Analysis of Hydrologic Systems

The demands of a growing population for energy, water, food, and living space radically alter our planet. Human activities change our climate, land cover and water use with significant implications for the water cycle. The impact is visible in changing patterns of floods and droughts, in declining snow packs, in altered groundwater recharge and in distorted river flow regimes. Predictive understanding of how changes to climate and land cover alter the water cycle is critical for planning our future.

The working group for the Analysis of Hydrologic Systems is funded through the endowed Professorship program of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to address these issues. Within our group we develop, evaluate and utilize both empirical and process-based parsimonious models to simulate and understand the water cycle across space and time scales. We develop and apply new methods for uncertainty quantification and attribution in environmental modelling. And we identify knowledge gaps in hydrology by assessing how knowledge accumulates in datasets, theory and literature.