Essam Heggy

Informations principales

Chercheur / Enseignant-chercheur

Associate Professor of Geosciences at the French National Corp of Astronomers and Physicists (CNAP)

Systèmes volcaniques

0183957630

IPGP - 1 rue Jussieu - 75238 Paris cedex 05

Contenu / Travaux

Dr. Essam Heggy is a tenured Associate Professor of Geosciences of the French National Corps of Astronomers and Physicists (CNAP) at the Paris Institute of Planetary Physics (IPGP) in the University of Paris-Cité in France. He is also an affiliated faculty member at the Microwave Systems, Sensors, and Imaging Lab (MiXIL) at the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California and an affiliate researcher of the Earth Science Research & Mission Formulation Office (8300) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). He obtained an MSc. and a Ph.D. with distinguished honors from the Sorbonne University (Paris VI-UPMC) in France on using radar sounding and imaging techniques to characterize subsurface water and volatiles in Earth’s deserts and planetary surfaces. His research focuses on understanding deserts' hydroclimatic, coastal, and environmental changes, including natural extremes such as droughts, floods, water stress, and coastal erosion, as well as environmental hazards such as oil spills and soil and water pollution. He also uses InSAR techniques to assess textural and geodetic changes in volcanic terrains to assess pre-eruptive activities as well as radar observations from planetary missions to study volatile distribution in planetary environments on Mars, the Moon, comets, asteroids, and Jovian icy moons. Over two decades, Heggy contributed to developing several radar imaging and probing systems to characterize the surface and subsurface of arid terrains on Earth and other planets. Heggy’s expertise spans mission concept formulations, instrument system engineering, radar performance studies, laboratory electromagnetic characterization of materials, radar sounding, SAR and InSAR image analysis, numerical simulations of wave propagation, signal processing, and data analysis from different terrestrial and planetary orbital observations. He is currently a member of the science teams of the MARSIS instrument aboard the Mars Express orbiter, the Mini-SAR experiment aboard Chandrayaan-1, the Mini-RF experiment on board the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the CONSERT radar experiment aboard the Rosetta mission, the Sounding Radar on the HERA mission, and the WISDOM GPR onboard the ESA EXOMARS Rover to be launched in July 2028 for Mars. Heggy is in charge of the NASA/JPL mission concept study OASIS, which is planning a group of five small satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). These satellites will use sounding radar reflectometry and probing to find out where shallow aquifers are located in hyper-arid areas, how thick the ice sheets are in Antarctica, and how these systems react to stresses caused by climate change and humans. He is also the principal investigator of an airborne-sounding radar mission concept aimed at mapping shallow aquifers in hyper-arid areas under formulation at USC and NASA Langley.

Academic Qualifications:

PhD - Sorbonne University, 2002
Master - Sorbonne University, 1999

Academic Appointments:

2025-Present Associate Professor of Geophysics, IPGP, University of Paris-Cite, Paris, France
2025-Present Affiliate of the Earth Science Division, NASA’ Jet Propulsion Lab, Pasadena, CA, USA
2015-2025 Research Scientist, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
2015-2025 Affiliate of the Radar Science & Engineering Section, NASA’ Jet Propulsion Lab, Pasadena, CA, USA
2011-2015 Associate in Geology, GPS, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
2008-2015 Research Scientist, Radar Science Group, NASA’ Jet Propulsion Laboratory, CA, USA
2003-2008 Postdoctoral Fellow, NASA Johnson Space Center / Lunar & Planetary Institute, Houston, TX, USA

Selected Recent Publications:

