Effects of Land Use Change and Water Management on Climate Change

Numerous regions of the world are experiencing increasing precipitation, and at the same time entire continents appear to be literally drying out; this affects not only precipitation, but also other variables such as the increase or decrease in water retention in surface reservoirs, soils in the root zone, and groundwater. Measurements indicate that explanatory patterns such as "dry regions will continue to dry out and wet regions will experience more precipitation" (dry-gets-drier, wet-gets-wetter) are inadequate. Current climate models cannot adequately explain the observed patterns of hydrological changes. The scientists at the Faculty of Agriculture want to close this knowledge gap. In order to better understand the development of these patterns, it is necessary to create a model system that reproduces observations in the best possible way, takes into account possible influencing factors that have been insufficiently researched in the past, and can predict the future.

As part of the recently acquired CRC 1502, the central hypothesis "Humans themselves have influenced the regional climate through land-use change and intensified water management, in particular through unintended modifications of the natural regional water and energy cycle" is to be tested with the involvement of a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines.