Field Observation in Climatology and Environmental Hydrology - Detailseite

The lecture comprises topics of climatological and micro-meteorological ("Atmospheric Boundary Layer", Tobias Sauter, Lukas Langhamer) and hydrological field methods to understand land-atmosphere-water processes and interactions. Central are the energy and mass exchange between atmosphere and ground, boundary layer meteorology, glaciological field methods, as well as hydrological field methods (velocity measurements and discharge estimations), measurement of hydrological processes that is precipitation, soilwater, groundwater, surface waters, and environmental tracer measurements. 

The participation on the 1st lecture on Thursday, April 25, 2024 is mandatory!

For the field course there are two choices. We can accommodate a maximum of 15 students in each field course. In case of higher demand we will draw lots for the places in the preliminary meeting:

1. Tarfala Research Station, Sweden, August 2024, 5 full days in the field. Field work is on proglacial and periglacial grounds and on Störglaciären. Alpine experience is required. The work in alpine surounding requires appropriate fitness and some resistance to prevailing weather conditions. The costs of the field course per student are approximately 350 EUR. Included are accommodation, breakfast and dinner. 
   
   
2. Berlin-Brandenburg catchments and rivers, takes place in summer 2024.  Five full individual days are foreseen for the field course. For this we will visit and work in the two tributaries of the Spree catchment, an urban river (the Erpe in the SE of Berlin) and a rural river (the Demnitzer Mill Creek Catchment, ca. 45 min SE of Berlin). Both catchments are representative for the Berlin and Brandenburg landscape in terms of their heterogeneous landuse of agriculture, wetland and forest areas in the rural catchment, and an urban influenced catchment at the Erpe. The Erpe is characterised by a typical urban mosaic structure of impervious and pervious areas, urban drainage systems and a water treatment plant. In the Demnitzer Mill Creek, recently, wetland restoration and beaver recolonisation are having a major effect on the structure and consequent functioning of land-water systems. Both sites are ideal to conduct a range of hydrological and climatological practical field investigations on the land-atmosphere-water interface. This choice does not come along with any additional costs! 

The lectures are blocked into 6 slots of 4 hours on Thursday 9-13 (ct), starting May, 2nd and ending July, 13th, 2024 (02.05, 16.05, 23.05, 30.05, 06.06, 20.06). Each slot contains additional exercises (homework) for repetition and preparation of subsequent field work. 

Please be aware that students in the M.Sc. Global Change Geography must take either Module  5.1 or 5.2. However, you can take both modules by replacing one of the free electives (Module 7.0/8.0) by either 5.1 or 5.2. Module 5.2 is organized through the group of Patrick Hostert in remote sensing.

Exercises & homework (partly reading assignments) parallel to the lecture; field report to selected field data in the form of a scientific paper after the field course; the field report is due on October 14h, 2024; the final module examination in the form of an oral examination of approximately 20 minutes concludes the module and is scheduled for the 28th October, 4th and 11th November, 2024.