Thanks to a Watson Short Term Scientific Mission grant I was able to visit the institute of hydrology in the scenic city of Bern. During my stay at the group of Prof. Bettina Schaefli, Dr. Natalie Ceperley and I develop a sampling framework to assess preferential flow of meltwater and/or rain on snow.

Better insights into the liquid water movement processes in snowpack and the dynamics of rain on snow events have a huge potential to improve hydrological models predicting runoff and flood generation in the melt season. Stable water isotopes may aid this endeavor by providing information on the water age and act as a conservative tracer within the snow.

The developed framework will prospectively be applied in two bachelor theses, which will be jointly coordinated by the Universities of Bern (CH) and Freiburg (GER) and thus contribute to further cooperation.