@phdthesis{Hattermann2005,
  author    = {Hattermann, Fred Fokko},
  title     = {Integrated modelling of Global Change impacts in the German Elbe River Basin},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-6052},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  year      = {2005},
  abstract  = {The scope of this study is to investigate the environmental change in the German part of the Elbe river basin, whereby the focus is on two water related problems: having too little water and having water of poor quality. The Elbe region is representative of humid to semi-humid landscapes in central Europe, where water availability during the summer season is the limiting factor for plant growth and crop yields, especially in the loess areas, where the annual precipitation is lower than 500 mm. It is most likely that water quantity problems will accelerate in future, because both the observed and the projected climate trend show an increase in temperature and a decrease in annual precipitation, especially in the summer. Another problem is nutrient pollution of rivers and lakes. In the early 1990s, the Elbe was one of the most heavily polluted rivers in Europe. Even though nutrient emissions from point sources have notably decreased in the basin due to reduction of industrial sources and introduction of new and improved sewage treatment facilities, the diffuse sources of pollution are still not sufficiently controlled. The investigations have been done using the eco-hydrological model SWIM (Soil and Water Integrated Model), which has been embedded in a model framework of climate and agro-economic models. A global scenario of climate and agro-economic change has been regionalized to generate transient climate forcing data and land use boundary conditions for the model. The model was used to transform the climate and land use changes into altered evapotranspiration, groundwater recharge, crop yields and river discharge, and to investigate the development of water quality in the river basin. Particular emphasis was given to assessing the significance of the impacts on the hydrology, taking into account in the analysis the inherent uncertainty of the regional climate change as well as the uncertainty in the results of the model. The average trend of the regional climate change scenario indicates a decrease in mean annual precipitation up to 2055 of about 1.5 \%, but with high uncertainty (covering the range from -15.3 \% to +14.8 \%), and a less uncertain increase in temperature of approximately 1.4 K. The relatively small change in precipitation in conjunction with the change in temperature leads to severe impacts on groundwater recharge and river flow. Increasing temperature induces longer vegetation periods, and the seasonality of the flow regime changes towards longer low flow spells in summer. As a results the water availability will decrease on average of the scenario simulations by approximately 15 \%. The increase in temperatures will improve the growth conditions for temperature limited crops like maize. The uncertainty of the climate trend is particularly high in regions where the change is the highest. The simulation results for the Nuthe subbasin of the Elbe indicate that retention processes in groundwater, wetlands and riparian zones have a high potential to reduce the nitrate concentrations of rivers and lakes in the basin, because they are located at the interface between catchment area and surface water bodies, where they are controlling the diffuse nutrient inputs. The relatively high retention of nitrate in the Nuthe basin is due to the long residence time of water in the subsurface (about 40 years), with good conditions for denitrification, and due to nitrate retention and plant uptake in wetlands and riparian zones. The concluding result of the study is that the natural environment and communities in parts of Central Europe will have considerably lower water resources under scenario conditions. The water quality will improve, but due to the long residence time of water and nutrients in the subsurface, this improvement will be slower in areas where the conditions for nutrient turn-over in the subsurface are poor.},
  subject      = {Hydrologie},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Voss2007,
  author    = {Voß, Anja},
  title     = {Untersuchung und Modellierung der Stickstoff- und Phosphorumsatz- und Transportprozesse in mesoskaligen Einzugsgebieten des Tieflandes am Beispiel von Nuthe, Hammerfließ und Stepenitz},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-15481},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  year      = {2007},
