Scientific Results

This catalogue is obtained by conducting a systematic literature review of scientific studies and reviews related to monitoring, forecasting, and simulating the inland water cycle. The analysis maps scientific expertise across research groups and classifies findings by the type of inland water studied, application focus, and geographical scope. A gap analysis will identify missing research areas and assess their relevance to policymaking.

ID â–˛ Type Year Authors Title Venue/Journal DOI Research type Water System Technical Focus Abstract Link with Projects Link with Tools Related policies ID
publications-2831 Peer reviewed articles 2015 Gabriel Anzaldi News from the EU cluster ICT for Water Italian Journal of Groundwater Uncategorized Uncategorized No abstract available 642423
publications-2832 Peer reviewed articles 2017 Irena KopaÄŤ, MatevĹľ Vremec Slovenian test case Vrbanski Plato aquifer in the EU HORIZON 2020 FREEWAT project Acque Sotterranee - Italian Journal of Groundwater 10.7343/as-2017-287 Simulation & Modeling Groundwater The Slovenian case study in the EU HORIZON 2020 FREEWAT project was Vrbanski Plato aquifer. Slovenia is divided into two river basin districts: the Danube and the North Adriatic. The Vrbanski Plato aquifer, which he presents both natural and artificial bank filtration from the river Drava, is a part of the Danube river basin district and is the most important water source for 14 municipalities in the northeastern part of Slovenia. We investigated the groundwatersurface water interaction between river Drava and the porous aquifer in the geological old riverbed and possible reduction of city impact. This site is the oldest managed artificial groundwater recharge with riverbank filtration and has more than thirty years of successful operation. It is something special, very abundant in a small space, independent of drought and climate changes, but vulnerable due to the impact of the city. Under the city there is watershed dividing, which is shifting with different water management condition and we would like to have the least possible impact of the city. For optimal water management we decided to use FREEWAT plug-in within QGIS platform. With new developed FREEWAT plug-in in project FREEWAT, we made steady-state and transient groundwater model for presenting this shift of the watershed dividing under the city and optimal water management for this area. The model was designed in a way that it identifies and describes all major aspects of the physical hydrogeological system and water management. During the running of a project, there was an accident with heating oil spillage in city area, right on the watershed dividing. So we oriented with the transient groundwater model as well on heating oil spillage and pumping with additional wells at the place of the accident to present successful rehabilitation and the importance of the managed groundwater recharge. Our experience with FREEWAT platform during the Vrbanski Plato aquifer case study was very positive. The connection data of the GIS tool, open license and the database monitoring and model approaches functioned as the right tool for a professional approach and communicating with stakeholders. With groundwater models in FREEWAT platform, we defined optimal condition, with as less as possible the impact of groundwater below the city, for pumping water on the Vrbanski Plato, managed by Water Supply Maribor company and needed optimal level in river Drava managed by Drava Power Plants Company. Quantities of pumping for water supply and level of Drava River are the dominant components of water management in this area. Due to the time and financial constraints, we took into account the period from July 2014 to June 2017. 642224
publications-2833 Peer reviewed articles 2017 Pio Positano, Marco Nannucci The H2O20 FREEWAT participated approach for the Follonica-Scarlino aquifer case study. A common space to generate shared knowledge on the value of water Acque Sotterranee - Italian Journal of Groundwater 10.7343/as-2017-290 Simulation & Modeling Groundwater The “Follonica-Scarlino Aquifer” case study is run within the H2020 FREEWAT project by Regione Toscana as partner of an international consortium. FREEWAT aims at promoting water resource management by simplifying the application of the Water Framework Directive and other EU water related Directives. The tool used to reach this target is an open source and public domain GIS integrated modeling environment for the simulation of water quantity and quality in surface water and groundwater. The case study area is located in a coastal plain in the Southern part of Tuscany (Italy) and the aquifer system is affected by various issues: in particular, the numerical model created through FREEWAT platform was used to study the problem of aquifer over-exploitation . The deficit in quantity of the water resource is mainly caused by the huge industrial and agricultural abstractions, but drinking water supply during the summer season is also notable. The participatory approach, included in the FREEWAT project, became of crucial importance to gather the huge amount of data about the aquifer system and to create a shared knowledge about water resource. It was carried out through seven focus groups and led the stakeholders to reach an agreement about the scenarios to be explored with FREEWAT software platform. Focus Group 1 to 3 were used to identify the case study objectives. Focus Groups 4 to 6 allowed to assess the water management issues and select the scenarios. The community chose two of the four scenarios that came out from the focus group meetings. Simulations corresponding to these two scenarios have shown, the effectiveness of the proposed technical solutions for achieving the objectives set out in the River Basin Management Plan of the Northern Apennines District. At the end of the focus group cycle, useful suggestions and feedbacks came from stakeholders, to set up a new kind of water management. Some experts working for local industries expressed their interest in using the FREEWAT open source platform as professional modeling tool. 642224
