Cordula Wittekind
- Email: gycwi@leeds.ac.uk
- Thesis title: Climate change and environmental flows - reconciling water withdrawals for human demand and the needs of healthy freshwater ecosystems
- Supervisors: Dr Megan Klaar, Professor Julia Martin-Ortega, Dr Matthew Charlton (EA)
Profile
Britain has a maritime climate that is extremely variable at all scales. The North Atlantic Oscillation has a strong influence on seasonal precipitation patterns, particularly in upland and western regions. As the trajectories of greenhouse gas emissions are already pointing to the high-end climate change scenarios, robust water management strategies are urgently required. These have to account for the range of uncertainty associated with the climate-hydrology assessment chain. Given the planned overhaul of the abstraction licensing system and new UKCP18 climate projections, outputs from this project will help ensure that future environmental flows provide healthy riverine habitats as well as cost-effective and sufficient water supply to satisfy societal needs.
Hydrological modelling using the eco-hydrological model SWAT+ (Soil & Water Assessment Tool) in catchments representative for the variability of hydrologic response to climate change will be applied to distinguish patterns of pressure dominance across England in the 2030s and 2050s.
Funding
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Project EuroFLOW
https://water.leeds.ac.uk/our-missions/mission-4/euroflow/
Education:
2017 MSc Integrated Natural Resource Management, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Thesis: Assessment of transgression of the planetary boundary of freshwater use, accounting for aquatic biodiversity (at Potsdam-Institute for Climate Impact Research)
Research interests
Hydrological modelling, climate change, sustainable agriculture and water management
Research groups and institutes
- River Basin Processes and Management
- water@leeds