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River reaches protected by dikes exhibit high damage potential due to strong value accumulation in the hinterland areas. While providing an efficient protection against low magnitude flood events, dikes may fail under the load of extreme water levels and long flood durations. Hazard and risk assessments for river reaches protected by dikes have not adequately considered the fluvial inundation processes up to now. Particularly, the processes of dike failures and their influence on the hinterland inundation and flood wave propagation lack comprehensive consideration. This study focuses on the development and application of a new modelling system which allows a comprehensive flood hazard assessment along diked river reaches under consideration of dike failures. The proposed Inundation Hazard Assessment Model (IHAM) represents a hybrid probabilistic-deterministic model. It comprises three models interactively coupled at runtime. These are: (1) 1D unsteady hydrodynamic model of river channel and floodplain flow between dikes, (2) probabilistic dike breach model which determines possible dike breach locations, breach widths and breach outflow discharges, and (3) 2D raster-based diffusion wave storage cell model of the hinterland areas behind the dikes. Due to the unsteady nature of the 1D and 2D coupled models, the dependence between hydraulic load at various locations along the reach is explicitly considered. The probabilistic dike breach model describes dike failures due to three failure mechanisms: overtopping, piping and slope instability caused by the seepage flow through the dike core (micro-instability). The 2D storage cell model driven by the breach outflow boundary conditions computes an extended spectrum of flood intensity indicators such as water depth, flow velocity, impulse, inundation duration and rate of water rise. IHAM is embedded in a Monte Carlo simulation in order to account for the natural variability of the flood generation processes reflected in the form of input hydrographs and for the randomness of dike failures given by breach locations, times and widths. The model was developed and tested on a ca. 91 km heavily diked river reach on the German part of the Elbe River between gauges Torgau and Vockerode. The reach is characterised by low slope and fairly flat extended hinterland areas. The scenario calculations for the developed synthetic input hydrographs for the main river and tributary were carried out for floods with return periods of T = 100, 200, 500, 1000 a. Based on the modelling results, probabilistic dike hazard maps could be generated that indicate the failure probability of each discretised dike section for every scenario magnitude. In the disaggregated display mode, the dike hazard maps indicate the failure probabilities for each considered breach mechanism. Besides the binary inundation patterns that indicate the probability of raster cells being inundated, IHAM generates probabilistic flood hazard maps. These maps display spatial patterns of the considered flood intensity indicators and their associated return periods. Finally, scenarios of polder deployment for the extreme floods with T = 200, 500, 1000 were simulated with IHAM. The developed IHAM simulation system represents a new scientific tool for studying fluvial inundation dynamics under extreme conditions incorporating effects of technical flood protection measures. With its major outputs in form of novel probabilistic inundation and dike hazard maps, the IHAM system has a high practical value for decision support in flood management.
This thesis aims to quantify the human impact on the natural resource water at the landscape scale. The drivers in the federal state of Brandenburg (Germany), the area under investigation, are land-use changes induced by policy decisions at European and federal state level. The water resources of the federal state are particularly sensitive to changes in land-use due to low precipitation rates in the summer combined with sandy soils and high evapotranspiration rates. Key elements in landscape hydrology are forests because of their unique capacity to transport water from the soil to the atmosphere. Given these circumstances, decisions made at any level of administration that may have effects on the forest sector in the state are critical in relation to the water cycle. It is therefore essential to evaluate any decision that may change forest area and structure in such a sensitive region. Thus, as a first step, it was necessary to develop and implement a model able to simulate possible interactions and feedbacks between forested surfaces and the hydrological cycle at the landscape scale. The result is a model for simulating the hydrological properties of forest stands based on a robust computation of the temporal and spatial LAI (leaf area index) dynamics. The approach allows the simulation of all relevant hydrological processes with a low parameter demand. It includes the interception of precipitation and transpiration of forest stands with and without groundwater in the rooting zone. The model also considers phenology, biomass allocation, as well as mortality and simple management practices. It has been implemented as a module in the eco-hydrological model SWIM (Soil and Water Integrated Model). This model has been tested in two pre-studies to verify the applicability of its hydrological process description for the hydrological conditions typical for the state. The newly implemented forest module has been tested for Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris) and