  abstract  = {Ziel dieser Arbeit war es, die Stickstoff- und Phosphorprozesse im nordostdeutschen Tiefland detailliert zu untersuchen und Handlungsoptionen hinsichtlich der Landnutzung zur nachhaltigen Steuerung der Stickstoff- und Phosphoreintr{\"a}ge in die Fließgew{\"a}sser aufzuzeigen. Als Grundvoraussetzung f{\"u}r die Modellierung des N{\"a}hrstoffhaushaltes mussten zun{\"a}chst die hydrologischen Prozesse und die Abfl{\"u}sse f{\"u}r die Einzugsgebiete validiert werden. Daf{\"u}r wurde in dieser Arbeit das {\"o}kohydrologische Modell SWIM verwendet. Die Abflussmodellierung umfasste den Zeitraum 1991 - 2000. Die Ergebnisse dazu zeigen, dass SWIM in der Lage war, die hydrologischen Prozesse in den Untersuchungsgebieten ad{\"a}quat wiederzugeben. Auf der Grundlage der Modellierung des Wasserhaushaltes wurden mit SWIM die Stoffumsatzprozesse f{\"u}r den Zeitraum 1996 - 2000 simuliert. Um dabei besonders das Prozessgeschehen im Tiefland zu ber{\"u}cksichtigen, war die Erweiterung von SWIM um einen Ammonium-Pool mit dessen Umsatzprozessen erforderlich. Außerdem wurde der Prozess der N{\"a}hrstoffversickerung so erg{\"a}nzt, dass neben Nitrat auch Ammonium und Phosphat durch das gesamte Bodenprofil verlagert und {\"u}ber die Abflusskomponenten zum Gebietsauslass transportiert werden k{\"o}nnen. Mit diesen Modellerweiterungen konnten die Stickstoff und Phosphorprozesse in den Untersuchungsgebieten gut abgebildet werden. Mit dem so validierten Modell wurden weitere Anwendungen erm{\"o}glicht. N{\"a}hrstoffsimulationen f{\"u}r den Zeitraum 1981 bis 2000 dienten der Untersuchung des abnehmenden Trends in den N{\"a}hrstoffkonzentrationen der Nuthe. Die Untersuchungsergebnisse lassen deutlich erkennen, dass sich die Konzentrationen nach 1990 haupts{\"a}chlich auf Grund der Reduzierung der Eintr{\"a}ge aus punktf{\"o}rmigen Quellen und Rieselfeldern verringert haben. Weitere Modellrechnungen zur Herkunft der N{\"a}hrstoffe haben ergeben, dass Nitrat {\"u}berwiegend aus diffusen Quellen, Ammonium und Phosphat dagegen aus punktf{\"o}rmigen Quellen stammen. Als besonders sensitiv auf die Modellergebnisse haben sich die Parameter zu Landnutzung und -management und die Durchwurzelungstiefe der Pflanzen herausgestellt. Abschließend wurden verschiedene Landnutzungsszenarien angewendet. Die Ergebnisse zu den Szenariorechnungen zeigen, dass fast alle vorgegebenen Landnutzungsszenarien zu einer Verringerung der Stickstoff- bzw. Phosphoremissionen f{\"u}hrten. Die Anwendung von Szenarien, die alle relevanten Zielvorgaben und Empfehlungen zum Ressourcenschutz ber{\"u}cksichtigen, zeigen die gr{\"o}ßten Ver{\"a}nderungen.},
  language  = {de}
}
@phdthesis{Manu2023,
  author    = {Manu, Evans},
  title     = {Hydrogeochemical characterization of water resources in the Pra Basin (Ghana) for quality assessment and water management},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-62806},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-628062},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {XVI, 106},
  year      = {2023},
  abstract  = {Watershed management requires an understanding of key hydrochemical processes. The Pra Basin is one of the five major river basins in Ghana with a population of over 4.2 million people. Currently, water resources management faces challenges due to surface water pollution caused by the unregulated release of untreated household and industrial waste into aquatic ecosystems and illegal mining activities. This has increased the need for groundwater as the most reliable water supply. Our understanding of groundwater recharge mechanisms and chemical evolution in the basin has been inadequate, making effective management difficult. Therefore, the main objective of this work is to gain insight into the processes that determine the hydrogeochemical evolution of groundwater quality in the Pra Basin. The combined use of stable isotope, hydrochemistry, and water level data provides the basis for conceptualizing the chemical evolution of groundwater in the Pra Basin. For this purpose, the origin and evaporation rates of water infiltrating into the unsaturated zone were evaluated. In addition, Chloride Mass Balance (CMB) and Water Table Fluctuations (WTF) were considered to quantify groundwater recharge for the basin. Indices such as water quality index (WQI), sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), Wilcox diagram, and salinity (USSL) were used in this study to determine the quality of the resource for use as drinking water and for irrigation purposes. Due to the heterogeneity of the hydrochemical data, the statistical techniques of hierarchical cluster and factor analysis were applied to subdivide the data according to their spatial correlation. A conceptual hydrogeochemical model was developed and subsequently validated by applying combinatorial inverse and reaction pathway-based geochemical models to determine plausible mineral assemblages that control the chemical composition of the groundwater. The interactions between water and rock determine the groundwater quality in the Pra Basin. The results underline that the groundwater is of good quality and can be used for drinking water and irrigation purposes. It was demonstrated that there is a large groundwater potential to meet the entire Pra Basin's current and future water demands. The main recharge area was identified as the northern zone, while the southern zone is the discharge area. The predominant influence of weathering of silicate minerals plays a key role in the chemical evolution of the groundwater. The work presented here provides fundamental insights into the hydrochemistry of the Pra Basin and provides data important to water managers for informed decision-making in planning and allocating water resources for various purposes. A novel inverse modelling approach was used in this study to identify different mineral compositions that determine the chemical evolution of groundwater in the Pra Basin. This modelling technique has the potential to simulate the composition of groundwater at the basin scale with large hydrochemical heterogeneity, using average water composition to represent established spatial groupings of water chemistry.},
  language  = {en}
}