Category Archives: News

New publication in HESS: effect of throughfall on soil moisture

I am happy to announce the publication of:

Coenders-Gerrits, A.M.J., Hopp, L., Savenije, H.H.G., and Pfister, L. (2013): The effect of spatial throughfall patterns on soil moisture patterns at the hillslope scale, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 17, 1749-1763.

Abstract

Improving the understanding of the controls on subsurface stormflow generation has been the goal of numerous experimental and modeling studies. However, the effect of the spatial variability of throughfall on soil moisture patterns and subsurface stormflow (SSF) generation has not yet been studied in detail. The objectives of this study are three-fold: (1) to investigate the influence of a spatially variable throughfall pattern on soil moisture; (2) to investigate if soil moisture patterns reflect a balance between a throughfall and bedrock topography patterns; and (3) to investigate how this balance changes when soil depth, storm size and slope angle are varied. Virtual experiments are used to address these questions. A virtual experiment is a numerical experiment driven by collective field intelligence. It provides a learning tool to investigate the effect of individual processes in a complex Continue reading →

EGU2013 Call for abstracts: HS10.9 Redistribution of rain in forests: Patterns, processes, and interactions at the soil – atmosphere interface

Conveners: Alexander Zimmermann, Miriam Coenders-Gerrits
Co-Conveners: Anke Hildebrandt, Jan Friesen, Pilar Llorens

During the passage of rain through a forest canopy water is redistributed. Most of the water reaches the forest floor as throughfall, some as stemflow, and another fraction of the rain is captured by the canopy and eventually evaporates. Previous studies showed that spatial patterns of throughfall exhibit a pronounced temporal stability in some forests. Yet, whether these patterns influence soil moisture patterns in a way that matters for plant growth or the soils biota is currently not known. Continue reading →

EGU2013 Call for abstracts: HS1.3 The Budyko framework under environmental changes

Convener: Zhentao Cong
Co-Conveners: Miriam Coenders-Gerrits, Maik Renner, Stan Schymanski, Randall Donohue

The Budyko framework allows estimation of actual evapotranspiration based on the balance between the supply of water and energy (they are usually represented by precipitation and potential evaporation). It is a steady state model and has been widely used to examine the terrestrial water budget at decadal and catchment scales. For its simplicity, the model is extremely powerful with model performance similar to that of complex hydrological models (when applied at the appropriate scales).

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Het beste drinkwater, ook nog in 2050

“Drinkwater raakt op: rivieren straks te vuil om nog te zuiveren” kopte de Telegraaf op de voorpagina op woensdag 3 oktober naar aanleiding van het RIVM/Deltares rapport over de effecten van klimaatverandering op de waterkwaliteit bij innamepunten voor drinkwater. Vier Delftse onderzoekers (TU Delft en UNESCO-IHE) menen dat het zo’n vaart niet zal lopen. Het rapport houdt volgens hen te weinig rekening met de héle watercyclus en met de Nederlandse innovatiekracht op het gebied van drinkwater- en afvalwaterzuivering. Wij hebben in Nederland het beste kraanwater ter wereld, ook nog in 2050.

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Paper of Tsiko et al. published in PCE

The paper by Tatenda Tsiko et al. is now published in Physics and Chemistry of the Earth.

Tsiko, C.T., Makurira, H., Gerrits, A.M.J., and Savenije, H.H.G. (2012): Measuring forest floor and canopy interception in a savannah ecosystem, Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Vol. 47-48, 122-127

Paper by Sutanto et al. published in HESS

The paper by Samuel Sutanto is now published in HESS:

Sutanto, S.J., Wenninger, J., Coenders-Gerrits, A.M.J., and Uhlenbrook, S. (2012): Partitioning of evaporation into transpiration, soil evaporation and interception: a comparison between isotope measurements and a HYDRUS-1D model, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 16, 2605-2616. + corrigendum

New commentary published in Global Change Biology

I am happy to announce the publication of our commentary in Global Change Biology:

The importance of proper hydrology in the forest cover-water yield debate: commentary on Ellison et al. (2012) Global Change Biology, 18, 806–820 by Ruud J. van der Ent, A. Miriam J. Coenders-Gerrits, Revekka Nikoli, Hubert H. G. Savenije

New paper in HESSD: The effect of spatial throughfall patterns on soil moisture patterns at the hillslope scale

Please feel free to discuss our newest paper in HESSD:

Coenders-Gerrits, A.M.J., Hopp, L., Savenije, H.H.G., and Pfister, L. (2012): The effect of spatial throughfall patterns on soil moisture patterns at the hillslope scale, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions, 9, 8625-8663.

New paper in HESSD: Partitioning of evaporation into transpiration, soil evaporation and interception: a combination of hydrometric measurements and stable isotope analyses

Please feel free to discuss newest paper of Samuel Sutanto et al. in HESSD:

Sutanto, S.J., Wenninger, J., Coenders-Gerrits, A.M.J., and Uhlenbrook, S. (2012): Partitioning of evaporation into transpiration, soil evaporation and interception: a combination of hydrometric measurements and stable isotope analyses, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions, 9, 3657–3690.

Arduino workshop “Build your own water sensor”

For the course “Measuring for water” (part of the minor “De Delta Denker“) thirty 3rd year Bachelor students had to develop their own sensor to measure something related to water. They used Arduino to control and process the data from the sensors. After one day getting acquainted with Arduino the students started to think about their own sensor. After three days of developing, constructing, and testing they came up with a wide variety of instruments. Tipping buckets, psychrometers to measure humidity, turbidity sensors, salt concentration meters, discharge meters, water level meters, were all developed in a short period of time. Below a short photo impression of the sensors.

See also the blog post of Rolf Hut: “Gecontroleerd klooien is een goede les” (in Dutch)

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