in parts for Common Oak (Quercus robur and Q. petraea) in Brandenburg. For Scots Pine the results demonstrate a good simulation of annual biomass increase and LAI in addition to the satisfactory simulation of litter production. A comparison of the simulated and measured data of the May sprout for Scots pine and leaf unfolding for Oak, as well as the evaluation against daily transpiration measurements for Scots Pine, does support the applicability of the approach. The interception of precipitation has also been simulated and compared with weekly observed data for a Scots Pine stand which displays satisfactory results in both the vegetation periods and annual sums. After the development and testing phase, the model is used to analyse the effects of two scenarios. The first scenario is an increase in forest area on abandoned agricultural land that is triggered by a decrease in European agricultural production support. The second one is a shift in species composition from predominant Scots Pine to Common Oak that is based on decisions of the regional forestry authority to support a more natural species composition. The scenario effects are modelled for the federal state of Brandenburg on a 50m grid utilising spatially explicit land-use patterns. The results, for the first scenario, suggest a negative impact of an increase in forest area (9.4% total state area) on the regional water balance, causing an increase in mean long-term annual evapotranspiration of 3.7% at 100% afforestation when compared to no afforestation. The relatively small annual change conceals a much more pronounced seasonal effect of a mean long-term evapotranspiration increase by 25.1% in the spring causing a pronounced reduction in groundwater recharge and runoff. The reduction causes a lag effect that aggravates the scarcity of water resources in the summer. In contrast, in the second scenario, a change in species composition in existing forests (29.2% total state area) from predominantly Scots Pine to Common Oak decreases the long-term annual mean evapotranspiration by 3.4%, accompanied by a much weaker, but apparent, seasonal pattern. Both scenarios exhibit a high spatial heterogeneity because of the distinct natural conditions in the different regions of the state. Areas with groundwater levels near the surface are particularly sensitive to changes in forest area and regions with relatively high proportion of forest respond strongly to the change in species composition. In both cases this regional response is masked by a smaller linear mean effect for the total state area. Two critical sources of uncertainty in the model results have been investigated. The first one originates from the model calibration parameters estimated in the pre-study for lowland regions, such as the federal state. The combined effect of the parameters, when changed within their physical meaningful limits, unveils an overestimation of the mean water balance by 1.6%. However, the distribution has a wide spread with 14.7% for the 90th percentile and -9.9% for the 10th percentile. The second source of uncertainty emerges from the parameterisation of the forest module. The analysis exhibits a standard deviation of 0.6 % over a ten year period in the mean of the simulated evapotranspiration as a result of variance in the key forest parameters. The analysis suggests that the combined uncertainty in the model results is dominated by the uncertainties of calibration parameters. Therefore, the effect of the first scenario might be underestimated because the calculated increase in evapotranspiration is too small. This may lead to an overestimation of the water balance towards runoff and groundwater recharge. The opposite can be assumed for the second scenario in which the decrease in evapotranspiration might be overestimated.
Fast analysis of different species of molecules in soils is investigated by capillary electrophoresis (CE). Several CE techniques for the analysis of inorganic ions and carbohydrates have been tested. With regard to the intents of pedologists and the usually large number of soil analyses a bundle of CE systems is proposed, capable of effecting time-saving soil analyses. Adapted electrolyte systems recently published and new separation systems are described. Examples of the application of these methods to two different soil samples are presented.
The topography of first-order catchments in a region of western Amazonia was found to exhibit distinctive, recurrent features: a steep, straight lower side slope, a flat or nearly flat terrace at an intermediate elevation between valley floor and interfluve, and an upper side slope connecting interfluve and intermediate terrace. A detailed survey of soil-saturated hydraulic conductivity (K sat)-depth relationships, involving 740 undisturbed soil cores, was conducted in a 0.75-ha first-order catchment. The sampling approach was stratified with respect to the above slope units. Exploratory data analysis suggested fourth-root transformation of batches from the 0–0.1 m depth interval, log transformation of batches from the subsequent 0.1 m depth increments, and the use of robust estimators of location and scale. The K sat of the steep lower side slope decreased from 46 to 0.1 mm/h over the overall sampling depth of 0.4 m. The corresponding decrease was from 46 to 0.1 mm/h on the intermediate terrace, from 335 to 0.01 mm/h on the upper side slope, and from 550 to 0.015 mm/h on the interfluve. A depthwise comparison of these slope units led to the formulation of several hypotheses concerning the link between K sat and topography.
