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Why climate change matters for Hydrology
In July 2021, my grandmother’s house was affected by the massive Eifel/Ahr flood. In the following week, I spent the whole day from getting up in the morning to going to bed at night in the mud masses that were in the basement and first floor. At my grandmother’s house alone, in the days after…
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Preferential flowpaths change soilwater isotopic composition
A review by Mathias Sprenger and others in 2016 described how preferential flowpaths alter the iotopic seasonality signature in soils. When these pathways exist (see my post on macropores), young, topsoil water is directly added to soil layers which have a different or dampened signature. This causes sharp deviations which stick out of the otherwise…
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Isotope seasonality in soils
In last weeks #waterwednesday I briefly explained the reason behind the seasonality effect of stable water isotope composition. When water infiltrates into the soil, this signature is first preserved. However, as the water trickels further down, it mixes with preexisting water, slowly dampening the signature. This post is part of my water science communication series…
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Science Workshop 2023
Last week our team spend 3 days on a workacion, presenting and discussing our latest research. In total 30 early carreers to senior scientist from the chair of hydrology as well as the chair of environmental & hydrological systems joined the trip to a remote hut on the scenic mountain “Belchen” in the southern Black…
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How heavy is rain? Basics of stable water isotopes
Winter rain is lighter than that in summer. Does not make sense? Yes, it does! The cause are stable water isotopes. Water is made up of 2 types of atoms: Hydrogen (H) and Oxygen (O). These Atoms come in different varietys, also called isotopes. The isotopes of water exist in two weight levels: light 1H…
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On the origin of preferential flowpaths
In some soils over 95% of infiltrated rainwater travels through less than .5% of the total soil volume. The reason? Macropores! In last weeks post I explained the basic concept of how water moves through hillslope soils with the most important feature being “water highways”, scientifically called preferential flowpaths or macropores. These pathways can have…
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Video: How we take soil samples for soilwater analysis
For my PhD thesis we will drill 500+ holes and take over 6000 soil-samples. Here you see our process:
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How water flows on hillslopes
In line with my PhD project on subsurface stormflow I want to share some basics on hillslope hydrology: When it rains on hillslopes, water can flow over land to the next stream or infiltrate into the soil. In the soil it can take two ways. It can move either through the soil matrix or use…
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Communicating Science through Social Media
This week I took part in a Workshop by Sascha Vogel (https://sciencebirds.de/) learning how to communicate science using social media. Especially the discussions on (mis-)use of social media to promote fake news and on the responsibility of scientists to communicate their work really stuck with me. It was a well structured course where we first…
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Field Campaign in the Alps
The final field campaign took us to the most scenic but also coldest and steepest catchment of our research project. We spend the last September weeks in the “Padaster”-Catchment close to Innsbruck in Austria. Our first day started with a snowy greating and clouded mountains, however the sky cleared and sunshine revealed the most atonishing…
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Autosampler for Isotopes
After multiple iterations, the autosampler finally works. While I assembled the hardware, Stefan Seeger did all the software programming and designed the PCBs. Our System currently has the capacity to load 46 sample bags. The samples are each pricked with a cannula which is connected to a valve. The valves can individualy be opened, allowing…
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Field Campaign Sauerland
The last week of July was the fieldcampaign in Sauerland where we also dug three trenches for Subsurface Flow Measurement. This time we chose a mixed forest, clearcut and pasture site. Upslope of the trenches we also drilled soilcores and sampled eDNA, water-soluble organic carbon and water stable isotopes in different soil layers. Per Trench…