Caio Reis Costa Mattos

After completing my undergraduate degree in Water Resources and Environmental Engineering at the Fluminense Federal University in 2017, I went on to Rutgers, The State University of New Brunswick, where I earned my Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Sciences in 2022. My academic journey included a significant period as a visiting researcher at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (NOAA) and a postdoctoral experience at Princeton University in 2023. Currently, I continue to expand my knowledge and research as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Physics at the Federal University of Santa Catarina and am involved in several interdisciplinary projects: investigating the connections and water flows in the Amazon—in the atmosphere, surface, and subsurface; characterizing the structure of soil and rocks and how this affects water storage and, therefore, vegetation response to drought in the Amazon and Cerrado; assessing the risk and resilience of the Amazon system in the face of atmospheric and hydrological droughts by integrating climate, vegetation ecophysiology, and hydrology; analyzing land use changes and threats to Brazilian archaeological sites; and quantifying and valuing ecosystem services related to water, carbon, and biodiversity, and how these influence the selection of areas for ecological restoration.