publications-2834 Peer reviewed articles 2017 Mykhailo Grodzynskyi, Daria Svidzinska Modelling the impact of rural land use scenarios on water management: a FREEWAT approach to the Bakumivka catchment case study, Ukraine Acque Sotterranee - Italian Journal of Groundwater 10.7343/as-2017-291 Simulation & Modeling River Basins The Bakumivka River’s catchment, Ukraine serves as a case study to the application of FREEWAT to the ground and surface water management. The main objective of the study is to find out the optimal spatial distribution of the water supplied to the farms by modifying the land cover pattern of the catchment. An integrated numerical model was developed to provide quantitative estimates of the water budget components. The model includes four model layers, representing the main hydrostratigraphic units, different types of boundary conditions assigned along the area’s boundaries, major components of the water balance introduced through source and sink layers. It was implemented through the FREEWAT software. Three water management scenarios were developed in order to compare different spatial patterns of land cover and distribution of water within the Bakumivka River’s basin. The scenarios represent continuum from market oriented pattern to environmentally sounding pattern of land cover. The objective of the modeling exercise is to obtain mass balances and maps representing three scenarios of water management. Each map shows distribution of the areas where the water balance is optimal, insufficient (dry) or excessive (wet) for vegetation (land cover) of particular type.The simulation shows that changing spatial land cover pattern is an effective measure to reduce water supply to the farms, however it does not prevent water logging in the areas adjacent to the flood plains and drying on summer stress periods in lands of sandyloam soils. Irrigation should be excluded in the areas with sandy and sandyloam soils. The flood plain with peat bogs despite the high water head in spring and late summer stress periods should be irrigated to prevent peat fires. The intrusion of eco-corridors to the land cover pattern in the catchment is positive from ecological perspective, but could prevent drainage causing water logging in the arable lands. 642224
publications-2835 Peer reviewed articles 2019 Matilda Merkohasanaj, Dania Abdul Malak, Ece Aksoy, Antonio Sanchez Espinosa Remote Sensing Tools and Indicators for the Integrated Monitoring of Mediterranean wetlands: Fuentede Piedra case study, Spain PLOS ONE (under review) Data Management & Analytics Natural Water Bodies No abstract available 642088
publications-2836 Peer reviewed articles 2019 Antonio Sanchez Espinosa, Christoph Schröder Mapping wetlands one step closer to the ground. Land Use and Land Cover monitoring: Sentinel-2 versus Landsat 8. Journal of Environmental Management (under review) Simulation & Modeling Hydropower Dams & reservoirs No abstract available 642088
publications-2837 Peer reviewed articles 2017 Constanze Leemhuis, Frank Thonfeld, Kristian Näschen, Stefanie Steinbach, Javier Muro, Adrian Strauch, Ander López, Giuseppe Daconto, Ian Games, Bernd Diekkrüger Sustainability in the Food-Water-Ecosystem Nexus: The Role of Land Use and Land Cover Change for Water Resources and Ecosystems in the Kilombero Wetland, Tanzania Sustainability 10.3390/su9091513 Uncategorized Hydropower Dams & reservoirs Land Use Land Cover Change (LULCC) has a significant impact on water resources and ecosystems in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). On the basis of three research projects we aim to describe and discuss the potential, uncertainties, synergies and science-policy interfaces of satellite-based integrated research for the Kilombero catchment, comprising one of the major agricultural utilized floodplains in Tanzania. LULCC was quantified at the floodplain and catchment scale analyzing Landsat 5 and Sentinel 2 satellite imagery applying different adapted classification methodologies. LULC maps at the catchment scale serve as spatial input for the distributed, process-based ecohydrological model SWAT (Soil Water Assessment Tool) simulating the changes in the spatial and temporal water balance in runoff components caused by LULCC. The results reveal that over the past 26 years LULCC has significantly altered the floodplain and already shows an impact on the ecosystem by degrading the existing wildlife corridors. On the catchment scale the anomalies of the water balance are still marginal, but with the expected structural changes of the catchment there is an urgent need to increase the public awareness and knowledge of decision makers regarding the effect of the relationship between LULCC, water resources and environmental degradation. 642088
publications-2838 Peer reviewed articles 2018 Javier Muro, Adrian Strauch, Sascha Heinemann, Stefanie Steinbach, Frank Thonfeld, Björn Waske, Bernd Diekkrüger Land surface temperature trends as indicator of land use changes in wetlands International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 10.1016/j.jag.2018.02.002 Uncategorized River Basins No abstract available 642088
publications-2839 Peer reviewed articles 2019 Sarah E. Darrah, Yara Shennan-FarpĂłn, Jonathan Loh, Nick C. Davidson, C. Max Finlayson, Royal C. Gardner, Matt J. Walpole Improvements to the Wetland Extent Trends (WET) index as a tool for monitoring natural and human-made wetlands Ecological Indicators 10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.12.032 Uncategorized Wastewater Treatment Plants No abstract available 642088
publications-2840 Peer reviewed articles 2016 Javier Muro, Morton Canty, Knut Conradsen, Christian Hüttich, Allan Nielsen, Henning Skriver, Florian Remy, Adrian Strauch, Frank Thonfeld, Gunter Menz Short-Term Change Detection in Wetlands Using Sentinel-1 Time Series Remote Sensing 10.3390/rs8100795 Simulation & Modeling Uncategorized Automated monitoring systems that can capture wetlands’ high spatial and temporal variability are essential for their management. SAR-based change detection approaches offer a great opportunity to enhance our understanding of complex and dynamic ecosystems. We test a recently-developed time series change detection approach (S1-omnibus) using Sentinel-1 imagery of two wetlands with different ecological characteristics; a seasonal isolated wetland in southern Spain and a coastal wetland in the south of France. We test the S1-omnibus method against a commonly-used pairwise comparison of consecutive images to demonstrate its advantages. Additionally, we compare it with a pairwise change detection method using a subset of consecutive Landsat images for the same period of time. The results show how S1-omnibus is capable of capturing in space and time changes produced by water surface dynamics, as well as by agricultural practices, whether they are sudden changes, as well as gradual. S1-omnibus is capable of detecting a wider array of short-term changes than when using consecutive pairs of Sentinel-1 images. When compared to the Landsat-based change detection method, both show an overall good agreement, although certain landscape changes are detected only by either the Landsat-based or the S1-omnibus method. The S1-omnibus method shows a great potential for an automated monitoring of short time changes and accurate delineation of areas of high variability and of slow and gradual changes. 642088