Research Topics

• To get better short- and medium term predictions of all possible states of the terrestrial system and fluxes within the terrestrial system. Prominent examples are predictions of soil moisture content (which are for example important as lower boundary condition of atmospheric models and for predictions of agricultural production) and floods.
• To improve parameter estimates in high resolution terrestrial system models, which allows the improvement of long-term predictions with terrestrial system models.
• To confront model predictions and measurement data in a systematic manner, to detect model deficiencies and therefore the potential to improve the representation of model processes.
• To better exploit the value of measurement data. Examples are: (i) Coupling a measurement operator to terrestrial system models; (ii) Exploiting data in cross-compartmental data assimilation, which means that data collected in a certain terrestrial system compartment (e.g., soil moisture) are used to update states of other terrestrial system compartments (e.g., air temperature in lower atmosphere).
• To link short and medium term predictions with near real-time control of water resources management.