Rainfall erosivities as defined by the R factor from the universal soil loss equation were determined for all events during a two-year period at the station La Cuenca in western Amazonia. Three methods based on a power relationship between rainfall amount and erosivity were then applied to estimate event and daily rainfall erosivities from the respective rainfall amounts. A test of the resulting regression equations against an independent data set proved all three methods equally adequate in predicting rainfall erosivity from daily rainfall amount. We recommend the Richardson model for testing in the Amazon Basin, and its use with the coefficient from La Cuenca in western Amazonia.
Throughfall measurements were made under primary terra firme rainforest in the Rio Pichis valley, in the Upper Amazon Basin of Peru. Based on 214 precipitation events over nearly 18 months, throughfall was estimated to be 83.1±8.8% of gross precipitation. Regression analysis of all events revealed that gross precipitation is the only significant explanatory variable; the use of one-burst events does not significantly improve the regression relationship. Gross precipitation is, however, a poor predictor of throughfall for small rainfall events. The two forest structure parameters, canopy capacity, S, and free throughfall coefficient, p, were determined to be 1.3±0.2 mm and 0.32±0.18 mm. Rainfall intensity was found to influence these parameters. New methods which attempt to minimize the influence of meteorologic variables are used to estimate the potential values of these canopy parameters.
Previous hydrometric studies demonstrated the prevalence of overland flow as a hydrological pathway in the tropical rain forest catchment of South Creek, northeast Queensland. The purpose of this study was to consider this information in a mixing analysis with the aim of identifying sources of, and of estimating their contribution to, storm flow during two events in February 1993. K and acid-neutralizing capacity (ANC) were used as tracers because they provided the best separation of the potential sources, saturation overland flow, soil water from depths of 0.3, 0.6, and 1.2 m, and hillslope groundwater in a two-dimensional mixing plot. It was necessary to distinguish between saturation overland flow, generated at the soil surface and following unchanneled pathways, and overland flow in incised pathways. This latter type of overland flow was a mixture of saturation overland flow (event water) with high concentrations of K and a low ANC, soil water (preevent water) with low concentrations of K and a low ANC, and groundwater (preevent water) with low concentrations of K and a high ANC. The same sources explained the streamwater chemistry during the two events with strongly differing rainfall and antecedent moisture conditions. The contribution of saturation overland flow dominated the storm flow during the first, high-intensity, 178-mm event, while the contribution of soil water reached 50% during peak flow of the second, low-intensity, 44-mm event 5 days later. This latter result is remarkably similar to soil water contributions to storm flow in mountainous forested catchments of the southeastern United States. In terms of event and preevent water the storm flow hydrograph of the high-intensity event is dominated by event water and that of the low-intensity event by preevent water. This study highlights the problems of applying mixing analyses to overland flow-dominated catchments and soil environments with a poorly developed vertical chemical zonation and emphasizes the need for independent hydrometric information for a complete characterization of watershed hydrology and chemistry.
Chemical fingerprints of hydrological compartments and flow paths at La Cuenca, western Amazonia
(1995)
A forested first-order catchment in western Amazonia was monitored for 2 years to determine the chemical fingerprints of precipitation, throughfall, overland flow, pipe flow, soil water, groundwater, and streamflow. We used five tracers (hydrogen, calcium, magnesium, potassium, and silica) to distinguish “fast” flow paths mainly influenced by the biological subsystem from “slow” flow paths in the geochemical subsystem. The former comprise throughfall, overland flow, and pipe flow and are characterized by a high potassium/silica ratio; the latter are represented by soil water and groundwater, which have a low potassium/silica ratio. Soil water and groundwater differ with respect to calcium and magnesium. The groundwater-controlled streamflow chemistry is strongly modified by contributions from fast flow paths during precipitation events. The high potassium/silica ratio of these flow paths suggests that the storm flow response at La Cuenca is dominated by event water.
Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Musterdynamik und Angewandte Fernerkundung Workshop vom 9. - 10. Februar 2006