Mau, Yair

Member Profile

E-mail: address yair.mau@mail.huji.ac.il
Website: yairmau.com

Education and Research Positions
2016–to date Senior Lecturer at the Department of Soil and Water Sciences, Institute of Environmental Sciences, Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

2013–2016 Postdoctoral associate at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Duke University, United States.

2009–2013 Ph.D. at the Physics Department of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.

2007–2009 M.Sc. at the Physics Department of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.

2000–2004 B.Sc. at the Physics Institute of the University of São Paulo, Brazil.

Research Interests
I’m interested in understanding how the feedbacks between climate, human stressors, and ecosystems, create interesting environmental dynamics. The main topics I deal with include plant resilience and survival under drought, soil degradation, sustainable resource use in agriculture. I study these topics using a combination of mathematical modeling, data science, and experiments.

Publications
1. Erez Feuer, Yakir Preisler, Eyal Rotenberg, Dan Yakir and Yair Mau. Tree Growth, Contraction and Recovery: Disentangling Soil and Atmospheric Drought Effects. Plant, Cell and Environment, 2025.
2. Justine E. C. Missik, Gil Bohrer, Madeline E. Scyphers, Ashley M. Matheny, Ana Maria Restrepo Acevedo, Marcela Silva, Golnazalsadat Mirfenderesgi, Yair Mau. Using a Plant Hydrodynamic Model, FETCH4, to Supplement Measurements and Characterize Hydraulic Traits in a Mixed Temperate Forest. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 2025.
3. Laura Rez, Justine Missik, Gil Bohrer and Yair Mau. Stem water content is crucial to support fruit tree functioning during heatwaves in a Mediterranean climate. bioRxiv, (currently under review), 2024.
4. Isaac Kramer,Nadav Peleg and Yair Mau. Climate Change Shifts Risk of Soil Salinity and Land Degradation in Water-Scarce Regions. Agricultural Water Management, 2024.
5. Nurit Goldberg-Yehuda, Uri Nachshon, Shmuel Assouline, and Yair Mau. The effect of mechanical compaction on the soil water retention curve: Insights from a rapid image analysis of micro-CT scanning. Catena, 2024.
6. Mantova et al.. Monitoring urban trees across the world. Report from the Urban Trees Ecophysiology Network UTEN inaugural workshop. New Phytologist, 2024.
7. Isaac Kramer and Yair Mau. Review: Modeling the Effects of Salinity and Sodicity in Agricultural Systems. Water Resources Research, 2023.
8. Isaac Kramer, Yuval Bayer, and Yair Mau. The Sustainability of Treated Waste water Irrigation: The Impact of Hysteresis on Saturated Soil Hydraulic Conductivity. Water Resources Research, 2022.
9. Isaac Kramer, Yaara Tsairi, Michael Buchdahl Roth, Alon Tal, and Yair Mau. Effects of population growth on Israel’s demand for desalinatedwater. npj CleanWater, 2022.
10. Taiwo Adeyemo, Isaac Kramer, Guy J. Levy, and Yair Mau. Salinity and sodicity can cause hysteresis in soil hydraulic conductivity. Geoderma, 2022.
11. Nurit Goldberg Yehuda, Shmuel Assouline, Yair Mau, and Uri Nachshon. Compaction effects on evaporation and salt precipitation in drying porous media. HESS, 2022.
12. Yuval R. Zelnik, Yair Mau, Moshe Shachak, and Ehud Meron. High-integrity human intervention in ecosystems: Tracking self-organization modes. PLOS Computational Biology, 2021.
13. Isaac Kramer, Yuval Bayer, Taiwo Adeyemo, and Yair Mau. Hysteresis in soil hydraulic conductivity as driven by salinity and sodicity: a modeling framework. HESS, 2021.
14. Isaac Kramer and Yair Mau. Soil degradation risks assessed by the SOTE model for salinity and sodicity. Water Resources Research, 2020.
15. Xing Chen, Mukesh Kumar, Daniel de B. Richter, and Yair Mau. Impact of gully incision on hillslope hydrology. Hydrological Processes, 2020.
16. Avigail Kaner, Yakir Preisler, José M. Grünzweig, and Yair Mau. Internal water storage buffering maintains plant function under drought as described by a general hydraulic model. bioRxiv, 2020.
17. Yair Mau and Amilcare Porporato. Optimal control solutions to sodic soil reclamation. Advances inWater Resources, 2016.
18. Amilcare Porporato, Xue Feng, Stefano Manzoni, Yair Mau, Anthony J. Parolari, and Giulia Vico. Ecohydrological modeling in agroecosystems: Examples and challenges. Water Resources Research, 2015.
19. Yair Mau and Amilcare Porporato. A dynamical system approach to soil salinity and sodicity. Advances inWater Resources, 2015.
20. Yair Mau, Lev Haim, and Ehud Meron. Reversing desertification as a spatial resonance problem. Physical Review E, 2015.
21. Yair Mau, Xue Feng, and Amilcare Porporato. Multiplicative jump processes and applications to leaching of salt and contaminants in the soil. Physical Review E, 2014.
22. Lev Haim, Yair Mau, and Ehud Meron. Spatial forcing of pattern-forming systems that lack inversion symmetry. Physical Review E, 2014.
23. Yair Mau, Lev Haim, Aric Hagberg, and Ehud Meron. Competing resonances in spatially forced pattern-forming systems. Physical Review E, 2013.
24. Yair Mau, Aric Hagberg, and Ehud Meron. Spatial periodic forcing can displace patterns it is intended to control. Physical Review Letters, 2012.
25. Yair Mau, Aric Hagberg, and Ehud Meron. Dual-mode spiral vortices. Physical Review E, 2009.