Padmanava Dash
Associate Professor, Remote Sensing
109B Hilbun Hall
Mississippi State, MS 39762
Dr. Padmanava Dash is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geosciences at Mississippi State University (MSU). He specializes in remote sensing and water biogeochemistry. His broad research interests include investigating the conditions under which water quality issues develop, assessing their ecological impacts, and developing visualizations for their management and mitigation. His research encompasses field, laboratory, Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs), and satellite remote sensing approaches to study harmful algal blooms, suspended sediments, colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM), acidification, pathogens, nutrients, toxic elements, and heavy metals. This work aims to enhance the current state of knowledge on the detection and mapping of water quality parameters, thereby supporting federal, state, and coastal community efforts to manage human health and fisheries.
Two water quality visualization tools developed by his group can be accessed at:
Education
- Ph.D., Louisiana State University, Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, 2011, Dissertation: Quantitative Mapping of Cyanobacterial Blooms using Oceansat-1 OCM Satellite Data.
- M.S., Bowling Green State University, Department of Geology, 2005, Thesis: SeaWiFS Algorithm for Mapping Phycocyanin in Incipient Freshwater Cyanobacterial Blooms.
Experience
- Associate Professor, Dept. of Geosciences, Mississippi State University, 2019-Present
- Assistant Professor, Dept. of Geosciences, Mississippi State University, 2013-2019
- Assistant Professor, Dept. of Biology and Environmental Science, Jackson State University, 2012-2013
- Graduate Research and Teaching Assistant, Louisiana State University, 2005-2011
- Graduate Research and Teaching Assistant, Bowling Green State University, 2003–2005
Research Interests
- Assessment of water quality
- Remote sensing of water quality parameters
- Determining the influence of land use & land cover, and precipitation on water quality
- Source-tracking pollutants using CDOM & parallel factor modeling
- Coastal acidification
- Determining the impacts of agriculture on water quality
Teaching Areas
- GR 4333/6333 Remote Sensing of the Physical Environment
- GR 4343/6343 Advanced Remote Sensing
- GR 4383/6383 Aerial Drone Applications in Geosciences
- GR 8333 Field Remote Sensing
- GG 8633 Water Biogeochemistry
- GG 3613 Water Resources
- GG 3133 Environmental Geology
Honors/Professional Activities
- Coastal Estuarine Research Federation (CERF)
- American Society of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO)
- American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Graduate Students
Current Graduate Studnets:
- Hafez Ahmad (Ph. D.)
- Abduselam Nur (Ph. D.)
- Shakiul Islam (Ph.D.)
- Omar Shahed (Ph.D.)
- Wondimagegn Beshah (Ph.D.)
- Ankita Katkar (Ph. D.)
- George Wishork (M.S.)
- Rusch Raglans (M.S.)
Past Graduate Students:
- Sankar M. S. (Ph.D.)
- Saurav Silwal (Ph.D.)
- Shatrughan Singh (Ph.D.)
- Preston Liles (M.S.)
- Brooke Walker (M.S.)
- Peter McKinley (M.S.)
- Robert P. Craven (M.S.)
- Landon Sanders (M.S.)
- Sudeera Wickramarathna (M.S.)
- Sushant Shekhar (M.S.)
- Victoria Cheek (M.S.)
- Madhur Devkota (M.S.)
Past Post-doctoral Fellow:
- Dr. M. S. Sankar
Recent Publications
- Li, C., Sheremet, A., Huang, W., Dash, P., Katkar*, A., Allahdadi, M. N., Chaichitehrani, N., Bachmann, C. M., and Rivera-Monroy, V. H. 2024. Dynamic impact of transiting weather systems on coastal currents in the northern Gulf of Mexico, Deep-Sea Research Part II, 216, 105395 (Impact factor: 3.0).
- Ahmad, H.*, Jose, F., Bhuyan, M. S., Islam, M. N., and Dash, P. 2024. Seasonal influence of freshwater discharge on spatio-temporal variations in primary productivity, sea surface temperature, and euphotic zone depth in the northern Bay of Bengal, Acta Oceanologica Sinica, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-023-2254-y (Impact factor: 1.6).
- Dash, P., Sanders*, S. L., Parajuli, P., Ouyang, Y. 2023. Improving the Accuracy of Land Use and Land Cover Classification of Landsat Data in an Agricultural Watershed, Remote Sensing, 15, 16, 4020 (Impact factor: 5.0).
- Sankar*, M.S., Dash, P., Lu, Y., Hu, X., Mercer, A. E., Wickramarathna*, S., Beshah*, W. T., Sanders*, S. L., Arslan, Z., Dyer, J., and Moorhead, R. J. 2023. Seasonal changes of trace elements, nutrients, dissolved organic matter, and coastal acidification over the largest oyster reef in the Western Mississippi Sound, USA. Environ. Monit. Assess., 195, 175 (Impact factor: 3.1; was listed on SSRN's top ten download list).
