Fachbereich Geowissenschaften

News Archive

New PhD Students 2018

We welcome our new PhD students who joined the Research Training Group during the last months!

This third and last round of PhD students are:

  • Luciana Chavez Rodriguez, topic "Modelling of Pesticide Turnover in Soils"
  • Michelle Viswanathan, topic "Bayesian Multi-Purpose Modelling of Processes in the Soil-Crop-Atmosphere Nexus on the Landscape Scale"
  • Jonas Allgeier, topic "Numerical Simulation of Flow and Biogeochemical Reactive Transport in the Ammer Floodplain"
  • Anna Störiko, topic "Development of Reactive-Transport Models of Nitrogen Cycling Informed by Molecular-Biological Data"
  • Ran Wei, topic "Modelling Water Quality in Rivers"
  • Elena Petrova, topic "How do Microbes Eat Rocks? Modelling Biogeochemical Reactions at the Rock/Water Interface in Fractured Limestone Aquifers"
  • Philipp Selzer, topic "Particle-Based Simulation of Transport in Heterogeneous Coupled Hydrosystems"
  • HanFang Hsueh, topic "Overcoming Erroneous Overconfidence in Parameter Estimation for Soil Moisture Models"
  • Ishani Banerjee, topic "Strategies to Model De-Gassing in Porous Media"
  • Hemanti Sharma, topic "Catchment Scale Simulation of Erosion, Sediment Transport, and Deposition"

"Integrated Hydrosystem Modelling 2018" Conference

The RTG organizes its second international conference on April 3-6, 2018 under the general theme "How complex should integrated models be?"

The keynote lectures are organized in five blocks:

  • How Important is Realistic Geology in Hydrological Modelling?
  • Controls of Reactive Transport on Scales Relevant for Management
  • Modelling Soil-Plant Interactions
  • Travel-Time Based Modelling of Transport in Hydrological Systems
  • PDE-Based versus Conceptual Integrated Models

Please see the conference website www.uni-tuebingen.de/hydromod2018 for details on the program.

Visiting Researchers in the Summer Semester 2018

  • Nandita Basu, University of Waterloo (April 2018)
  • Günter Blöschl, Vienna University of Technology (April 2018)
  • Gianluca Botter, University of Padova (April 2018)
  • Nicholas Bouskill, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (April 2018)
  • Bayani Cardenas, University of Texas at Austin (April 2018)
  • Jesus Carrera, IDÆA, Spanish National Research Council (April 2018)
  • Vladimir Cvetkovic, KTH Royal Institute of Technology (April 2018)
  • Anke Hildebrandt, University of Jena (April 2018)
  • Li Li, Pennsylvania State University (April 2018)
  • Philippe Renard, University of Neuchâtel (April 2018)
  • Dave Rudolph, University of Waterloo (April 2018)
  • René Therrien, Laval University (April 2018)
  • Daniel Wallach, INRA, French National Institute for Agricultural Research (April 2018)
  • Florian Wellmann, RWTH Aachen (April 2018)
  • Fabrice Martin-Laurent, Université de Bourgogne (April 2018)
  • Ilja van Meerveld, Universität Zürich (May 2018)
  • Werner Manz, Universität Koblenz (June 2018)
  • David Boutt, University of Massachusetts-Amherst (June 2018)
  • Alistair Boxall, The University of York (June 2018)
  • Frances Dunn, University of Southampton (June 2018)
  • Masaki Hayashi, University of Calgary (July 2018)
  • Vittoria Scorpio, Libera Università di Bozen-Bolzano (July 2018)
  • Ben Gilfedder, Universität Bayreuth (July 2018)

Uncertainty and Heterogeneity in Environmental Geoscience Course in Freudenstadt, Germany, October 2017

Spatial variability and parameter uncertainty pose major challenges in modelling environmental systems. This affects the predictability of models especially on larger scales. Therefore, the RTG hosted a fall school on uncertainty assessment, geostatistics and data assimilation together with the newly established Colloborative Research Center (CRC) 1253 CAMPOS – Catchments as Reactors.
The fall school took place 9-13 October and was located in Freudenstadt, which facilitated a highly productive and focused learning environment. Lecturers were Olaf Cirpka (University of Tübingen), Wolfgang Nowak (University of Stuttgart) and Graham Fogg (University of California, Davis).

