Hydrology Monitoring (P06)
In the ecohydrological project, the quantity and quality of all water flows are measured, from precipitation, interception and stem flow, plant roots, soil water and groundwater to the runoff in the "Holderbach".
Background
Due to the proximity to the ETH Hönggerberg campus, the location enables labour-intensive and high-frequency measurements to better understand essential processes of the water cycle, and integration into the university education of environmental engineers and environmental system scientists.
Goals
Extreme summer heat events, such as those in 2003, 2018 and 2022, have serious consequences for Swiss forests. Due to climate change, such extreme climatic conditions are becoming increasingly likely, why it is essential to better understand the influences of water scarcity on forests. In the project area along the Holderbach, the main components of the water cycle will therefore be measured over the next few years.
Numerous complex transport and storage processes occur along the water cycle in the forest, which have been little researched so far. These processes are to be measured in the study area using modern and innovative methods and sensors in order to quantify their influence on the water cycle. Water samples are collected at regular intervals at all measuring stations and analyzed for their chemical composition (i.e., ions and water isotopes). These water constituents can be used as natural tracers and thus it can be determined after how many hours, days, weeks or years a raindrop is reabsorbed by the plants and evaporates or ends up as runoff in the Holderbach.
Runtime
Implementation 2019 - 2025, maintenance long-term
Organisation
Project owner: Daniel Braun, Environmental Engineering Laboratory, IFU, D-BAUG
Project leader: Dr. Marius Floriancic, Institut für Umweltingenieurwissenschaften, IFU, D-BAUG
Project partner: Prof. Dr. James Kirchner (https://pes.ethz.ch/)
and Prof. Dr. Andrea Carminati (https://pose.ethz.ch/)
Further information
- Waldlabor EcoHydrology Lab
- ETH News blog 3/2023
- DownloadArticle in Ecohydrology 16(2)/2023 (PDF, 8.7 MB)
- external pageWater cycle in the Waldlabor app (in german, > Klimawandel > Wasserkreislauf)
- Video on the Water cycle project (in german)
- DownloadArticle in Zürcher Wald 1/2021: 40-41 (PDF, 156 KB) (in german)
- external pageTreeNet – Open Access Dendrometer Data from the Waldlabor
- Contact project leader: Marius Floriancic
