Start of funding 01.01.2018

Improving water management through physically based surface water-groundwater simulations

Prof. Dr. Gabriele Chiogna
Technische Universität München
Ingenieurfakultät Bau Geo Umwelt - Lehrstuhl für Hydrologie und Flussgebietsmana

Ph.D. Scott E. Boyce
US Geological Survey (USGS)
California Water Survey



The proposed research aims at applying the newly developed version of MODFLOW-OWHM, which is currently under development at USGS San Diego (to be released by the end of 2017), for the Neufahrn bei Freising well field recharge area. The Technical University of Munich (TUM) is currently investigating this study area in the framework of the PROLINE-CE Interreg project (http://www.interreg-central.eu/Content.Node/PROLINE-CE.html). While the United States Geological Survey (USGS) partner will focus on the development of advanced numerical models, the TUM partner will test them in a real case study and provide feedback about possible improvements of the tool. Specifically, the collaboration aims at improving the software module used to simulate surface water-groundwater interaction, in particular under transient flow conditions.

Final report:
2018:
Within the framework of the BaCaTeC project „Improving water management through phyiscally based surface water-groundwater simulations“, we financed the research stay of the doctoral student Daniel Bittner at the California Water Science Center in San Diego from June 17th to July 27th, 2018. During his research stay, he and the USGS colleagues, Scott E. Boyce and Wesley Henson, further developed and tested the new version of the One-Water Hydrologic Model (OWHM) in the study area of Neufahrn bei Freising. The modeling results and the modeling approach to simulate land use-related impacts on the hydrological system and groundwater-surface water interactions were further verified and improved during the stay of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Markus Disse (July 17th – August 3rd, 2018). It is planned to write a joint research article about the modeling results in the study area Neufahrn bei Freising and to publish it in a peer-reviewed journal. This joint work is said to be the starting point for future collaborations.

2019:
Within the framework of the BaCaTeC project „Improving water management through phyiscally based surface water-groundwater simulations“, we financed a second research stay of the doctoral student Daniel Bittner at the California Water Science Center in San Diego from January 3rd to January 24th, 2019. During his research stay, he and Wesley Henson, worked on the outcomes of the first research stay in June and July 2018. This means, that the hydrologic model of Neufahrn bei Freising was enhanced by all new functionalities included in the modeling software One-Water Hydrologic Model (OWHM, developed by the USGS colleagues Scott E. Boyce and Wesley Henson). Moreover, they started working on a first joint publication about this model. A first complete structure of this research article was already finished at the end of the research stay. Moreover, Daniel Bittner and Wesley Henson wrote a joint proposal for the TUM Incentive Fund, having the goal of organizing a joint workshop about OWHM at TUM which will be open for students and the interested public. The proposal was accepted in April 2019, highlighting the strength of the initiated collaboration. Based on the outcomes of the BaCaTeC project, both research groups aim at continuing their good collaboration, planning to write a new project proposal for the BaCaTeC follow-up fund.