Peter Dietrich

Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung | UFZ

This study investigates the stratigraphy and carbon storage of the Verlorener Bach and Loosbach valley fills, of the Alpine Foothills in Bavaria, using a combination of electromagnetic induction (EMI), electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), direct push electrical conductivity sensing (DP-EC) and drilling cores. We identified three distinct strati...

The need to develop and provide integrated observation systems to better understand and manage global and regional environmental change is one of the major challenges facing Earth system science today. In 2008, the German Helmholtz Association took up this challenge and launched the German research infrastructure TERrestrial ENvironmental Observato...

Understanding the motivations and benefits of citizen science (CS) participants is critical to the success of environmental science projects that rely on data collection from engaged citizens. Tailored communication with citizen scientists is essential, leading to the need to target specific societal groups for extensive and high-quality data sets....

During test operation of a geological latent heat storage system as a potential option in the context of heat supply for heating and cooling demands a part of a shallow quaternary glacial aquifer at the “TestUM” test site is frozen. To evaluate the current thermal state in the subsurface the dimension of the frozen volume has to be known. With the...

The need to develop and provide integrated observation systems to better understand and manage global and regional environmental change is one of the major challenges facing Earth system science today. In 2008, the German Helmholtz Association took up this challenge and launched the German research infrastructure TERrestrial ENvironmental Observato...

Seismic crosshole techniques are powerful tools to characterize the properties of near-surface aquifers. Knowledge of rock-physical relations at the field scale is essential for interpreting geophysical measurements. However, it remains difficult to extend the results of existing laboratory studies to the field scale due to the usage of different f...

This paper employs stochastic analysis to investigate the combined effect of temporal and spatial variability on the temporal variance of baseflow in large catchments. The study makes use of the well‐known aggregated reservoir model, representing the catchment as a network of parallel linear reservoirs. Each reservoir models a sub‐catchment as an i...

Satellite-based remote sensing (RS) data are increasingly used to map and monitor local, regional, and global environmental phenomena and processes. Although the availability of RS data has improved significantly, especially in recent years, operational applications to derive value-added information products are still limited by close-range validat...

Heavy Precipitation Events (HPE) are the result of enormous quantities of water vapor being transported to a limited area. HPE rainfall rates and volumes cannot be fully stored on and below the land surface, often leading to floods with short forecast lead times that may cause damage to humans, properties, and infrastructure. Toward an improved sci...

Cosmic ray neutron sensing (CRNS) has become a promising method for soil water content (SWC) monitoring. Stationary CRNS offers hectare‐scale average SWC measurements at fixed locations maintenance‐free and continuous in time, while car‐borne CRNS roving can reveal spatial SWC patterns at medium scales, but only on certain survey days. The novel co...

Citizen science (CS) can foster transformative impact for science, citizen empowerment and socio-political processes. To unleash this impact, a clearer understanding of its current status and challenges for its development is needed. Using quantitative indicators developed in a collaborative stakeholder process, our study provides a comprehensive o...

Frequent water table measurements are crucial for sustainable groundwater management in arid regions. Such monitoring is more important in areas that are already facing an acute problem with excessive groundwater withdrawal. In the majority of these locations, continuous readings of groundwater levels are lacking. Therefore, an approximate estimate...

Many studies have investigated the migration and entrapment processes of source zones from dense non-aqueous phase liquid (DNAPL) contamination under different conditions. However, the characterization of occupying area by source zone (or source shape) in water-saturated aquifers is still rudimentarily considered. In this study, we demonstrated thi...

The Neckar Valley and the Swabian Jura in southwest Germany comprise a hotspot for severe convective storms, causing tens of millions of euros in damage each year. Possible reasons for the high frequency of thunderstorms and the associated event chain across compartments were investigated in detail during the hydro-meteorological field campaign Swa...

The scope of this work is to discuss the proper choice of macrodispersion coefficients in modeling contaminant transport through the advection dispersion equation (ADE). It is common to model solute concentrations in transport by groundwater with the aid of the ADE. Spreading is quantified by macrodispersivity coefficients, which are much larger th...

1. What is Remote Sensing Remote sensing of the Earth is the contactless observation and measurement of the energetic and polarimetric characteristics of inherent and reflected radiation of elements and objects constituting landsurface, oceans, and any atmospheres. In various electromagnetic wavelength ranges remote sensing contributes to the descr...

The Digital Earth project aimed for the integration of data science and Earth science. Here, we reflect on the main lessons learned that include the need for interdisciplinary collaboration, thinking out of the box, the concept of ‘thinking in workflows’ and models for the sustainable implementation of scientific software, data infrastructure and p...

Data-driven science has turned into a fourth fundamental paradigm of performing research. Earth System Science, following a holistic approach in unraveling the complex network of processes and interactions shaping system Earth, particularly profits from embracing data-driven approaches next to observation and modeling. At the end, increasing digita...

Digital Earth is a project funded by the German Helmholtz Association with all centers of the research field Earth and Environment involved. The main goal of the Digital Earth project is to develop and bundle data science methods in extendable and maintainable scientific workflows that enable natural scientists in collaboration with data scientists...