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Visiting Researchers in the Winter Semester 2017

  • Ana Sobek, Stockholm University (November 2017)
  • Christoph Schüth, University of Darmstadt (November 2017)
  • Kay Knöller, UFZ, Halle (November 2017)
  • Daniel Hunkeler, EAWAG, Dübendorf (December 2017)
  • Andre Peters, TU Braunschweig (December 2017)
  • Rainer Lohmann, University of Rhode Island, USA (January 2018)
  • Efstathios Diamantopoulos, University of Copenhagen (January 2018)
  • Nina Buchmann, ETH Zürich, Switzerland (January 2018)
  • Thomas Riedel, IWW Zentrum Wasser, Mülheim an der Ruhr (February 2018)

New Collaborative Research Center CAMPOS

The RTG is associated to the new Collaborative Research Center 1253 CAMPOS - Catchment as Reactors, which started in January 2017.
The intension of the eight projects of CAMPOS is to close the gap between relevant processes identified in the laboratory and mechanisms of mass transfer and metabolic transformations on the landscape scale. Experiments and monitoring at the CAMPOS field sites provide data for doctoral studies on modelling water and solute fluxes within the RTG.

Visiting Researchers in the Summer Semester 2017

  • Harrison B. Zeff, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA (March-July 2017)
  • Greg Characklis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA (May 2017)
  • Mario Schirmer, EAWAG Dübendorf, Switzerland (June 2017)
  • Kamini Singha, Colorado School of Mines, USA (June 2017)
  • Madhur Anand, University of Guelph, Canada (June-July 2017)
  • Joshua R. Larsen, University of Queensland, Australia (July 2017)
  • Nico Jehmlich, UFZ Leipzig (July 2017)
  • Gudrun Massmann, Universität Oldenburg (July 2017)

Land Surface Processes Course in Blaubeuren, Germany, March 2017

Form March 27th to March 31st the RTG held a Spring School at the Tagungszentrum Blaubeuren dealing with Land Surface Processes. In total 9 RTG students, 5 external students, and postdoctoral researchers from the University of Tübingen and the University of Hohenheim participated.
The course consisted of lectures, practical work on data analysis of Eddy-Covariance, radiosonde and doppler lidar measurements and an excursion to the Nellingen observation site, where the University of Hoheneheim conducts long term Eddy-Covariance measurements to observe the influence of the land cover on the surface energy balance.

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Visiting Researchers in the Winter Semester 2016/17

  • Alessandro Comunian, University of Milan, Italy (September 2016)
  • Li Li, Pennsylvania State University, USA (October 2016)
  • Martin Thullner, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung - UFZ (October 2016)
  • Vladimir Cvetkovic, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden (October 2016)
  • Matthias Willmann, ETH Zürich, Switzerland (October 2016)
  • Ty Ferré, University of Arizona, USA (November 2016)
  • Marco Toffolon, University of Trento, Italy (November 2016)
  • Daniel Farinotti, ETH Zürich, Switzerland (December 2016)

Renewal of our Research Training Group

The granting committee for research training groups of the German Research Foundation (DFG) has confirmed the renewal of our research training group "Integrated Hydrosystem Modelling" for another 4.5 years until May 2021.
The principal goals, structure, and main actors of the research training group remain. However, there will be some changes:

  • Our International Research Training Group will officially change to a (non-international) Research Training Group, even though with a strong international component.
  • The University of Stuttgart will become an official partner institution.
  • The research theme on uncertainty quantification will explicitly ask which complexity of coupled models is justified in light of available data. Therefore, the research theme has been renamed to: "Model legitimacy and uncertainty quantification of large-scale models".
  • Should the proposal for the Collaborative Research Center (CRC 1253) "Catchments as Reactors: Metabolism of Pollutants on the Landscape Scale (CAMPOS)" be granted, the RTG will be associated with CAMPOS. The Ammer catchment close to Tübingen, which will be analyzed by CAMPOS, has already become the main target of application in the modeling studies of the RTG.

