Honors & Awards


  • Graduate Research Fellowship, National Science Foundation (10/1/2022)

Education & Certifications


  • HS, Phillips Exeter Academy (2016)
  • B.S., University of Texas at Austin, Environmental Science, Geology (2020)

All Publications


  • The Age of Evapotranspiration: Lower-Bound Constraints From Distributed Water Fluxes Across the Continental United States WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH Hahm, W. J., Lapides, D. A., Rempe, D. M., McCormick, E. L., Dralle, D. N. 2022; 58 (10)
  • Widespread woody plant use of water stored in bedrock NATURE McCormick, E. L., Dralle, D. N., Hahm, W., Tune, A. K., Schmidt, L. M., Chadwick, K., Rempe, D. M. 2021; 597 (7875): 225-+

    Abstract

    In the past several decades, field studies have shown that woody plants can access substantial volumes of water from the pores and fractures of bedrock1-3. If, like soil moisture, bedrock water storage serves as an important source of plant-available water, then conceptual paradigms regarding water and carbon cycling may need to be revised to incorporate bedrock properties and processes4-6. Here we present a lower-bound estimate of the contribution of bedrock water storage to transpiration across the continental United States using distributed, publicly available datasets. Temporal and spatial patterns of bedrock water use across the continental United States indicate that woody plants extensively access bedrock water for transpiration. Plants across diverse climates and biomes access bedrock water routinely and not just during extreme drought conditions. On an annual basis in California, the volumes of bedrock water transpiration exceed the volumes of water stored in human-made reservoirs, and woody vegetation that accesses bedrock water accounts for over 50% of the aboveground carbon stocks in the state. Our findings indicate that plants commonly access rock moisture, as opposed to groundwater, from bedrock and that, like soil moisture, rock moisture is a critical component of terrestrial water and carbon cycling.

    View details for DOI 10.1038/s41586-021-03761-3

    View details for Web of Science ID 000695818300012

    View details for PubMedID 34497393

  • Technical note: Accounting for snow in the estimation of root zone water storage capacity from precipitation and evapotranspiration fluxes HYDROLOGY AND EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCES Dralle, D. N., Hahm, W., Chadwick, K., McCormick, E., Rempe, D. M. 2021; 25 (5): 2861-2867
  • LEAF: Logger for ecological and atmospheric factors HARDWAREX Matheny, A. M., Marchetto, P., Powell, J., Rechner, A., Chuah, J., McCormick, E., Pierce, S. A. 2019; 6
  • Plant Hydraulic Trait Covariation: A Global Meta-Analysis to Reduce Degrees of Freedom in Trait-Based Hydrologic Models FORESTS Mursinna, A., McCormick, E., Van Horn, K., Sartin, L., Matheny, A. M. 2018; 9 (8)

    View details for DOI 10.3390/f9080446

    View details for Web of Science ID 000443254400005