Reliable data are the base of all scientific analyses, interpretations and conclusions. Evaluating data in a smart way speeds up the process of interpretation and conclusion and highlights where, when and how additionally acquired data in the field will support knowledge gain. An extended SMART monitoring concept is introduced which includes SMART...

This document contains data sets of the valley depositions of the Loosbach valley and data of the Late Neolithic wetland site of Pestenacker. It consists of raw data and graphical figures of direct push-based electrical conductivity and colour logs and driving core recoveries as well as hand drilling recoveries presented by Köhler et al. ([1]). We...

Remote sensing (RS) enables a cost-effective, extensive, continuous and standardized monitoring of traits and trait variations of geomorphology and its processes, from the local to the continental scale. To implement and better understand RS techniques and the spectral indicators derived from them in the monitoring of geomorphology, this paper pres...

Heavy Precipitation Events (HPE) are the result of enormous quantities of water vapour being transported to a limited area. HPE rainfall rates and volumes cannot not be fully stored on and below the land surface, often leading to floods with short forecast lead times that may cause damage to humans, properties, and infrastructure. Towards an improv...

The reconstruction and understanding of tipping points in environmental systems have become an important issue for the global geoscientific community. This study focuses on the reconstruction of the Holocene deposition history of the Loosbach valley at the Pestenacker site, a Late Neolithic wetland occupation in the northern Alpine forelands of Cen...

Recent discussions in many scientific disciplines stress the necessity of “FAIR” data. FAIR data, however, does not necessarily include information on data trustworthiness, where trustworthiness comprises reliability, validity and provenience/provenance. This opens up the risk of misinterpreting scientific data, even though all criteria of “FAIR” a...

We present a new hydrometric dataset that comprises water level and discharge time series measured at five tributaries draining sub-catchments of the mountainous Mueglitz River Basin in Germany. The monitoring sites were set up as far downstream as possible, taking into account technical and access restrictions. In total, 746211 records of absolute...

In this chapter the general factors affecting the equilibrium and stability of arid regions are discussed, with particular focus given to rainfall, the primary factor influencing the continuity and development of these environments. Unfortunately, the scarcity or complete lack of rain gauges in such areas complicates the collection of sufficient ra...

Large‐scale measurements of the spatial distribution of water content in soils and snow are challenging for state‐of‐the‐art hydrogeophysical methods. Cosmic‐ray neutron sensing (CRNS) is a noninvasive technology that has the potential to bridge the scale gap between conventional in situ sensors and remote sensing products in both, horizontal and v...

A thorough and reliable assessment of changes in sea surface water temperatures (SSWTs) is essential for understanding the effects of global warming on long-term trends in marine ecosystems and their communities. The first long-term temperature measurements were established almost a century ago, especially in coastal areas, and some of them are sti...

Kurzfassung Sedimentäre Strukturen können die Fließ- und Stofftransportpfade in feinkörnigen Talfüllungen stark beeinflussen. Diese Strukturen müssen gezielt auf ihre Ausdehnung und Eigenschaften untersucht werden, um Verweilzeiten, Fließpfade und das Abbaupotenzial eingetragener Schadstoffe zu bestimmen. In der quartären Talfüllung der Ammeraue be...

The book adresses measurement, remote sensing, microphysics and modelling to researchers in the field of precipitation science. Chapter 7 focuses on the use of satellite remote sensing, considering the potential to sparce data sources in arid regions.

Wetland environments, with their excellent conservation conditions, provide geoarchaeological archives of past human activities. However, the subsurface soil is difficult to access due to high groundwater tables, unstable sediments, and the high cost of excavation. In this study, we present a ground-based non- and minimal-invasive prospection conce...

Societal Impact Statement Pollen relates to many aspects of human and environmental health, which protection and improvement are endorsed by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. By highlighting these connections in the frame of current challenges in monitoring and research, we discuss the need of more integrative and multidisciplinary...

Water depletion is a growing problem in the world’s arid and semi-arid areas, where groundwater is the primary source of fresh water. Accurate climatic data must be obtained to protect municipal water budgets. Unfortunately, the majority of these arid regions have a sparsely distributed number of rain gauges, which reduces the reliability of the sp...

MOSES (Modular Observation Solutions for Earth Systems) is a novel observation system that is specifically designed to unravel the impact of distinct, dynamic events on the long-term development of environmental systems. Hydro-meteorological extremes such as the recent European droughts or the floods of 2013 caused severe and lasting environmental...

Quantification of groundwater (GW) and surface water (SW) interactions is crucial for effective water resource allocation and management. Immense progress has been made in the past few decades to address the different aspects of GW–SW exchanges. These have resulted in a large volume of literature. This work reviews in detail the mechanism of intera...

This is the first version of the White Paper Citizen Science Strategy 2030 for Germany. This version is out for consultation from 8/8/21-30/9/2021 and will then be revised with received comments and reviews accordingly. Consultation website: www.citizen-science-weissbuch.de

We present a workflow to estimate geostatistical aquifer parameters from pumping test data using the Python package welltestpy. The procedure of pumping test analysis is exemplified for two data sets from the Horkheimer Insel site and from the Lauswiesen site, Germany. The analysis is based on a semi‐analytical drawdown solution from the upscaling...

