Oliver Wigmore

• PhD
• Senior Research Fellow at Victoria University of Wellington

Surface soil moisture is a critical but often neglected component of the hydrologic budget. Within mountain environments, surface soil moisture is highly heterogeneous and challenging to measure. Point measurements are often poorly representative of larger areas, while satellite pixels are generally too coarse in these topographically varied landsc...

Supraglacial debris cover regulates the melt rates of many glaciers in mountainous regions around the world, thereby modifying the availability and quality of downstream water resources. However, the influence of supraglacial debris is often poorly represented within glaciological models, due to the absence of a technique to provide high-precision,...

Alpine ecosystems are experiencing rapid change as a result of warming temperatures and changes in the quantity, timing and phase of precipitation. This in turn impacts patterns and processes of ecohydrologic connectivity, vegetation productivity and water provision to downstream regions. The fine-scale heterogeneous nature of these environments ma...

Patterns of alpine plant productivity are extremely variable in space and time. Complex topography drives variations in temperature, wind, and solar radiation. Surface and subsurface flow paths route water between landscape patches. Redistribution of snow creates scour zones and deep drifts, which drives variation in water availability and growing...

The glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca, Peru, are rapidly retreating and thinning as a result of climate change, altering the timing, quantity and quality of water available to downstream users. Furthermore, increases in the number and size of proglacial lakes associated with these melting glaciers is increasing potential exposure to glacier lake ou...

Alpine ecosystems are experiencing rapid change, as a result of warming temperatures and changes in the quantity, timing and phase of precipitation. This in turn impacts patterns and processes of ecohydrologic connectivity, vegetation productivity, and water provision to downstream regions. The fine scale heterogeneous nature of these environments...

Climate warming in alpine regions is changing patterns of water storage, a primary control on alpine plant ecology, biogeochemistry, and water supplies to lower elevations. There is an outstanding need to determine how the interacting drivers of precipitation and the critical zone (CZ) dictate the spatial pattern and time evolution of soil water st...

The seasonal snowmelt period is a critical component of the hydrologic cycle for many mountainous areas. Changes in the timing and rate of snowmelt as a result of physical hydrologic flow paths, such as longitudinal intra‐snowpack flow paths, can have strong implications on the partitioning of meltwater amongst streamflow, groundwater recharge, and...

We carried out two aerial surveys using a weather balloon as the platform to measure the snow depth in the Wolverton watershed, CA, USA: one when the site was snow covered and the other one after the snow melted out. We reconstructed the 3-D surfaces of the site using the structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetry of the photographs taken in the su...

Mountain regions are a critical component of the hydrologic system. These regions are extremely heterogeneous, with dramatic topographic, climatic, ecologic and hydrologic variations occurring over very short distances. This heterogeneity makes understanding changes in these environments difficult. Commonly used satellite data are often too coarse...

The objective of this research is to characterize the variability of trace metals in the Rio Santa watershed based on synoptic sampling applied at a large scale. To that end, we propose a combination of methods based on the collection of water, suspended sediments, and riverbed sediments at different points of the watershed within a very limited pe...

Researching glacier-melt impacted hydrology in the Andes motivates us to collect on-demand, high-resolution multispectral imagery, and digital elevation models (DEMs). While adverse conditions in these remote mountain locations present technical challenges for motorized unmanned aerial systems (UAS), consistent katabatic winds allow for testing lig...

Accelerating glacier recession in tropical highlands and in the Peruvian Andes specifically is a manifestation of global climate change that is influencing the hydrologic cycle and impacting water resources across a range of socio-environmental systems. Despite predictions regarding the negative effects of long-term glacier decline on water availab...

The glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca Peru are rapidly retreating as a result of climate change, altering timing, quantity and quality of water available to downstream users. Furthermore, increases in the number and size of proglacial lakes associated with these melting glaciers is increasing potential exposure to glacier lake outburst floods (GLOF...

Tropical glaciers, which are particularly susceptible to global warming, are found in the lower latitudes of Asia and Africa, although 99% of the world’s tropical glaciers are located in the Andes of South America. The lack of seasonality in tropical temperatures, distinct wet and dry seasons, and year-round ablation of these glaciers give rise to...

A myriad of downstream communities and industries rely on streams fed by both groundwater discharge and glacier meltwater draining the Cordillera Blanca, Northern Peruvian Andes, which contains the highest density of glaciers in the tropics. During the dry season, approximately half the discharge in the region’s proglacial streams comes from ground...

Mountainous regions are integral components of the global hydrologic cycle, driving orographic rainfall patterns and storing water as snow, ice, lakes and groundwater. Within the Cordillera Blanca, Peru this hydrologic system is transforming as a result of increasing temperatures and consequent rapid glacier retreat. The potential impacts on the ti...

As tropical glaciers rapidly recede in response to climate change, the storage and discharge of groundwater will play an increasing role in regulating river baseflow, particularly during the dry season, when stream flow is currently sustained predominantly by glacial melt. Little is understood regarding the hydrogeologic processes controlling base...

The glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca Peru are rapidly retreating as a result of climate change, altering timing, quantity and quality of water available to downstream users. Furthermore, increases in the number and size of proglacial lakes associated with these melting glaciers is increasing potential exposure to glacier lake outburst floods (GLOF...

The glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca, Peru are rapidly retreating as a result of rising temperatures, transforming the hydrology and impacting the socio­economic and environmental systems of the Rio Santa basin. Documenting the heterogeneous spatial patterns of these changes to understand processes of water storage and flow is hindered by technolo...

In the tropical Andes, glacial meltwater is an important water resource for downstream communities, especially during the dry season. Due to climate change, glacial retreat is accelerating and straining already limited water resources in the region. It is hypothesized that groundwater storage and discharge will play a critical role in sustaining fu...

Spatially distributed surface temperature is an important, yet difficult to observe, variable for physical glacier melt models. We utilize ground-based thermal infrared imagery to obtain spatially distributed surface temperature data for alpine glaciers. The infrared images are used to investigate thermal micro-scale processes at the glacier surfac...

The glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca, Peru are rapidly retreating as a result of rising temperatures, transforming the hydrology and impacting the socio­economic and environmental systems of the Rio Santa basin. Documenting the heterogeneous spatial patterns of these changes is hindered by technologic and logistic challenges. Complex topography an...

The glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca, Peru are rapidly retreating as a result of rising temperatures, transforming the hydrology and impacting the socio­economic and environmental systems of the Rio Santa basin. Documenting the heterogeneous spatial patterns of these changes is hindered by technologic and logistic challenges. Complex topography an...

Páramo is a term used to describe tropical alpine vegetation between the continuous timberline and the snow line in the Northern Andes. Páramo environments provide important species habitat and ecosystem services. Changes in spatial extent of the páramo ecosystem at Pambamarca in the Central Cordillera of the northern Ecuadorian Andes were analysed...

Traditional methods of remote sensing (satellite and airborne) are limited by three competing primary factors: spatial resolution, temporal resolution and cost. To make a gain in one of these factors there is a simultaneous loss in one or both of the other factors. Additionally, in mountain regions cloud cover is a significant issue as is safety fo...