Advith Sharma ‘23 

Why did you pursue this project?
I’m Advith and I am a junior. I have always been really passionate about geography and learning about the physical geography and natural features (rivers, mountains) of our world. Through this interest, I learned about many statistics and natural disasters facing our country, and in 2021 the Southwest US faced unprecedented drought crises with record-high temperatures. I wanted to combine my interest in exploring the environment and our water sources with geographic and scientific analysis, and found my mentor at the Columbia University Water Center. In the project at CWC, I modeled drought water stress in California, a state constantly in the news for natural disasters and drought crises, and found ways to manage the risk by combining my interests in government policy and economics in the agricultural and housing sectors. I learned a lot of new coding skills in Python to conduct the data analysis. 

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