Modelling the soil water balance and soil solute balance and in a temperate forest under a changing climate
Motivation
Viable forests make an important contribution to drinking water suppliers through their filter function. However, climate change may cause water stress and hence hampers viability of forests which may reduce the filter function. Therefore, a quantification of future water stress is important for planning future drinking water supply, but also for ecological reasons, for example, vulnerability of trees to pest infestation increases with water stress.
Research objectives
The overall aim of this MSc-thesis is to estimate water stress induced by climate change at a forested site with two different tree species (beech and spruce) and examine differences between the two tree species.
Methodology
Climate change impact will be analysed with scenario-based soil hydrological simulations using bias bias-corrected climate projections.
Supervision
Robin Schwemmle, Markus Weiler
Further notes
RoGeR is available at https://roger.readthedocs.io/en/latest/.
The modelling experiment can be conducted at the following two sites:
- Laegeren, Switzerland (more information is available at Brinkmann et al., 2018)
- Hartheim, Germany (https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/444110369; further information is available upon request)
Contact
Robin Schwemmle robin.schwemmle@hydrology.uni-freiburg.de
Skills and challenges
advanced programming skills, knowledge in the programming language Python
Sprache
English (or German)
Literature
Clark, M. P., Wilby, R. L., Gutmann, E. D., Vano, J. A., Gangopadhyay, S., Wood, A. W., Fowler, H. J., Prudhomme, C., Arnold, J. R., and Brekke, L. D.: Characterizing Uncertainty of the Hydrologic Impacts of Climate Change, Current Climate Change Reports, 2, 55-64, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40641-016-0034-x, 2016.
Brinkmann, N., Seeger, S., Weiler, M., Buchmann, N., Eugster, W., and Kahmen, A.: Employing stable isotopes to determine the residence times of soil water and the temporal origin of water taken up by Fagus sylvatica and Picea abies in a temperate forest, New Phytol, 219, 1300-1313, [https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.15255,](https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.15255,) 2018.
Steinbrich, A., Leistert, H., and Weiler, M.: Model-based quantification of runoff generation processes at high spatial and temporal resolution, Environmental Earth Sciences, 75, 1423, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-016-6234-9, 2016.