I am a Senior Scientist in the Department of Water, Atmosphere and Environment at BOKU. My research is centered on quantifying the impacts of anthropogenic change on water quality in river basins.
By using a river basin (or the catchment) scale as a research unit, I determine nutrient and sediment transport from cropland into water bodies. I am interested in the hydrological processes related to the soil-plant-atmosphere continum, as well as determining the local drivers of land use change. I collaborate with natural as well as social scientists and apply social ecological systems (SES) as modelling frameworks to my research.
I am currently leading the Eco-hydrological and Land Use Modelling group at the Institute for Hydrology and Water Management at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU).
Ecohydrology is related to the interplay between climate, soil and vegetation, with temporal and spatial variabilities linked to processes that are at the core of hydrology itself (Rodriguez-Iturbe, 2000). In recent decades there has been much activity in this field of research, with a journal dedicated to the subject being launched in 2008 (Smetten, 2008). Ecohydrology has been defined as “the study of the functional interrelations between hydrology and biota at the catchment scale” (Zalewski, 2000).
The Eco-hydrological and Land Use Modelling group was set up in 2015. In our group, we apply this definition of ecohydrology to agricultural landscapes and examine the relationship between ecology and hydrology at catchment to field scales with simulation models to gain an understanding of processes and for managing the resources (land and water).
| PhD Student | Thesis Title | Completion |
|---|---|---|
| Christoph Schürz | Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis of discrete model inputs in ecohydrological modeling | 2020 |
| Damiano Baldan | Assessing multi-scale effects of natural water retention measures on in-stream fine bed material deposits with a modeling cascade | 2021 |
| Edberto Lima | Land-use changes and impacts on simulating water-related ecosystem services in a subtropical agricultural river basin | on-going |
| Elizabeth Odusanya | Multi-site calibration and validation of SWAT with satellite-based evapotranspiration in data sparse catchments | on-going |
| Cong Wang | Developing a SWAT-submodule to simulate nitrous oxide emissions from typical agricultural catchments in Austria | on-going |
| Hope Mwanake | Estimating sediment erosion and water quality in the Sio-Malaba-Malakisi River Basin | on-going |
| Claudine Egger | Coupling an ABM to an ecohydrological model for evaluating land use change impacts on water quality under future conditionsa | on-going |
BOKU Elise Richter Awardees with Rektor Hasenauer