- Dash, P., Beshah*, W. T., Nur*, A., Islam*, M. S., Chowdhury*, M. O. S., Moorhead, R. J., Moorhead, J., Panda, R. M., Wolfe, J. S., Turnage, G., McCraine, C., Hathcock, L., Chesser, G. D., Lowe, J. W., and Katkar, A. 2023. Water Quality Monitoring using Unmanned Aerial Systems Imagery and a Novel Autonomous Surface Vessel, In the Proceedings of the Global OCEANS 2023 Conference and Exposition, Biloxi, MS, September 25-28, 2023. View More
- Turnage, G., Wolfe, J. S., Dash, P., Chesser, G. D., Moorhead, R. J., Moorhead, J., McCraine, D., Hathcock, L., Samiappan, S., Lowe, J. W., and Harris, J. 2023. Real time monitoring of water quality with an autonomous surface vessel in a coastal estuary, In the Proceedings of the Global OCEANS 2023 Conference and Exposition, Biloxi, MS, September 25-28, 2023.
- Mahata, A., Panda, R.M., Dash, P., Naik, A., Naik, A.K., Palita, S.K. 2023 Microclimate and Vegetation Structure Significantly Affect Butterfly Assemblages in a Tropical Dry Forest. Climate, 11, 220 (Impact factor: 3.7).
- Dash, P., Devkota*, M., Mercer, A. E., and Ambinakudige, S. 2022. A geographic weighted regression approach for improved total alkalinity estimates in the Northern Gulf of Mexico, Environmental Modelling & Software, 148, 105275 (Impact Factor: 4.9).
- Osborne, E., Hu, X., Hall, E., Yates, K., Vreeland-Dawson, J., Shamberger, K., Barbero, L., Hernandez-Ayon, J. M., Gomez, F., Hicks, T., Xu, Y., McCutcheon, M., Acquafredda, M., Chapa-Balcorta, C., Norzagaray, O., Pierrot, D., Munoz-Caravaca, A., Dobson, K., Williams, N., Rabalais, N., Dash, P. 2022. Ocean Acidification in the Gulf of Mexico: Drivers, Impacts, and Unknowns, Progress in Oceanography, In Press.
- Das, P., Panda, R.M., Dash, P., Jana, A., Jana, A., Ray, D., Tripathi, P., and Kolluru, V. 2022. Multi-Decadal Mapping and Climate Modelling Indicates Eastward Rubber Plantation Expansion in India. Sustainability, 14, 7923.
- Kyaw*, T. Y., Siegert, C. M., Dash, P., Poudel, K. P., Pitts, J. J., and Renninger, H. J. 2022. Using hyperspectral leaf reflectance to estimate photosynthetic capacity and nitrogen content across eastern cottonwood and hybrid poplar taxa, Plos One, 17, 3.
- Dash, P., Devkota, M., Mercer, A. E., Ambinakudige, S. 2022. A geographic weighted regression approach for improved total alkalinity estimates in the Northern Gulf of Mexico,
Environmental Modelling & Software, 148, 105275, ISSN 1364-8152, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2021.105275. - Dash, P., Sankar, M. S., Moorhead, R. J., Herman, J., Moorhead, J., Beshah, W., Chesser, D., Lowe, W., Simmerman, J., and Turnage, G. 2021. Evaluation of Water Quality Data Collected using a Novel Autonomous Surface Vessel, Global Oceans 2021 Conference and Exposition, San Diego, CA, September 20-23, 2021.
- Paul, V., Vattikuti, S., Dash, P., Arslan, Z. 2021. Evaluating hydrogeochemical characteristics of groundwater and surface water in the Upper Pearl River Watershed, USA, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 193, 296.
- Wickramarathna, S., Chandrajith, R., Senaratne, A., Paul, V., Dash, P., Wickramasinghe, S., & Biggs, P. 2021. Bacterial influence on the formation of hematite: Implications for Martian dormant life. International Journal of Astrobiology, 20, 4, 270-284.
- Nguyen, A., Gabitov, R., Jimenez, A., Dygert, A., Varco, J., Pérez-Huerta, A., Migdisov, A., Paul, V., Kirkland, B., Dash, P. 2021. Retaining Geochemical Signatures during Aragonite-Calcite Transformation at Hydrothermal Conditions, Minerals, 11, 1052.
- Ni, X., Parajuli, P. B., Ouyang, Y., Dash, P., Siegert, C. 2021. Assessing land use change impact on stream discharge and stream water quality in an agricultural watershed, Catena, 198, 105055.
- Paul, V., Sankar, M.S., Vattikuti, S., Dash, P., Arslan, Z. 2020. Pollution assessment and land use land cover influence on trace metal distribution in sediments from five aquatic systems in southern USA, Chemosphere, 263, 128243.
- Risal, A., Parajuli, P., Dash, P., Ouyang, Y., Linhoss, A. 2020. Sensitivity of hydrology and water quality to variation in land use and land cover data, Agricultural Water Management, 241, 106366.
- Zarzar, C.M., Dash, P., Dyer, J.L., Moorhead, R., Hathcock, L. 2020. Development of a Simplified Radiometric Calibration Framework for Water-Based and Rapid Deployment Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Operations, Drones, 4, 17.