Song, Y., Tsai, F.TC., Minsley, B.J., Heggy, E., Quantitative subsurface characterization illuminates the origin of the Quaternary Mississippi River Valley alluvial aquifer. Communication Earth & Environment 6, 646 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02545-1
Salhi, A., Benabdelouahab, S., & Heggy, E. (2025). Soil erosion susceptibility maps and raster dataset for the hydrological basins of North Africa. Scientific Data, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-04406-0
Fouad, S. S., Heggy, E., Amrouni, O., Hzami, A., Nijhuis, S., Mohamed, N., Saleh, I. H., Jomaa, S., Elsheshtawy, Y., & Weilacher, U. (2025). Soaring Building Collapses in Southern Mediterranean Coasts: Hydroclimatic Drivers & Adaptive Landscape Mitigations. Earth’s Future. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF004883
Heggy, E., Moghaddam, M., Palmer, E. M., Brown, W. M., Blanton, J. L., Kosinski, M., Sirri, P., Dixon, E. A., Abotalib, A. Z., & Normand, J. C. L. (2024). Airborne Sounding Radar for Desert Subsurface Exploration of Aquifers: Desert-SEA: Mission concept study. IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine. https://doi.org/10.1109/MGRS.2023.3338512
Heggy, E., Abotalib, A. Z., You, J., Hanert, E., & Ramah, M. (2024). Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam can generate sustainable hydropower while minimizing downstream water deficit during prolonged droughts. Communications Earth & Environment. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01821-w
Chakraborty, T., Syed, T. H., Heggy, E., Putrevu, D., & Dutta, U. (2024). On the reachability and genesis of water ice on the Moon. ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2024.03.020
Normand, J. C. L., & Heggy, E. (2024). Assessing flash flood erosion following Storm Daniel in Libya. Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-49699-8
Amrouni, O., Heggy, E., & Hzami, A. (2024). Shoreline retreat and beach nourishment are projected to increase in Southern California. Communications Earth & Environment. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01388-6
Chávez García Silva, R., Reinecke, R., Copty, N. K., Barry, D. A., Heggy, E., Labat, D., Roggero, P. P., Borchardt, D., Rode, M., & Gómez-Hernández, J. J. et al. (2024). Multi-decadal groundwater observations reveal surprisingly stable levels in southwestern Europe. Communications Earth & Environment. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01554-w
Salhi, A., Larifi, I., Salhi, H., & Heggy, E. (2024). Flooding in semi-unformal urban areas in North Africa: Environmental and psychosocial drivers. Science of the Total Environment. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.172486
Heggy, E., J. C. L. Normand, E. M. Palmer, G. Scabbia, A. K. S. Al-Maktoumi, A. Mazzoni, L. Blanton, S. J. N. Schaefer and J. P. Avouac (2023). "Probing Shallow Aquifers in Hyperarid Dune Fields Using VHF Sounding Radar." IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 61. https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2023.3306286.
Anselain, T., E. Heggy, T. Dobbelaere and E. Hanert (2023). "Qatar Peninsula’s vulnerability to oil spills and its implications for the global gas supply." Nature Sustainability, 6(3): 273-283. https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-01037-w.
Noori, R., M. Maghrebi, S. Jessen, S. M. Bateni, E. Heggy, S. Javadi, M. Noury, S. Pistre, S. Abolfathi and A. AghaKouchak (2023). "Decline in Iran’s groundwater recharge."
Nature Communications 14(1). https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-42411-2.
Heggy, E., J. Normand, E. M. Palmer, and A. Z. Abotalib (2022). "Exploring the nature of buried linear features in the Qatar peninsula: Archaeological and paleoclimatic implications." ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 183: 210-227. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2021.10.007.
Heggy, E., Z. Sharkawy and A. Z. Abotalib (2021). "Egypt's water budget deficit and suggested mitigation policies for the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam filling scenarios." Environmental Research Letters 16(7). https://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0ac9.
Heggy, E., E. M. Palmer, T. W. Thompson, B. J. Thomson and G. W. Patterson (2020). "Bulk composition of regolith fines on lunar crater floors: Initial investigation by LRO/Mini-RF." Earth and Planetary Science Letters 541. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2020.116274.
Abotalib, A. Z. and E. Heggy (2019). "A deep groundwater origin for recurring slope lineae on Mars." Nature Geoscience 12(4): 235-241. https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0327-5.
Sharma, P., E. Heggy and T. G. Farr (2018). "Exploring morphology, layering and formation history of linear terrestrial dunes from radar observations: Implications for Titan." Remote Sensing of Environment 204: 296-307. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2017.10.023.
Palmer, E. M., E. Heggy and W. Kofman (2017). "Orbital bistatic radar observations of asteroid Vesta by the Dawn mission." Nature Communications 8(1). https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00434-6.

Publications Profiles: Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, ORCID

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10/23/2025

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