Six conceptually different transport models were applied to the macrodispersion experiment (MADE)-1 field tracer experiment as a first major attempt for model comparison. The objective was to show that complex mass distributions in heterogeneous aquifers can be predicted without calibration of transport parameters, solely making use of structural a...

The present editorial 2020 continues the series of status reports in Environmental Earth Sciences (EES) in previous years 2017 and 2019 (Kolditz et al. in Environ Earth Sci 77: 8, 2018, Kolditz et al. in Environ Earth Sci 79: 11, 2020). The year 2020 coming to an end was heavily influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic affecting all areas of life includ...

The replenishment of aquifers depends mainly on precipitation rates, which is of vital importance for determining water budgets in arid and semi-arid regions. El-Qaa Plain in the Sinai Peninsula is a region that experiences constant population growth. This study compares the performance of two sets of satellite-based data of precipitation and in si...

Aquifer heterogeneity in combination with data scarcity is a major challenge for reliable solute transport prediction. Velocity fluctuations cause non-regular plume shapes with potentially long-tailing and/or fast-travelling mass fractions. High monitoring cost and a shortage of simple concepts have limited the incorporation of heterogeneity into m...

The replenishment of aquifers depends mainly on precipitation rates, which is of vital 19 importance for determining water budgets in arid and semi-arid regions. El-Qaa Plain in Sinai 20 Peninsula is such a region which experiences a constant population growth. The local water budget 21 equilibrium is negatively affected by relatively frequent ligh...

The petrophysical observation of hydrological processes in the field is often limited to parameter estimations and determinations. Dependencies between different petrophyiscal parameters remain sparsely studied. This work aims for the development of a monitoring concept and observation strategies in the scale of measurement to understand the impact...

In soils and sediments, large amounts of total organic carbon (TOC) mark reducing conditions. As dark sediment colors are good predictors for high‐TOC zones, they indicate hot spots of biogeochemical turnover and microbial activity. Traditionally, obtaining the sediment color or TOC at depth requires costly core sampling, resulting in poor horizont...

The status, changes, and disturbances in geomorphological regimes can be regarded as controlling and regulating factors for biodiversity. Therefore, monitoring geomorphology at local, regional, and global scales is not only necessary to conserve geodiversity, but also to preserve biodiversity, as well as to improve biodiversity conservation and eco...

Floodplains are often conceptualized as homogeneous sediment bodies which connect streams with their respective catchment and buffer agricultural inputs. This has led to a general bias within the hydrological community towards research on sites where the floodplain is a clear conduit for groundwater flow. In humid temperate regions of central Europ...

Sediment budgeting concepts serve as quantification tools to decipher the erosion and accumulation processes within a catchment and help to understand these relocation processes through time. While sediment budgets are widely used in geomorphological catchment‐based studies, such quantification approaches are rarely applied in geoarchaeological stu...

In most hydrogeological, geotechnical, archaeological, and other geoscientific applications, we need to understand the lateral extent and connectivity of system-relevant subsurface features. Towards this end, direct-current electric resistivity tomography (ERT) with several 2-D profiles or 3-D grids provides a powerful tool for non-invasive resolut...

Geoscientists invest significant effort to cope with uncertainty in Earth system observation and modeling. While general discussions exist about uncertainty and risk communication, judgment and decision-making, and science communication with regard to Earth sciences, in this article, we tackle uncertainty from the perspective of Earth science pract...

Abstract. Aquifer heterogeneity in combination with data scarcity is a major challenge for reliable solute transport prediction. Velocity fluctuations cause non-regular plume shapes with potentially long tailing and/or fast traveling mass fractions. High monitoring cost and presumably missing simple concepts have limited the incorporation of hetero...

Ensuring ecosystem resilience is an intuitive approach to safeguard the functioning of ecosystems and hence the future provisioning of ecosystem services (ES). However, resilience is a multi‐faceted concept that is difficult to operationalize. Focusing on resilience mechanisms, such as diversity, network architectures or adaptive capacity, has rece...

Nitrification and denitrification are traditionally assumed to occur under aerobic and anoxic conditions, respectively. However, new and interesting alternatives challenge the traditional assumption. Along this line, we provide dual-nitrate isotopic and chemical evidence for the occurrence of denitrification linked with heterotrophic nitrification...

A risk‐based decision‐making mechanism capable of accounting for uncertainty regarding local conditions is crucial to water resources management, regulation, and policy making. Despite the great potential of hydrogeological models in supporting water resources decisions, challenges remain due to the many sources of uncertainty as well as making and...

Abstract The use of shallow geothermal energy increasingly receives attention as a suitable alternative to fossil fuel-based space heating and cooling, warm water provision, as well as for seasonal heat storage throughout Europe. With the advent of shallow geothermal energy use on large scales, a vivid discussion of potential ecological and economi...