This project proposes to monitor the discharge components surface runoff and groundwater discharge and their annual dynamics for the two selected sub-catchments in order to assess the hydrological budget including water fluxes above, on, across and below the land surface. The objectives of this project are to (1) develop a coupled modeling framework for the simulation of interlinked sediment transport and water fluxes on the surface and on the subsurface, (2) attempt to reconstruct past and predict future water fluxes governed by sedimentation processes, and (3) apply that new framework to the transport of dissolved matter and to the formation landscapes. It is expected that the coupling strategy will be numerically demanding because large erosion rates will diminish subsurficial water fluxes and vice versa. As a consequence, efficient time-stepping strategies will have to be applied in order to stabilize the solution. The newly developed modeling framework can potentially be applied to a variety of similar situations including erosion along coastlines, safety concerns of damns and other hydraulic infrastructures, and landslide research.
In collaboration with our ITP partners, we will select a field site, for which the modeling framework will be developed, applied and tested. In order to construct a calibrated model domain of the field site, our partners will conduct field work to gather the required data: (i) geometry of hydrogeological units, (ii) distribution of hydraulic conductivity, (iii) digital elevation model, and (iv) multi-level measurements of hydraulic head at different locations at the field site. The field work will then be complemented by mathematical simulation activites conducted at the LUH. Furthermore, Chinese partners will analyze climate change and land cover / land use change impact on water resources on the TP.
Prof. Dr. Thomas Graf, LU Hannover
Prof. Dr. Roland Mäusbacher, FSU Jena
Prof. Dr. Zhang Fan, ITP