Reactive Transport Modelling Course in Sulz, Germany, October 2016

From October 10 to October 14 ten RTG PhD students travelled to the Kirchberg convent in Sulz am Neckar, located in Baden-Württemberg, Germany to attend the RTG Fall School 2016 “Reactive Transport Modelling Course”.
Other Geoscience PhD students from the University of Tübingen attended the course as well, in addition to PhD students from universities across Germany, such as Berlin, Bayreuth, and Jena. The course included lectures, modelling exercises, an excursion, and student presentations.

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Hydrogeology Field School in Waterloo, Canada, April/May 2016

From end of April (25.04.) to middle of May (13.05.), 9 RTG PhD-students went to the University of Waterloo, Canada for attending RTG Spring School 2016 "EARTH 671 Field Methods in Hydrogeology course".
It was an international hydrogeology course. Students were from Germany, Italy, and Ontario and Ottawa of Canada. 9 RTG PhD-students were distributed to 9 different groups for cooperation and communications with students who had different background. The course included lectures and also sampling in the field.

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Visiting Researchers in the Summer Semester 2016

  • Geoffrey Bohling, Kansas Geological Survey, USA (March-May 2016)
  • Taylor Mavaara, University of Waterloo, Canada (April 2016)
  • Edwin Cey, University of Calgary, Canada (April 2016)
  • Marie Kurz, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung - UFZ (June 2016)
  • Greg Characklis, University of North Carolina, USA (July 2016)
  • Fereidoun Rezanezhad, University of Waterloo, Canada (July 2016)

On-Site Review of the IRTG

On Januay 26-27, 2016 the on-site review of the international research training group for the second funding period, starting in December 2016, took place. The final decision on the extension will be made by the grantings committee for research training groups of DFG on May 20.

Visiting Researchers in the Winter Semester 2015/16

  • Rainer Helmig, Universität Stuttgart (November 2015)
  • Chris McDermott, University of Edinburgh (November 2015)
  • Mihály Pósfai, University of Pannonia, Hungary (November 2015)
  • Andersson Abel de Souza Machado, Freie Universität Berlin (November 2015)
  • Peter Huggenberger, University of Basel, Switzerland (December 2015)
  • Katrin Meusburger, Universität Basel (December 2015)
  • Lukas Menzel, Universität Heidelberg (January 2016)
  • Nandita Basu, University of Waterloo, Canada (January 2016)
  • Jens Lange, Universität Freiburg (February 2016)

HydroGeoSphere Workshop in Waterloo, Canada, October 2015

In the first week of October 2015, ten IRTG PhD-students and seven IRTG-related professors and researchers (of whom are some in the picture) traveled to the University of Waterloo, Canada, to attend the 2015 IRTG Fall School “Coupled Surface and Subsurface Fluid Flow and Solute Transport Modeling with HydroGeoSphere”.

The first part of the visit was an introduction to the integrated HydroGeoSphere (HGS) model, which is designed to simulate fluid flow, mass and heat transport in subsurface and surface domains.

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New PhD Students

We welcome our new PhD students !

Jeremy Bennett, Shanghua Li and Carolin Thesenvitz joined the IRTG group in May, Stephan Adam in June. They will work on the following topics:

  • Jeremy: "Solute Transport in Hierarchical Sediments"
  • Shanghua: "Vegetation-Hydrology Feedbacks"
  • Carolin: "Nitrate dynamics under climate and land-use change"
  • Stephan: "Large-eddy simulation of the water budget in a small catchment"

Later in the year Gianna Marschmann, Yan Liu, Reynold Chow and Marvin Höge will also start their PhD research in the IRTG group, working on:

  • Gianna: "Limitations of pollutant transformations in topsoils"
  • Yan: "Modelling the Fate of Micropollutants in Rivers"
  • Reynold: "Prioritising Major Predictive Uncertainty Sources in Coupled Hydrosystem Models"
  • Marvin: "Bayesian Legitimacy of Different Hydro(geo)logical Model Concepts"

