During the week of September 7-11, Iwona Kuptel-Markiewicz and Michael Nones from the Department of Hydrology and Hydrodynamics visited the group of Prof. Mario Franca at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany.
The visit comes as a first step for the project “Exposure and Vulnerability to Floods” co-sponsored by DAAD German Academic Exchange Service and NAWA – Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange. This research is included in the bigger project “Ecosystem services to enhance the resilience of coastal regions and communities to flood risks in a catchment to sea perspective – EcoC2S”, financed under the EU Water4All 2023 call.
Thanks to the combination of expertise from both teams, the study aims to develop surrogate models for leveraging existing monitoring data and modelling results in the study of compound flooding in transitional areas, transferring spatiotemporal information in a time-effective manner, eventually helping to better understand perceptions of flood risk and vulnerability in riverine-coastal transition zones exposed to compound flooding, and support the development of more resilient communities facing increasing flood hazards under climate change.
The visit concluded with a seminar by Michael Nones within the Seminar@IWU-WB series. During his talk, entitled “Monitoring rivers from the top”, Michael explained how satellite imagery could be leveraged to better understand spatial and temporal patterns of water quality parameters in freshwater systems, with a particular focus on sediment transport.
The project will now continue, and the German group is expected to visit Poland later next year to present some initial results and seek additional collaboration beyond the current involved researchers.