River floods are extremely important to society because of their potential damage and fatalities. Floods are also very interesting research subjects because of the intriguing non-linear interactions and feedbacks involved, interesting issues of generalisation and the need for investigating them in an interdisciplinary way. Extreme floods are not very well understood to date but new, high resolution data and new concepts for quantifying interactions promise a major breakthrough of a body of research carried out in a coordinated way. The objective of this Research Unit is to understand in a coherent way the atmospheric, catchment and river system processes and their interactions leading to extreme river floods and how these evolve in space and time. An innovative and coherent concept has been adopted in order to maximise the potential of the cooperation between the research partners which consists of three layers of integration: research themes focusing on the science questions, subprojects revolving around specific research tasks, and a joint study object of extreme floods in Germany and Austria. Using scales as a binding element, the research plan is organised into the research themes of event processes, spatial (regional) variability, temporal (decadal) variability, and uncertainty and predictability. The members of the Research Unit have been selected to obtain a team of leading experts with expertise that is complementary in terms of processes, methods and regional knowledge. The cooperation and communication strategy will be implemented through themed cluster groups, combining several subprojects, regular meetings of the cluster groups, an annual project symposium and a private cloud facilitating data exchange on the joint study object. Equal opportunity policies will be adopted and female and early career scientists will be promoted in a major way. Overall, the outcomes of the Research Unit will constitute a step change in the understanding of the coupled system of flood processes in the atmosphere, catchments and rivers which will have major implications for a range of sciences and the society.
Entwicklung und Erprobung eines weiterbildenden Fernstudienganges Angewandte Umweltwissenschaften mit Diplomabschluss. Gestaltung eines kompletten online-Studienangebotes.
We contribute to the Landsat Science Team with a focus on long-term satellite data analysis, regional to sub-continental approaches and cross-sensor integration between Landsat and European satellite missions. Our focus is on rapidly changing land systems, including topics such as REDD+ or global land use intensification. The Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM provides a backbone activity in Earth observation. The European Sentinel missions, specifically Sentinel-2, and the German Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program (EnMAP) will provide great synergies with Landsat-8 and 40 years of archived Landsat data. There are huge opportunities for synergies across sensors and scales in order to achieve better and quasi-continuous high-resolution earth observation products across time and space. At the same time, there is an urgent need to make use of these opportunities, if we wish to move global change research based on Landsat data to the next level. Our research agenda as part of the Landsat Science Team combines aspects of (1) data characterization, (2) product generation and (3) applications. Our approach seeks to maximize synergies between the exceptional depth of the Landsat archive and future European satellite missions for advancing core land system science topics. Our geographic foci include Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, Southeast Asia, and South America.
BLUEPRINT is the short name for 'Blueprints for an Integration of Science, Technology and Environmental Policy'. The network was designed to examine the relationship between S&T and environmental policies considering the complexity of factors influencing innovation and environmental decisions in firms. The objective of the network was to promote dialogue between the socio-economic research community, policy makers, industry and intermediate organisations in Europe in order to enhance policy coherence in addressing sustainable development issues.The final report on 'Blueprints for an Integration of Science, Technology and Environmental Policy' as a result of the final conference is planned to stimulate new policy initiatives in this area. The final report can be downloaded from the project website Commissioned by
Following the project idea of the International Women's University, the project area Water focused on environmental topics. The goal was to create awareness of the problems faced and seek solutions cutting across scientific disciplines and national borders. Selection of the topics in this project area was based on resolutions adopted at international conferences such as UNCED - United Nations Conference on Environments and Development, Rio de Janeiro 1992 (in line with the Agenda 21). The idea was to pursue a holistic approach to the subject-matter with a view to developing the women junior scientists' knowledge and skills. At the beginning of the project, an introductory study was conducted covering a variety of fields and disciplines including biology, chemistry, biochemistry, geology, geography, physics, agronomy economics, agricultural sciences, environmental sciences, civil engineering and educational science. This is briefly summarised in the following chapters. And to provide guidelines for further environmental studies, a manual for the analysis of soils and related materials has been compiled.