Visiting Researchers in the Summer Semester 2015

  • Mike Stewart, GNS Science, New Zealand (April 2015)
  • Uwe Morgenstern, GNS Science, New Zealand (April 2015)
  • Martin Emmert, Landeswasserversorgung (April 2015)
  • Robin Gerlach, Montana State University, USA (April 2015)
  • Jung Hwan Kwon, Korea University (May 2015)
  • Jenny Stauber, CSIRO Land and Water, Kirrawee, Australia (May 2015)
  • Caroline Peacock, University of Leeds, UK (July 2015)

"Integrated Hydrosystem Modelling 2015" Conference in Tübingen, April 2015

From 7-10 April the Center for Applied Geoscience at the University of Tübingen hosted an international conference on "Integrated Hydrosystem Modelling".
A large number of prominent researchers attended and fourteen keynote lectures were given. Participants were encouraged to interrupt speakers asking questions during the sessions, and this allowed for a number of vigorous and fruitful discussions.

Read the whole article on the Conference Website

Visiting Researchers in the Winter Semester 2014/15

  • Mary Hill, U.S. Geological Survey, USA (October 2014)
  • Gabriele Chiogna, Università di Trento, Italy (November 2014)
  • Raoul Marie Couture, University of Waterloo, Canada / Norwegian Institute for Water Research (December 2014)
  • Ulrich Mayer, University of British Columbia, Canada (December 2014)
  • Kamini Singha, Colorado School of Mines, USA (January 2015)
  • Catherine Moore, CSIRO, Australia / Institute of Environmental Science and Research, New Zealand (January 2015)
  • Philippe Renard, Université de Neuchâtel, Switzerland (January 2015)
  • Rodrigo Rojas, CSIRO, Australia (February 2015)
  • Mathieu Javaux, Forschungszentrum Jülich / Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium (February 2015)
  • Ahmed Elshall, Florida State University, USA (February 2015)
  • Scott Hanson, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel (March-May 2015)

Inverse and Stochastic Methods in Subsurface Hydrology Course in Sulz/Neckar, Germany, October 2014

PhD and master students from the Universities of Tübingen and Stuttgart attended the Fall School on “Inverse and stochastic methods in subsurface hydrology” on Oct. 6–10, 2014 in Sulz/Neckar, Germany. This IRTG Fall School extended the knowledge of participants on how to apply the theory of geostatistics in subsurface hydrology. The lectures were given by guest professor Prof. Dr. Mary C. Hill (U.S. Geological Survey), Dr. Thomas Wöhling, Dr.-Ing. Claus Haslauer, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Olaf A. Cirpka (University of Tübingen) and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Nowak (University of Stuttgart).

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New Postdoc and PhD Student

We welcome our new Postdoc Michael Finkel and PhD student Evgenii Kortunov,who joined the IRTG in June/July 2014.

  • Michael Finkel's research area is "Travel Time-Based Transport Simulation".
  • Evgenii Kortunov will work on the topic "Simulation of Reactive Transport in Vertical Cross-Sections".

Visiting Researchers in the Summer Semester 2014

  • Markus Weiler, Universität Freiburg, Germany (May 2014)
  • Werner Aeschbach-Hertig, Universität Heidelberg, Germany (May 2014)
  • Harald Horn, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, Germany (June 2014)
  • Daniel Jost, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, Germany (June 2014)
  • Andrea Brookfield, Kansas Geological Survey, USA (June 2014)
  • Martin Reinhard, Stanford University, USA (July 2014)
  • Diego Riveros-Iregui, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA (July 2014)

Land Surface Processes Course in Blaubeuren, Germany, March 2014

The land surface processes course from March 24th to 28th, 2014 in Blaubeuren gave the IRTG students a special opportunity to understand the interaction between climate and ecosystems. The IRTG program welcomed members of the University of Tübingen (UT) and the University of Hohenheim (UH), as well as distinguished US researchers.

Description of Course Contents
First Day Lecture: Two lecturers, Daniel Hobley (University of Colorado) and Todd Ehlers (UT) discussed landscape evolution in the morning and helped students to install and work with the LandLab Modeling software.

