Joan Bech is full professor of Atmospheric Physics at the Department of Applied Physics of the University of Barcelona (UB). He holds a PhD on Physical Sciences (UB), and his research includes the development of atmospheric remote sensing techniques, the study of precipitation processes and severe thunderstorms, and other aspects of atmospheric physics such as photobiology or the analysis of meteorological conditions associated with environmental pollution events.
Within the radar meteorology field, he has contributed to the study of radio-propagation conditions, the impact of orographic beam blockage upon radar precipitation estimates, the development of quality control procedures for antenna pointing and techniques to distinguish precipitation type using single polarization Doppler weather radars. He has also participated in different cases studies of severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, hailfalls, and heavy rainfall events using Doppler radar data, satellite imagery and lightning detection observations. He has performed different studies about precipitation microphysics with laser disdrometers and vertically pointing K-band Doppler radar profilers (MRR) in international field campaigns such as Cerdanya-2017 or LIAISE-2021.
He has authored more than two-hundred scientific workshop and congress contributions and around eighty publications in indexed journals. Jointly with Dr J.L. Chau (Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Germany) he edited the open access book 'Doppler Radar Observations' (http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/2036) contributed by more than fifty international leading authors. He is currently member of three editorial boards of international journals and belongs to several scientific organizations. He has supervised more than thirty final master projects, and five doctoral thesis, plus four additional thesis, currently in progress.
