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In 1998 the German Universities of Kassel and Giessen organised a workshop on water and solute transport in large drainage basins. The workshop focused on analysing and summarising the state of research, existing problems and perspectives in this research area. It was the second of a series of annual workshops since 1997 that became an important discussion forum for the German-speaking research community in the field of hydrological modelling. Now the 11th Workshop on Large-scale Hydrological Modelling referred to the same questions as posed in 1998 in order to evaluate the developments and advances of the last ten years. Based on keynote presentations, the workshop focused on discussion in working groups where also posters were presented. This volume of "Advances in Geosciences" comprises seven papers referring to the poster contributions. At the end of the volume, an overview paper summarises the outcome of the workshop presentations and discussions (Doll et al.). ...
The main objective of the study presented in this paper was to develop an evaluation scheme which is suitable for spatially explicit groundwater vulnerability assessment according to the Water Framework Directive (WFD). Study area was the Hase river catchment, an area of about 3 000 km2 in north-west Germany which is dominated by livestock farming, in particular pig and poultry production. For the Hase river catchment, the first inventory of the WFD led to the conclusion that 98% of the catchment area is "unclear/unlikely" to reach a good groundwater status due to diffuse nitrogen emissions from agriculture. The groundwater vulnerability assessment was embedded in the PartizipA project ("Participative modelling, Actor and Ecosystem Analysis in Regions with Intensive Agriculture", www.partizipa.net), within which a so-called actors´ platform was established in the study area. The objective of the participatory process was to investigate the effects of the WFD on agriculture as well as to discuss groundwater protection measures which are suitable for an integration in the programme of measures. The study was conducted according to the vulnerability assessment concept of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, considering sensitivity, exposure and adaptive capacity. Sensitivity was computed using the DRASTIC index of natural groundwater pollution potential. Exposure (for a reference scenario) was computed using the STOFFBILANZ nutrient model. Several regional studies were analysed to evaluate the adaptive capacity. From these studies it was concluded that the adaptive capacity in the Hase river catchment is very low due to the economic importance of the agricultural sector which will be significantly affected by groundwater protection measures. As a consequence, the adaptive capacity was not considered any more in the vulnerability assessment. A groundwater vulnerability evaluation scheme is presented which enjoys the advantage that both exposure and sensitivity can be operationalized in a spatially resolved manner (500×500 m grid) by the two models mentioned above. The evaluation scheme was applied in the Hase river catchment. 21% of the catchment was classified as highly vulnerable, another 73% as medium vulnerable. Only 6% of the Hase river catchment has low vulnerability. Grid cells of the high vulnerability class are considered as priority areas for groundwater protection measures in the programme of measures of the WFD. Measures will be particularly effective in the north-eastern part of the catchment where groundwater vulnerability is mainly due to high nitrogen emissions.
Large-scale hydrological modelling has become increasingly wide-spread during the last decade. An annual workshop series on large-scale hydrological modelling has provided, since 1997, a forum to the German-speaking community for discussing recent developments and achievements in this research area. In this paper we present the findings from the 2007 workshop which focused on advances and visions in large-scale hydrological modelling. We identify the state of the art, difficulties and research perspectives with respect to the themes "sensitivity of model results", "integrated modelling" and "coupling of processes in hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere". Some achievements in large-scale hydrological modelling during the last ten years are presented together with a selection of remaining challenges for the future.
An evaluation scheme is presented in this paper which can be used to assess groundwater vulnerability according to the requirements of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD). The evaluation scheme results in a groundwater vulnerability map identifying areas of high, medium and low vulnerability, as necessary for the measurement planning of the WFD. The evaluation scheme is based on the definition of the vulnerability of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It considers exposure, sensitivity and the adaptive capacity of the region. The adaptive capacity is evaluated in an actors' platform, which was constituted for the region in the PartizipA ("Participative modelling, Actor and Ecosystem Analysis in Regions with Intensive Agriculture") project. As a result of the vulnerability assessment, 21% of the catchment area was classified as being highly vulnerable, whereas 73% has medium vulnerability and 6% has low vulnerability. Thus, a groundwater vulnerability assessment approach is presented, which can be used in practice on a catchment scale for the WFD measurement planning.