8th DDc lunch retreat: „Taming WaterExtremes – Smart water systems in an extreme world“

Taming WaterExtremes addresses the increasing threat posed to coupled human-environment water systems by extremes. Periods of heat and drought, heavy precipitation and flooding, as well as pollutants and land-use change make securing water resources for humans and the environment a major challenge. The research cluster will characterize the key drivers of extremes, predict the resulting impacts on coupled water systems, and develop and implement smart adaptation strategies in functional digital twins. The goal is to increase the resilience of water systems and to reduce adverse effects on humans and the environment as much as possible.

The three topical areas extremes, coupled water systems and smart adaptation are cross-connected through methodological approaches, ranging from monitoring, experiments and data analytics to modelling, where the outcome will be environmental impact assessment and projections. A major focus will be put on the link to Big Data Analytics. Functional digital twins will reflect the complexity of water and related systems. Our vision is to build up real-time models and forecasting systems as a basis for a new generation of analysis, evaluation and management tools for controlling water flow, material and energy flows on the catchment scale. Non-conventional data sources, crowd sourcing, innovative sensor networks and methods of Big Data Analytics are parts of a methodological toolbox to generate the necessary information bases for adaptive water resources management in a changing world.

Within this thematic structure, a number of challenges are identified and will be tackled via initiating the working groups introduced below. The first two will be introduced in the DDc Lunch Retreat.

• (Re)Emerging pollutants (micro-, bio-pollutants) – Ecosystem and public health
• Biodiversity and ecosystem services – Safe operating spaces for aquatic ecosystems
• Terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems as functional twins – Resilient forests as the key for taming extremes
• Urban areas in river catchments – High spatial and temporal resolution coupling and feedback loops
• Engineering and Infrastructure Development – Design, operation and smart control
• Compound events – Self-amplifying dynamic effects
• From Monitoring and Experiments over process understanding to Modelling – Functional Digital Twins for taming extremes