Hydrology on Solid Grounds? Integration Is Key to Closing Knowledge Gaps Concerning Landscape Subsurface Water Storage Dynamics
ABSTRACT Individual approaches to observe water dynamics across our landscape, from the land surface to groundwater, are many though they individually only provide glimpses into the real world due to their specific space–time scales. Comprehensive integration across all available observations is still largely lacking, limiting both our ability to reduce scientific knowledge gaps, and to guide land and water management using the best available scientific evidence. We argue that a stronger focus on integration of observational products, while utilising machine learning and accounting for current perceptual understanding is urgently needed to overcome this limitation. Since Europe is warming faster than any other continent, central Europe is undergoing a dramatic hydroclimatic transition about which such integrated observations would provide timely and valuable insights. Here, we present potential and gaps of current and planned observational methods. We argue that hyperresolution (sub km) integrated estimates of landscape water dynamics are feasible, which could significantly improve our ability to simulate vadose zone and groundwater dynamics, ultimately closing gaps in our current perception of hydrological processes in a temperate region under strong influence from climate change. We close by arguing that an interdisciplinary effort of various scientific communities is needed to enable this advancement.
Authors
- Lisa Angermann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8950-6088)
- Almudena García‐García (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1333-4774)
- Michael Förster (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6689-5714)
- Gunnar Lischeid (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3700-6062)
- Harrie‐Jan Hendricks Franssen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0004-8114)
- Heye Bogena (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9974-6686)
- Daniel Altdorff (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3725-2204)
- Martin Schrön (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0220-0677)
- Eva Nora Paton (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5619-9958)
- Jian Peng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4071-0512)
- René Orth (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9853-921X)
- Andreas Hartmann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0407-742X)
- Birgit Kleinschmit (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8494-0053)
- Masahiro Ryo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5271-3446)
- Wolfgang Wagner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7704-6857)
- Andreas Güntner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6233-8478)
- Sabine Attinger (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7798-7080)
- Thorsten Wagener (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3881-5849)
- Sascha E. Oswald (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1667-0060)
- Anke Hildebrandt (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8643-1634)
Institutions
- Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (DE)
- TU Wien (AT)
- University of Freiburg (DE)
- Forschungszentrum Jülich (DE)
- University of Potsdam (DE)
- Groundwater Center (DE)
- Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (DE)
- GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences (DE)
- Technische Universität Berlin (DE)
- Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg (DE)
- Friedrich Schiller University Jena (DE)
- Technische Universität Dresden (DE)
- Leipzig University (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Hydrological Processes
- Published
- 2024-11-01
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.15320
- Citations
- 8
- Primary Topic
- Soil Moisture and Remote Sensing
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.65
Funders
- Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung