Selected publications

The authors monitored stable isotopes in-situ at high resolution in soil and plant water at an urban green space to understand the ecohydrological functioning of the Critical Zone, i.e., the thin, dynamic, life-sustaining skin of the Earth that extends from the canopy top to the active groundwater. At the end of the growing season deeper than upper soil water was used for plant water uptake.

Radon in surface water is mostly used to localise and quantify groundwater discharge. The study presents the opposite approach and use radon to estimate travel times of infiltrated surface water in the aquifer. The spatial heterogeneity of radon production rates complicates this approach, but the problems can be overcome by additionally considering temperature and hydraulic heads.

Using field-experimental data, crop N uptake responses to fertilizer management were parsimoniously conceptualized and integrated into a catchment diffuse-N model. The improved catchment modeling further facilitated integration with agricultural budget-based assessments.

The authors used isotope tracers and water quality measurements, hydrometric and climatic data to investigate seasonal changes in water sources in the River Erpe. Downstream, flows were dominated by effluent from a large wastewater treatment plant, especially in summer. They gained new insights into how lowland, peri-urban catchments with complex land use function hydrologically.

The authors assessed the long-term (30yrs) changes in climate, discharge, groundwater levels and stream water quality in a mixed land use catchment. Climatic variability strongly influenced the catchment’s hydrology, while nutrient dynamics were primarily controlled by intrinsic solute characteristics. Riparian management was critical in modulating hydrological and nutrient variations.

The authors introduced a novel numerical modelling framework that provides reactive parameter estimates of contaminant transformation reactions with high parameter identifiability and informs dominant transformation pathways for joint parent daughter simulations in river sediments. The findings highlight that the daughter reaction rate may be underestimated if its parent transformation is ignored.

The scientist allowed sediments of a nutrient-rich lowland river to dry out over 9 weeks to study temporal changes of microbial activity, carbon dioxide and methane emissions, and of the fluxes of water-soluble organic carbon. They also simulated short rainfalls on the dried-up riverbed. The study shows, that after drying up and raining, rivers can release more carbon dioxide and methane.

The authors quantified heterogeneity of rivers and methods and how many small decisions in studies bias outcomes. They identified most representative, replicable, and accurate river metabolism approaches, and suggest best practices to improve value of and confidence in big data aggregation and long term monitoring including: adjust for drift, measure from the thalweg, use local over remote data.