People from LURCH

Olaf Cirpka

Project: GW_4.0

 

Who am I?
My name is Olaf Cirpka. I am a geoecologist (Karlsruhe 1992), received my doctorate in engineering from the University of Stuttgart in 1997, was a postdoc at Stanford, a working group leader in Stuttgart and at Eawag, and have been a professor of hydrogeology at the University of Tübingen since 2008. Our project GW_4.0 is based on preliminary work in SFB n1253 CAMPOS and other projects in the study area.

What am I doing?
I coordinate the GW_4.0 project, which is developing future management strategies for a gravel and a karst aquifer near Tübingen, taking climate and land use change into account. For short-term to seasonal management, we are developing a real-time model with a web interface for use by stakeholders.

What excites me most about my work?
I love developing mathematical models for flow, transport and reactions that can explain the system behaviour of aquifers and the substances they contain. It gets really exciting when systems behave differently than expected and after many experiments a new model can explain the data.

 

Who am I?
My name is Kathrin Szillat. I studied Environmental Sciences and Hydrology at the University of Freiburg. Since completing my studies, I have been working at the Chair of Environmental Hydrosystems and am very pleased to be able to support and help shape the LURCH joint project StressRes as a doctoral student with my great interest in sustainable groundwater management and hydro(geo)logical modelling.

What am I doing?
In the StressRes project, we are developing a real-time digital monitoring and integrated modelling system for agricultural drinking water abstraction areas that can improve the resilience of drinking water management through stress testing scenarios. My area of responsibility includes groundwater modelling with consideration of land use, substance inputs and transport, as well as direct and indirect groundwater recharge.

What excites me most about my work?
My work is very versatile and I am grateful to be able to educate myself on a daily basis and to be able to exchange ideas with many different people. Above all, I am excited to see the added value of our work and to contribute to raising awareness of water as a vital resource through our research results.

 

Catharina Capitain

Project: PFCLean

Who am I?

My name is Catharina Capitain. I studied applied environmental natural and geosciences at the University of Tübingen and already worked on PFAS in my master's thesis. After my studies I stayed in the Environmental Analysis Group to work as a PhD student in the LURCH joint project PFClean on the sustainable reduction of PFAS contaminants in soil and groundwater.

What am I doing?

The PFClean project is investigating the behaviour of PFASs in the environment and working on the further development of different remediation methods. My research area includes the identification of PFAS contaminants and their transformation products as well as transformation processes through photocatalytic and electrochemical oxidation.