All Posts By

Andrea

“Eine Frage des Klimas” (A Matter of Climate)  – Podcast of the “Berliner Stiftungswoche”

“Eine Frage des Klimas” (A Matter of Climate) – this year‘s podcast issued by the Berliner Stiftungswoche (Berlin Foundation Week) addresses the key issue »Eine Frage des Klimas«. The second podcast »Anstiften!« focuses on “Water” in the Berlin-Brandenburg region. Within this scope, dialogues were held with water experts from the region and, amongst others, with Harald Köthe, Director of the International Centre for Water Resources and Global Change (ICWRGC).

Listen to the interesting podcast:

https://open.spotify.com

2nd Announcement for the 29th Conference of the Regional Cooperation Hydrology of the Danube Countries (IHP Danube) – Call for Papers

The Regional Cooperation Hydrology of the Danube countries is part of the Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (IHP) of UNESCO. Contributions are requested to this valuable transboundary river network that has been existing for about 60 years and continues to provide fundamental hydrological knowledge.

Please submit abstracts, join the conference and consider the following important dates:

  • Feb 28, 2021: Deadline for extended abstract submission
  • Mar 31, 2021: Notification of acceptance
  • Apr 30, 2021: Deadline for registration without active participation
  • May 31, 2021: Deadline for full paper text submission

Further information:

www.danubeconference.eu
2nd announcement Danube Conference (PDF, 1,36 MB)

New master thesis: “Analysis of the global variation in river discharge-sediment transport relationship”

Ram Mani Dahal from Leibniz University Hannover has written his MSc. Thesis in collaboration with ICWRGC on the topic: “Analysis of the global variation in river discharge-sediment transport relationship”.
He successfully defended his thesis at Leibniz University Hannover on 10 February 2021.

Suspended sediment dynamics play an important role in river morphodynamics, aquatic habitats and reservoir sedimentation. Therefore, understanding the controls and implication of suspended sediment dynamics helps in the sustainable sediment management of river systems. To date, studies on the assessment of the relation between river discharge (Q) and suspended sediment concentration (SSC) on a global scale are limited. This Master thesis aims at  analysing the relationship between Q and SSC on a global scale and driving factors of variations in this SSC-Q relationship. In particular, the erosion reactivity of the rivers around the globe was compared to the catchment characteristics of the different river basins. Sediment rating curves in the form of a power law function have been used to estimate the SSC-Q relationship. The erosion reactivity of the stream was higher in the river basins located in mountainous terrains and arid rivers of North America. In contrast, the lower erosion reactivity occurred in the lowlands of Europe, North America and humid rivers of South America and Asia. Multivariate statistics showed that catchment area, relief and rainfall erosivity are most dominating controls on the river’s erosion reactivity. This study provides a better understanding of global sediment dynamics in rivers and the role that climate change may play in the future.

If you are interested in reading the master thesis, you may contact the thesis supervisor Renee van Dongen at:

Strategien zur Wasserversorgung

For the international arena, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) has published the “Water Strategy – Key to the Implementation of Agenda 2030 and the Climate Agreement in 2017”. In 2019, the latter was followed by the strategy paper “Agenda 2030 concrete. Synergies and conflicts between water (SDG 6) and further goals. Six guidelines for implementation in development cooperation” and the position paper “Water – the Source of Development”. Owing to the foreseeable failure to meet the water sustainability target (SDG 6), the United Nations released the “SDG 6 Global Acceleration Framework” in 2020, to call on the world community to take stronger action.

In Germany, the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) is engaged in a national water strategy, that is to respond to the question how to safeguard water supply in 2050 in Germany for the people and the environment, in sufficient quantity and at the requisite level of quality. In a broad consultation (Water Dialogues), experts from the fields of water management and science plus the relevant stakeholders and users have been involved in this strategy development process to date. The Federal Environment Agency has summarized the previous four expert dialogues. Currently citizens are being involved, who may contribute their opinions and perspectives in a “Water Dialogue”. The National Water Strategy is to be presented in the summer of 2021.

https://www.bmu.de/wasserdialog/ (german language)
www.unwater.org (SDG6 Global Acceleration Framework)
BMZ Wasserstrategie (PDF, german language)
Wasser – Die Quelle der Entwicklung (PDF, german language)

