Task: Ahr Catchment

Our team deals with the Ahr Catchment case study in Germany (information provided by BTU.

Online Phase

Tutorials and Data can be found on the Course Platform in the Case Study section on the Ahr Catchment Page. Task of the online phase is pre-analyzing and pre-processing of useful data for the Ahr cathcment from hydrological point of view:

• Catchment identification and delineation based on a DEM using GIS (until 8 Dec)

• Landuse and soil data analysis using GIS (until 15 Dec)

• Rainfall measurement station location analysis using GIS (until 15 Dec) 

• Precipitation time series analysis (R, Python, Excel, ...) (until 22 Dec)

• Set-up of a simple lumped rainfall-runoff model for the event 13/14 July 2021 (until 22 Dec)

• Precipitation radar data analysis (R, Python, GIS, ...) (from 12 Jan on)

• Sensitivity analysis for spatial and temporal distributed parameters and rainfall patterns (from 12 Jan on)

• Calibration attempts for lumped model (from 12 Jan on)

• Characterization of the Ahr catchment from hydrological point of view (ongoing)

• SWAT modeling (semi-distributed hydrological model) (will be introduced beginning of February)

• First introduction to the case study and the start of the team-based coursework was given in the online team meeting on 24 Nov 2023. Further tasks (hydrological and hydraulic modeling) will be provided in the team meetings during the online phase and face-to-face phase.
  
  
  
  
  

1st and 2nd Week of the Face-to-Face-Meeting

Please have a look to the Ahr Climate Change Teaching Material (PDF).

Three general tasks are given for the two weeks in addition to those from the Online phase:

• modelling possible rainfall/runoff scenarios based on design rainfall pattern

• estimation and classification of future flood risk ranges incl. uncertainties

• activities and actions for flash flood prevention

Details of the tasks and strategies to work on these tasks will be discussed with the team supervisors.