- Osorio, R.J., Linhoss, A., Dash, P. 2020. Evaluation of Marsh Terraces for Wetland Restoration: A Remote Sensing Approach, Water, 12, 336 https://doi.org/10.3390/w12020336.
- Sankar, M.S., Dash, P., Lu, Y., Turnage, G., Shoemaker, C. M., Chen, S., Moorhead, R. J. 2020. Land use and land cover control on the spatial variation of dissolved organic matter across 41 lakes in Mississippi, USA, Hydrobiologia, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-019-04174-0.
- Sankar, M.S., Dash, P., Lu, Y., Paul, V., Mercer, A.E., Arslan, Z., Varco, J.J., and Rodgers, J.C. 2019. Dissolved organic matter and trace element variability in a blackwater-fed bay following precipitation, Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 231, 106452, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2019.106452.
- Shuo, C., Lu, Y. H., Dash, P., Das, P., Li, J., Capps, K., Majidzadeh, H., and Elliot, M. 2019. Hurricane pulses: Small watershed exports of dissolved nutrients and organic matter during large storms in the Southeastern USA, Science of the Total Environment, 689, 232-244.
- Gao, F., Feng, G., Han M., Dash, P., Jenkins. J., and Liu, C. 2019. Assessment of surface water resources in the big sunflower river watershed using coupled SWAT–MODFLOW model, Water, 11, 528.
- Singh, S., Dash, P., Sankar, M. S., Silwal, S., Lu, Y. H., Shang, P., and Moorhead, R., J. 2019. Hydrological and Biogeochemical Controls of Seasonality in Dissolved Organic Matter Delivery to a Blackwater Estuary, Estuaries and Coasts, 42, 2, 439-454.
- Sankar, M. S., Dash, P., Singh, S., Lu, Y. H., Mercer, A. E., and Chen, S. 2019. Effect of photo-biodegradation and biodegradation on the biogeochemical cycling of dissolved organic matter across diverse surface water bodies, Journal of Environmental Sciences, 77, 130-147.
- Ying, O., Parajuli, P., Feng, G., Leininger, T. D., Wan, Y., and Dash, P. 2018. Application of Climate Assessment Tool to Estimate Climate Change Impacts on Nutrient Loading from Local Watersheds, Journal of Hydrology, 563, 363-371.
- Singh, S., Dash, P., Silwal, S., Moorhead, R., Feng, G., and Adeli, A. 2017. Influence of land use and land cover on the spatial variability of dissolved organic matter in multiple aquatic environments, Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 24, 16, 14124-14141.
- Maguigan, M., Rodgers, J., Dash, P., and Meng, Q. 2016. Assessing net primary production in montane wetlands from proximal, airborne, and satellite remote sensing platforms, Advances in Remote Sensing, 5, 2, 118-130.
- Nagaraju, A., Sreedhar, Y., Thejaswi, A., and Dash, P. 2016. Integrated Approach Using Remote Sensing and GIS for Assessment of Groundwater Quality and Hydrogeomorphology in Certain Parts of Tummalapalle Area, Cuddapah District, Andhra Pradesh, India, Advances in Remote Sensing, 5, 2, 83-92.
- Arveti, N., Etikala, B., and Dash, P. 2016. Land Use/Land Cover Analysis Based on Various Comprehensive Geospatial Data Sets: A Case Study from Tirupati Area, South India. Advances in Remote Sensing, 5, 2, 73-82.
- Dash, P., Silwal S., Ikenga, J. O., Pinckney, J. L., Arslan, Z., and Lizotte, R. E. 2015. Water quality of four major lakes in Mississippi, USA: Impacts on human and aquatic ecosystem health, Water, 7, 4999-5030.
- Dash, P., Walker, N., Mishra, D. and D’Sa, E. 2012. Atmospheric Correction and Vicarious Calibration of Oceansat-1 Ocean Color Monitor (OCM) Data in Coastal Case 2 Waters, Remote Sensing, 4, 6, 1716-1740.
- Dash, P., Walker, N., Mishra, D., Hu, C., Pinckney, J., and D’Sa, E. 2011. Estimation of cyanobacterial pigments in a freshwater lake using OCM satellite data, Remote Sensing of Environment, 115, 12, 3409-3423.
- Garcia, A., Bargu, S., Dash, P., Rabalais, N., Morrison, W. and Walker, N. 2010. Evaluating the potential risk of microcystins to blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) fisheries and human health in a eutrophic estuary. Harmful Algae, 9, 134–143.
- Dash, P., and Vincent R. K. 2005. Computer Animation of Cyanobacteria Blooms in Lake Erie from July-October 2003, As Mapped from SeaWiFS Data with a New Phycocyanin Algorithm, Proceedings of the 16th Pecora Conference on Global Priorities in Land Remote Sensing, Sioux Falls, SD, October 23-27.
- Anbazhagan, S., and Dash, P. 2003. Environmental case study of Cauvery river flood plain. GIS Development, 7, 12, 30-35.