Groundwater responses to climate variability and human influences: Theory and Methods

Spring 2017, Tuesday/Thursday, 10:30-11-45, STAUF A 241

As the world’s largest distributed store of fresh water, ground water plays a central part in sustaining ecosystems and enabling human adaptation to climate variability and change. The strategic importance of ground water for global water and food security will probably intensify under climate change as more frequent and intense climate extremes (droughts and floods) increase variability in precipitation, soil moisture and surface water. In this course, we review observational and analytic methods available to assess the impacts of climate on ground water through natural and human-induced processes as well as through groundwater-driven feedbacks on the climate system. The interdependent system changes will be analyzed on three levels:

-               Influence of climate on groundwater systems

-               Human and indirect climate impacts on groundwater systems

-               Groundwater impacts on the climate system

For observational methods, a focus will lie on remote sensing techniques of satellite gravimetry and InSAR. Furthermore, we will examine the possible opportunities and challenges of using and sustaining groundwater resources in climate adaptation strategies. And finally, we will discuss global science and policy related to transboundary groundwater aquifers.

Topics of the class will be: Groundwater, Hydrological Cycle, Climate Change, Water resources and drought monitoring, Remote sensing of Groundwater, Groundwater Modeling, Sustainable Water Use, Groundwater Policies. The class will be presented as a combination of lectures and seminars. About 20% of the courses will consist of Matlab-based exercises on analysis of different remote sensing data, analysis of terrestrial groundwater data and groundwater modeling.