SURFACE WATERS & WATER QUALITY

Digitisation opens up new possibilities: unmanned drones and boats create the basis for high-resolution status surveys and a deeper understanding of systems and processes. For holistic water monitoring, we accompany the use of new sensor technology and develop new methods for data analysis and visualization. Measures for the revitalization of our surface waters can thus be planned based on reliable data and their success documented with accompanying monitoring campaigns.

To assess the emissions, behaviour, fate and elimination of micropollutants, we develop strategies for sustainable water protection and support monitoring concepts and action planning along the entire water cycle in order to ensure that water quality and thus drinking water production is maintained by near-natural treatment processes. Groundwater is particularly dependent on integrated forecasting, control and decision-making tools due to its often long residence times in the subsurface.

Private households and businesses emit plastics to water bodies directly or indirectly through public transportation routes. FiW has focused on macroplastics in the emission, behaviour and fate of plastics in the environment and has recorded the amount and type of plastics discharged into drainage systems by means of material flow analysis. With respect to regulatory deficits, instruments for the reduction of plastic input are developed and made available to policy makers and practitioners.

Competition, conflicts of use, and the effects of climate change pose major challenges for water management: Flood protection, land sealing, land use conflicts, eutrophication, thermal pollution, high wastewater levels in dry periods and the increasing demand for water for agricultural irrigation can only be addressed by society as a whole in dialogue with related disciplines. To this end, we develop strategies and recommendations for action and conduct knowledge-based dialogue processes with the relevant actors.