Prof. Dr. Daniel Farinotti
Prof. Dr. Daniel Farinotti
Associate Professor at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering
Deputy head of Lab. Hydraulics,Hydrology,Glaciology
Additional information
Research area
Daniel Farinotti's research focuses on the evolution of glaciers and the implications for water resources.
His research includes the estimation of glacier ice thickness from surface characteristics, the long-term modelling of glacier mass budgets, the estimation of the runoff contributions from glacierized catchments, as well as the implications for water resource management in high-mountain environments.
Amongst his major scientific contributions are the development of a method to estimate the ice thickness distribution of individual glaciers (Farinotti et al., 2009), an estimate for the ice volume of all glaciers on Earth (Farinotti et al., 2019a), the reconstruction of decadal-scale glacier changes in the mountains of Central Asia (Farinotti et al., 2015), or the assessment of the potential for presently glacierized areas to store water and produce hydropower (Farinotti et al., 2019b).
For information on ongoing projects, refer to this site.
EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
- Since 2023: Professor of Glaciology at both theLaboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW) of ETH Zurich, Switzerland and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), Switzerland
- 2016 - 2023: Assistant Professor of Glaciology at both VAW - ETH Zurich and WSL, Switzerland
- 2014 - 2016: Research associate at WSL, Switzerland (SNF Ambizione-Energy grant)
- 2012 - 2014: Research associate at the Section of Hydrology at the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) Potsdam, Germany (SNF fellowships for prospective researchers)
- 2007 - 2012: Research associate at the Section of Glaciology at VAW - ETH Zurich, Switzerland
- 2010 and 2012: Deployment with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) at Rothera Research Station, and Flask (2010) and Starbuck (2012) Glaciers, Antarctic Peninsula
EDUCATION
- 2009 - 2011: Postgraduate Course in Applied Statistics, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
- 2008 - 2010: PhD Thesis at VAW, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Title: Simple methods for inferring glacier ice-thickness and snow-accumulation distribution
- 2001 - 2007: Master Studies in Environmental Engineering, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
- 1997 - 2001: High School, Locarno, Switzerland
Honours
| Year | Distinction |
|---|---|
| 2017 | Nature Research citation as Outstanding Peer Reviewer in 2017 |
| 2013 | Editors Citation for Excellence in Refereeing 2013; Journal of Geophysical Research - Earth Surface |
Additional information
X/Twitter: @VAW_glaciology
List of publications: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=zlnoh2MAAAAJ
Website of the research group: https://vaw.ethz.ch/en/research/glaciology.html
Course Catalogue
Spring Semester 2025
| Number | Unit |
|---|---|
| 651-4162-00L | Field Course Glaciology |