Projects and ongoing research

Human influence has long interfered with natural floodplain evolution. While the indirect effects of deforestation on sediment transport and floodplain dynamics have been extensively researched, the socio-ecological processes and feedback mechanisms that determine how fluvial systems evolve along trajectories and path dependencies have only recently entered the scientific debate. We use the concept of a fluvio-social metabolism to illustrate these complex interdependencies between anthropogenic and natural processes that define how natural river systems transitioned into a fluvial anthroposphere. The aim of the project is to decipher the fluvio-social metabolism along path-dependencies and trajectories and to understand system dynamics of the fluvial anthroposphere in the Upper Rhine area. We focus on three specific aspects and their mutual interdependencies: socio-political systems, climate dynamics, and legacy sediments, integrating social and environmental archives as well as detailed laboratory and geostatistical analysis. By combining quantitative, semi-quantitative and qualitative methods we combine social and natural sciences. We seek to determine integrating indicators for the transition from natural floodplains to a fluvial anthroposphere on multiple spatio-temporal scales. Our research analyses the period from medieval times until the onset of the industrial revolution in the region around 1850 with focus on suspected transition periods. We hypothesise that in this fluvio-social system, specific socio-natural and political constellations, including territorial shifts, economical exploitation, institutions, conflicts, climatic variability and extremes, as well as riverine floods, determined path dependencies and trajectories of fluvial landscape evolution that found their expression in the floodplain record as legacy sediments. We follow a multidisciplinary approach that integrates the expertise from different disciplines, combining historic, climatic, and geomorphologic expertise. In three interlinking work packages, we investigate how 1) actors, socio-political constellations and institutions influenced floodplain development, 2) regional climate variability and extreme events impacted socio-ecological processes, and 3) natural and societal dynamics found their expression in the floodplain sedimentary record. Synthesising these various strands of social, climatic and geomorphologic results, we ultimately aim to integrate our insights into deciphering the fluvio-social metabolism. Finally, we evaluate to which degree our results can contribute to model this dynamic fluvio-social metabolism empirically, numerically and multivariate-statistically.

Blöthe J
Phone: 203-9224
Email: jan.bloethe@geographie.uni-freiburg.de

DFG

The technical objective of MWS is to develop the concept and a syllabus for an innovative Master Course for the sustainable management of continental water socioecosystems, including best capacities of EUCOR partners of Strasbourg, Freiburg and KIT-Karlsruhe, and their local partner “National School for Water and Environmental Engineering from Strasbourg” (ENGEES). To achieve this goal in close collaboration with all partners, a course administrator will be employed to discuss with the lecturers and identify adequate course units that could be shared between universities. In combination with the new syllabus, course units will be created to enable students to combine knowledge from different sciences and develop adaptive, innovative and sustainable solutions. During the second year of the project, the M1 (first year of the MSc course) will be held as “test run” at Strasbourg university, the second year (M2) is planned to take place in Germany. All efforts will be taken to implement the course and sustain it (as a 2-year MSc) in the future. The academic objective of the course is to join forces to overcome various ‘boundaries’: (i) interdisciplinarity, especially communication between social sciences and natural sciences, (ii) institutional lock-in effects, hampering collaboration between scientists and practitioners, (iii) national and cultural boundaries at the Upper Rhine, representing an exceptional area for bridging and developing joint water sciences, innovation and learning opportunities, and (iv) global environmental problems.

Blöthe J
Phone: 203 9224

EUCOR

High-mountain environments are highly sensitive towards a warming climate, which is dramatically reflected by the shrinkage of alpine glaciers. With more and more glaciers disappearing, attention has moved towards the hydrological importance of ice stored in the periglacial environment, projected to exceed glacier ice volume in the European Alps by the mid-21st century. However, surprisingly little is known about the current state of the ice stored in the periglacial zones of alpine landscapes. Our project aims to disentangle the contribution of active layer and permafrost body to the summer runoff from the upper Kaiserberg catchment in the Austrian Alps. To achieve this goal, we combine repeated electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) surveys on the Kaiserberg rock glacier with continuous discharge measurements from two hydrological stations that we installed in the basin. We further collect water samples over the course of the summer that are analysed for δ18O and δ2H isotopes and the radio nuclide 129I , that allow us to differentiate thawing permafrost from active-layer or precipitation derived discharge.

Dr. Hohmann Förderung der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Köln; Hanna Bremer Stiftung

Suspended sediment load dominates the sediment export from most lowland rivers around the world, also constituting a significant transport medium for pollutants and contaminants. This has important implications for the management of river systems that aims at achieving a good ecological and chemical status, as required for instance by the European Water Frame directive. A thorough understanding of the sources, transport mechanisms and sinks of suspended sediment is therefore a crucial prerequisite for successful management. However, sources and sinks of suspended sediment and the resulting concentration in the river water are highly variable throughout the year and in between years. In this project, we are interested in the spatiotemporal variability of suspended sediment transport in major German lowland rivers. In a first publication, we find that distinct breaks in the scaling relationship between suspended sediment concentration and discharge are induced by the organic matter concentration

Hoffmann Th