Environmental Monitoring Branch
Research Scientist
Recent Publications
To see Dr. Zhan's complete list of publications, abstracts, and citation metrics, visit his
ResearcherID page.
Xiwu 'Jerry' Zhan received his B.S. and M.S. degrees
from Nanjing Institute of Meteorology in China. After teaching and doing
research at the Institute, he started his advanced study in Atmospheric
Sciences at Cornell University in 1990. With a Ph.D. degree, he continued
his land surface modeling study at USDA Hydrology Lab from 1994. He
joined the research faculty of the Department of Geography at University
of Maryland College Park to lead the MODIS research team for creating
global land cover and land cover change products in 1996. He worked on
NPOESS VIIRS land remote sensing EDR algorithms at Raytheon
Company for half year of 2001 and moved to NASA Goddard Space Flight
Center as a UMBC - GEST contractor to validate AMSR-E land
surface remote sensing data products and assimilate them into land surface
models to improve land-atmosphere interaction simulations in 2002. He
moved back to USDA Hydrology and Remote Sensing Lab to continue
his land surface modeling, remote sensing and data assimilation research
as a civil servant in 2005 and joined NOAA - NESDIS -
STAR in 2006.
Dr. Zhan's research interests include developing land remote sensing data products and
applying them in numerical weather prediction and other related models to advance
atmospheric sciences and meet societal needs. His current research projects are:
Development of microwave soil moisture retrieval algorithms;
Merging different satellite observations (e.g. AMSR-E, WindSat, ASCAT and
MODIS) for high resolution high accuracy soil moisture data products;
Assimilate satellite land observations into NOAA's Global Forecast System
(GFS) to demonstrate land impact on weather forecasts;
Integrate soil moisture satellite observations and model simulations for USDA
Foreign Agricultural Service’s crop forecasting decision support system (DSS).
Most Recent Publications
Bolten, J., W.T. Crow, X. Zhan, C. Reynolds, and T.J. Jackson, 2008.
"Assimilation of a satellite-based soil moisture product in a two-layer
water balance model for a global crop production decision support system,"
accepted, in Data Assimilation for Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Hydrologic
Applications, S.K. Park (Ed.), Springer-Verlag.
Kumar, S.V., R. H. Reichle, C. D. Peters-Lidard, R.D. Koster, X. Zhan,
W.T. Crow, J.B. Eylander, and P.R. Houser. 2008. "A Land Surface Data
Assimilation Framework using the Land Information System: Description and
Applications". Advances in Water Resources, In print.
Zhan, X., W. T. Crow, T. J. Jackson, and P.E. O'Neill. 2008. Improving
Space-borne Radiometer Soil Moisture Retrievals with Alternative
Aggregation Rules for Ancillary Parameters. IEEE Geoscience and Remote
Sensing Letters. Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 261-265, April 2008.
Crow, W and X. Zhan. 2007. Continental-scale evaluation of remotely sensed
soil moisture products. Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters. Vol. 4, No.
3, pp. 451-455, July 2007.
Zhan, X., P. R. Houser, J.P. Walker, W. Crow. 2006. A method for
retrieving high resolution soil moisture from Hydros L-Band radiometer and
radar observations. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.
Vol. 44. No. 6: 1534-1544. June, 2006.
Crow, W.T., T. Chan, D. Entekhabi, P.R. Houser, A. Hsu, T.J. Jackson, E.
Njoku, P.E. O'Neill, J.C. Shi, X. Zhan. 2005. An Observing System
Simulation Experiment for Hydros Radiometer-Only Soil Moisture Products.
IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing. 43(6):1289-1303.
Dept. of Commerce • NOAA • NESDIS • STAR • Last revised: March 15, 2012
Xiwu 'Jerry' Zhan
Xiwu 'Jerry' Zhan received his B.S. and M.S. degrees
from Nanjing Institute of Meteorology in China. After teaching and doing
research at the Institute, he started his advanced study in Atmospheric
Sciences at Cornell University in 1990. With a Ph.D. degree, he continued
his land surface modeling study at USDA Hydrology Lab from 1994. He
joined the research faculty of the Department of Geography at University
of Maryland College Park to lead the MODIS research team for creating
global land cover and land cover change products in 1996. He worked on
NPOESS VIIRS land remote sensing EDR algorithms at Raytheon
Company for half year of 2001 and moved to NASA Goddard Space Flight
Center as a UMBC - GEST contractor to validate AMSR-E land
surface remote sensing data products and assimilate them into land surface
models to improve land-atmosphere interaction simulations in 2002. He
moved back to USDA Hydrology and Remote Sensing Lab to continue
his land surface modeling, remote sensing and data assimilation research
as a civil servant in 2005 and joined NOAA - NESDIS -
STAR in 2006.