Daniele Zaccaria, Ph.D

Daniele Zaccaria is Professor of Agricultural Water Management in Cooperative Extension at the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources of the University of California, Davis. He is also the recipient of the 2025 Alexander and Elizabeth Swantz Endowed Specialist in Cooperative Extension position awarded by the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences to provide recognition and support in the broad area of water and watershed management.

Dr. Zaccaria completed his Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Utah State University in 2011 with Major in Irrigation Engineering, and his Masters of Science in Land and Water Resources Management at the International Center for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies – Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Bari, Italy in 1998.

His expertise and current work focus on irrigation management under limited and impaired water supplies, determination of crop evapotranspiration and water productivity, adaptation and mitigation to drought, drought preparedness, as well as on design, performance analysis, and modernization of irrigation systems across farm, district and scheme scales, and on developing viable agricultural water management solutions to improve resource efficiency in irrigated agriculture.