Climate and Environmental Change in the Mediterranean Basin – Current Situation and Risks for the Future

On 17 November 2020, the First Mediterranean Assessment Report from the “Mediterranean Experts on Climate and Environmental Change” was posted online. The report titled “Climate and Environmental Change in the Mediterranean Basin – Current Situation and Risks for the Future” has been established by 190 scientists from 25 countries. ICWRGC’s Dr. Marianela Fader is one of the Coordinating Lead Authors of the chapter “Water”. A brief version of the full report is available as a so-called “Summary for Policy Makers” (SPM).

In the water sector, less precipitation and surface runoff, higher evaporation and an increasing need for irrigation as well as more frequent droughts and user conflicts are to be expected. Climate warming and less rainfall reduce groundwater recharge and deteriorate its quality in coastal zones owing to saltwater intrusion, sea level rise and human overexploitation.

MedECC overall reportSummary for Policy MakersMedECC Water chapterwww.medecc.org

Studies about green water in Brazil and biodiversity scenarios

Water is not only rain, rivers and lakes. Water is fundamentally related to the landscape, food production, biodiversity and ecosystem services. Dr. Fader from ICWRGC collaborated with French researchers to giveecologists guidance on using land-use and land-cover change scenarios to generate  biodiversity and ecosystem services scenarios. In a further study, Dr. Fader collaborated with another group of authors to demonstrate that multiple-cropping and cropland expansion in Brazil do not only affect agricultural yields but also water productivity.

See the articles under:

“What ecologists should know before using land-use/cover change projections for biodiversity and ecosystem service assessments”

https://link.springer.com

“The effects of cropping intensity and cropland expansion of Brazilian soybean production on green water flows”

https://iopscience.iop.org

New scientific associate in the CO-MICC project team

New scientific associate in the CO-MICC project team

In October, Denise Cáceres joined ICWRGC as a member of the CO-MICC project  team. CO-MICC (2018-2021), a scientific project led by the Goethe University of Frankfurt, aims to provide quantitative information on freshwater-related hazards of climate change, based on multiple hydrological models and climate scenarios, for risk and adaptation assessments at various spatial scales. This information will be provided in the form of an open-access web portal that can easily be accessed and understood by different types of end-users. The web portal will consist of a data portal, giving access to the multi-model-based data, and a knowledge portal containing meta information and methods co-developed together with stakeholders (end-users) on how to best utilize these data.

Denise is responsible for the dissemination of the project activities and results. Her main task is to develop the knowledge portal. Additionally, she supports the development of the data portal and facilitates the exchange between the project modelling team (knowledge providers) and the stakeholders (knowledge end-users) from the Ebro basin in Spain, one of the focus regions of the project.

Aside from her involvement in CO-MICC, Denise is currently a PhD candidate affiliated to the Goethe University of Frankfurt. As part of her PhD project, she has recently published a scientific article entitled “Assessing global water mass transfers from continents to oceans over the period 1948-2016” in the Hydrology and Earth System Sciences peer-reviewed journal (https://hess.copernicus.org/articles/24/4831/2020/). This publication stemmed from her collaboration with scientists from various disciplines (hydrology, glaciology and geodesy) in the framework of the Sea Level Budget Closure project from the ESA Climate Change Initiative.

The article deals with the question of how and to which extent changes in water storage on continents had an effect on the global ocean mass over the period 1948–2016. The results show that continents lost water to oceans at an accelerated rate, inducing sea level rise. Shrinking glaciers explain 81% of the long-term continental water mass loss, while declining groundwater levels, mainly due to sustained groundwater pumping for irrigation, is the second major driver. This long-term decline was partly offset by the impoundment of water in dams.

WMO under way to preparing its new Data Policy

The virtual WMO Data Conference (16–19 Nov. 2020) and the preceding preparatory workshops are a milestone towards an agreement on a new Data Policy in 2021 (see https://meetings.wmo.int/WMO-Data-Conference/SitePages/Conference%20Scheme.aspx).