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Visiting Researchers in the Winter Semester 2013/14

  • Richelle Allen-King, University of Buffalo, USA (October 2013)
  • Tim Ginn, University of California, USA (October 2013)
  • Anna Michalak, Stanford University, USA (October 2013)
  • Pascal Goderniaux, Université de Mons, Belgium (November 2013)
  • Brian Berkowitz, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel (February 2014)
  • Ankur Desai, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA (March 2014)
  • Frederic Herman, Université de Lausanne, Switzerland (March 2014)
  • Daniel Hobley, University of Colorado, USA (March 2014)
  • Matthias Mauder, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, Germany (March 2014)
  • Stefan Metzger, National Ecological Observatory Network, USA (March 2014)

Reactive Transport Modelling Course in Bad Boll, Germany, October 2013

The IRTG Fall School had been held successfully in Bad Boll, Germany between the 30th October and the 4th of November 2013. During these 5 days courses we learned much about the reactive processes at the catchment scale. The exciting lectures had been delivered by Olaf Cirpka, Peter Grathwohl, Chuanhe Lu from University of Tuebingen as well as guest professors, Tim Ginn (UC-Davis) and Richelle Allen-King (UC-Buffalo).

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New PhD Student: Maxi Herberich

We welcome our new PhD student Maxi Herberich, who joined the IRTG in February 2014. She will work on the topic "Coupled Modelling of Vegetation - Hydrology Dynamics".

Hydrosystems Seminar / joined IRTG and WESS Seminar

This semester the Hydrosystems Seminar starts as a joint seminar of the IRTG and WESS groups.

Seminar Program

PEST Workshop in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, October 2013

A group of researchers visited Neuchâtel to take part in the workshop Model Calibration and Quantification of Predictive Uncertainty Using PEST given by John Doherty, Philip Brunner, and Philippe Renard. The general topic was parameter estimation. Particularly, John Doherty, the key developer of PEST gave an introduction to his "baby" - from basic linear algebra to SVD, modelling philosophy, highly parameterized inversion, uncertainty analysis, and stochastic field generation.

Hydrogeology Field School in Waterloo, Canada, May 2013

The PhD-students of our IRTG attended the Hydrogeology Field School graduate course at the University of Waterloo from April 29th to May 17th, 2013, together with Master and doctoral students from Waterloo as well as from other parts of Canada and the world.
The course was given by Will Robertson (UW) and guest lecturers, including John A. Cherry (UW and University of Guelph), Robert W. Cleary (UW and Princeton University) and Emil O. Frind (UW).

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Visiting Researchers in the Summer Semester 2013

  • Roy Haggerty, Professor at the Oregon State University, USA (March 2013)
  • Dave Rudolph, Professor at the University of Waterloo, Canada (May 2013)
  • Stan Schymanski, Scientist at the ETH Zürich, Switzerland (June 2013)
  • René Therrien, Professor at the Laval University, Canada (June 2013)

HydroGeoSphere User Conference in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, April 2013

A group of students and researchers visited the University of Neuchatel where the 3rd International HydroGeoSphere User Conference took place from April 3rd to 5th.
The conference consisted of presentations from the development team of HydroGeoSphere on novel features and numerical details of HydroGeoSphere, presentations from current HydroGeoSphere users on accomplished work and associated issues, as well as of a short course on HydroGeoSphere taught by René Therrien. Our group gave three well-received presentations and learned useful techniques that can be directly applied for daily modelling problems.

New Participating Researcher: Dr. Chuanhe Lu

We welcome Dr. Chuanhe Lu, who joined the Department of Geosciences in January 2013, as a participating researcher of the IRTG.

HydroGeoSphere Workshop in Waterloo, Canada, October 2012

Our group of 13 PhD students and researchers attended a workshop on coupled hydrogeological modelling using HydroGeoSphere during the first week of October.
The HydroGeoSphere training took place at the University of Waterloo, Canada and was performed by Ed Sudicky, Rob McLaren, Young-Jin Park and Hyoun Tae Hwang.

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