Role of tree evaporation on groundwater recharge
includes fieldwork and interaction with the water board
Recommended elective: Remote Sensing of Plant Productivity and Growth
In many countries, shortage of drinking water is a problem. In the Netherlands, the drinking water shortage is a relatively new problem, that occurs in the summer season when water demands exceed the rate by which groundwater can be sourced.
Land cover and land use have a large effect on groundwater recharge, and thus on drinking water supplies, but the rates of replenishment of the groundwater have large uncertainties. Groundwater recharge models tend to underestimate the evaporation by forests under dry conditions, and hence overestimate the available water for groundwater recharge.
In a collaborative effort with the water board of Veluwe and Eem, you will reduce estimate the influence of different forest types on groundwater resources.
The objective is to estimate the effects of tree water evaporation in the Veluwe ridge on the groundwater recharge, and its impact on water management. The methodology includes the following steps:
(1) You analyse the data of a range of instruments installed on the Veluwe ridge. A dataset of local has been collected and processed in 2023 and presented to the Water Board. You will analyse this further and make a plan to combine the dataset with remote sensing and models to make the results spatially more representative.
(2) You will process field and satellite data into an organized field data set,
(3) you will estimate tree transpiration and rainfall interception, and analyze its relation with soil moisture content, soil water potential and weather conditions at the site. You will draw conclusions on the impact on water management.
Forest managers and drinking water companies may have incompatible requirements with respect to the management of forests. For example, promoting biodiversity may lead to different decisions than maximizing water infiltration, or increasing the carbon sink of the forest. Quantifying these tradeoffs may give decision makers better insight into his problem.