Impacts of soil water repellency on hydraulic characteristics under variable climate conditions: Experimental and modeling approach
Competition title: WTZ Österreich - Kroatien
Funding: MZO
AFZ role: partner
Total value: 52318.00 HRK
Funded amount: 52318.00 HRK
Start date: 2016/01/01
End date: 2017/12/31
Abstract
Climate change predictions give evidence for prolonged drought periods with increased risk of forest fires in Croatia and a redistribution of annual rainfall in the Austrian Alps. Under both climatic conditions, soil water repellency is expected to increase as a result of prolonged soil drying. Since now, soil water repellency is not accounted for in soil hydrological models. The objective of this bilateral project is therefore to apply scaling methods to implementing variable soil water repellency levels in a soil water model. Field and laboratory experiments will be performed for selected study sites in both countries. Infiltration experiments with water and ethanol will serve for model calibration. Climate change scenarios will be used to assess the expected impact of
increased water repellency on local and regional hydrology.
Leaders
Thomas Weninger, dipl. ing.
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna
Assoc. Prof. Vilim Filipović, PhD
University of Zagreb Faculty of Agriculture