PhD Project: Eco-hydrological Modelling of Stream Valleys

The focus in this PhD project is on the hydrological processes that influence the ecological state of wetland ecosystems in stream valleys. The aim of the project is to develop a framework for evaluating the ecological response to changes in the terrestrial hydrology. In order to comply with the overall goal of the research project state of the art knowledge on the hydrological system and the ecological system must be linked.

The project contains three different aspects. Firstly it is necessary to improve and develop methods for data collection in the terrestrial areas in order to increase the understanding of the hydrological system. Secondly numerical groundwater models will be constructed in order to predict the detailed hydrological response to any impact on the hydrological system. Finally the ecological response will be evaluated using models, which describe the dependency of water level, flux and chemistry.

The numerical model(s) will be constructed in MIKE SHE developed by the DHI water - environment - health. Often the ecological state of the terrestrial system is directly dependent on processes that occur on small temporal and spatial scale. The approach towards this problem is to combine regional and local groundwater models. The local model will be based on the collected data while regional models are based on available data.

A literature study made on how to evaluate the ecological response based on hydrological changes in order to use the latest knowledge on the subject. An alternative approach that will be used to determine the preferences for plant and ecosystems is an inverse determination by modeling hydrological variations during the last decades. Assuming that the ecosystems at a given site is stable that historical conditions can provide valuable information on the hydrological preferences.