Oliver Binks is a plant and ecosystem ecophysiologist interested in how water availability, storage and transport constrain plant function and ecosystem structure. His research combines field measurements, ecophysiology, plant hydraulics, modelling and remote sensing to investigate how vegetation responds to drought and variation in water availability across spatial and temporal scales.
He completed his PhD at the University of Edinburgh, where he studied the responses of mature Amazonian rainforest trees to long-term drought. Since then, his research has spanned tropical and Mediterranean ecosystems, with particular interests in plant water storage, hydraulic function, deep soil water availability, and the physical links between vegetation water status and remotely sensed dielectric properties. His current Ramón y Cajal research develops a landscape hydro-physiology framework to understand how plant hydraulics, soil water, groundwater and remotely sensed vegetation water status interact across scales.
