 21, Issue 1:46 -57.

Sen Gupta, A., Shaleen Jain, and Jong-Suk Kim. (2011). Past climate, future perspective: An exploratory analysis using climate proxies and drought risk assessment to inform water resources management and policy in Maine, USA. Journal of Environmental Management Issue 92:941-947.

Jong-Suk Kim, Shaleen Jain, and Stephen A. Norton. (2010). Streamflow variability and hydroclimatic change at the Bear Brook Watershed in Maine (BBWM), USA. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, Volume 171, Number 1-4:47-58.