Looking back, the WMO constituent bodies have adopted thousands of resolutions since 1950. But only one, Resolution 40 of the 12th World Meteorological Congress (WMO, 1995), has needed no other identifier and continues to be known simply as “Resolution 40” (whole title “WMO Policy and Practice for the Exchange of Meteorological and Related Data and Products including Guidelines on Relationships in Commercial Meteorological Activities”). On the occasion of its 70th anniversary, WMO published a very valuable document called “Origin, Impact and Aftermath of WMO Resolution 40” (see: https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=10140), reflecting the development of WMO and its role for meteorological and hydrological data.

Moving into a rapidly developing world of Big Data, Open Data, Open Science, and an increasing need for data availability and exchange, e.g. to support the achievement of the 17 UN SDGs, the UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the PARIS Climate Agreement, and in general the “Leaving no one behind” principle, the new WMO policy statement reads as follows:

“As a fundamental principle of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and in consonance with the expanding requirements for its scientific and technical expertise, WMO commits itself to broadening and enhancing the free and unrestricted international exchange of meteorological and related data and products.”

Providing data and data products on weather, climate and water, hydrology is an essential and integral part within this development of WMO, steered by the Hydrological Assembly, the Hydrological Coordination Panel, several working groups and the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services world-wide. ICWRGC, BfG, their global data centres and the Global Terrestrial Network Hydrology are pro-actively involved and part of this development (see https://www.gtn-h.info/).

Therefore, ICWRGC’s Dr. Stephan Dietrich contributed two posters to the virtual poster session of the WMO Data Conference:

  • Poster #1.09 “Observations of the Global Terrestrial Water Resources
  • Poster #3.17 “Consistent monitoring of global water cycle and resources variability across scales: Where do we stand?”

Additionally, the following GTN-H members supported the WMO Data Conference with own contributions:

  • GPCC: Ameliorating of globally collected climate data to global reference data sets since more than 30 years, the story of the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC), M. Ziese
  • IGRAC: Sharing knowledge of national groundwater monitoring programmes, C. Ruz-Vargas
  • HYDROLARE: Development of the International Data Center for Hydrology of Lakes and Reservoirs, V. Vuglinski

All posters of the conference can be found under https://meetings.wmo.int/WMO-Data-Conference/SitePages/Virtual%20Poster%20Session.aspx

Start of URSACHEN project sampling campaigns

The team members of the URSACHEN project, a collaborative project between the German Federal Institute of Hydrology and International Centre for Water Resources and Global Change, have conducted their first sampling campaign. URSACHEN investigates the uncertainties in river load estimations caused by the spatial and temporal variability of suspended solid concentrations and their chemical composition.

Figure 1: URSACHEN Team in Emmerich

The project has planned two types of sampling campaigns to investigate these temporal and spatial variations in the Rhine river. Despite the delays due to COVID-19, URSACHEN has now started the series of sampling campaigns focusing on temporal variability. The sampling campaigns focusing on spatial variability are expected to begin in December 2020.

Figure 2: Closed Van Dorn bottle

The temporal variability campaigns were conducted at all 3 focus locations (Koblenz, Brohl, Emmerich; figure 1), at low river discharge in the Rhine. The URSACHEN team members were to take river water samples at 15 seconds intervals for a duration of 10 minutes. The 2L samples needed to be split over two sample bottles while the sediment was still in suspension. Two different BfG sections would then analyse the two bottles as to their sediment concentration, grain size distribution and chemical composition.

Figure 3: Transferring sample to sample bottles

This sampling set-up required a smooth-routine, with 6 persons involved. Two persons took samples using Van Dorn bottles. These special Van Dorn bottles allow water sampling with limited disturbances of the water flow and its turbulences. The Van Dorn bottles are tubes with 2 lids on both sides that can be opened (picture 2). When a weight hits the Van Dorn sampler’s closing mechanism, the lids automatically close. After taking the sample, it was poured in the funnel connected to a sample splitter separating the sample in two representative portions (Figure 3). Next, the lids needed to be opened again for the next sample.

Figure 4: Opening of Van Dorn bottles

The URSACHEN team will repeat this sampling campaign at average and high river discharge. As mentioned above, the spatial variability campaigns will start soon, where river cross-section samples will be taken from the Rhine at Koblenz, Brohl and Emmerich.