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The main feature of my research is the interdisciplinary approach to global and local environmental problems. I use major and trace element concentrations and variations of stable isotopic ratios of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen in natural materials, such as rocks, water, tree-rings, soils and air, to study the function and dynamics of natural systems, to trace the history of the climatic and environmental changes and to understand the mechanisms for such changes. Research interests include understanding the stable oxygen and hydrogen isotopic variations in hydrological processes, solute and contaminant transport in watersheds or in snow and their effects on stream chemistry, rates and mechanisms of plant and soil organic matter decomposition and the implications to the global carbon cycle, and reconstruction of paleoclimate using oxygen and hydrogen isotopic compositions of tree rings. Recent projects include stable oxygen and hydrogen isotopic compositions in arctic precipitation and their climatological significance to ice core interpretation; impact of sea ice variations on the arctic hydrological cycles; the influence of environmental conditions on the isotopic variations of marine boundary layer vapor.
Earth Sciences
The John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding
Conroy, Nathan Alec, Brent David Newman, Jeffrey Martin Heikoop, George Bradford Perkins, Xiahong Feng, Cathy Jean Wilson, Stan Duane Wullschleger (2020) Timing and duration of hydrological transitions in Arctic polygonal ground from stable isotopes. Hydrological Processes, 34:749–764. DOI: 10.1002/hyp.13623.
Ouyang*, B., Renock, D. J., Ajemigbitse, M. A., Van Sice, K., Warner, N. R., Landis, J. D., and Feng, X. (2019) Radium in hydraulic fracturing wastewater: distribution in suspended solids and implications to its treatment by sulfate co-precipitation, Environmental Science Processes & Impacts, 21, 339-351, 10.1039/c8em00311d.
Feng, X., Posmentier, E. S., Sonder, L. J., and Fan, N. (2019) Rethinking Craig and Gordon's approach to modeling isotopic compositions of marine boundary layer vapor, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 19, 4005-4024, 10.5194/acp-19-4005-2019.
Kopec*, B. G., Feng, X., Posmentier, E. S., and Sonder, L. J. (2019) Seasonal deuterium excess variations of precipitation at Summit, Greenland, and their climatological significance, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 124, 72-91, 10.1029/2018JD028750.