The Environmental Information Systems Workshop (UIS 2023) took place for the 30th time from May 10-12, 2023. This year's venue was the TH-OWL in Höxter. The UIS 2023 was organized by the Environmental Information Systems working group of the Environmental Informatics Section of the German Informatics Society (http://www.ak-uis.de/). More than 20 topics were presented and discussed over 3 days. CERM was also represented with a presentation on "System Analyses as a Prerequisite for GIS-supported Water Management Modelling and Planning".
The final workshop of the initial phase of the CoSMOS project (Community-based Sustainable Water Management and Observation Systems) took place in Berlin from 30.1.-31.1.2023. Over two days, the results of the individual work packages were presented and discussed with selected South African stakeholders, via Zoom. In the next step, the application for the next project phase will now be prepared on the basis of these results.
Between November 25 and December 2, 2022, CERM employee Justin Wiggett was sent to South Africa, as a representative of the CoSMOS (Community-based Sustainable Water Management and Observation Systems) project team, to hold meetings with key partners and ministries, collect data and gain insights and impressions of the two project regions. These findings and results, as well as the LOIs (Letter of Intent (to cooperate)) received from the South African partners, are important inputs for the planned main project phase, for which an application is currently being prepared.
The Centre for Integrated Environmental Resource Management (CERM) is a partner in the BMBF-funded joint R&D project, "CoSMOS" (Development of a Community-based Sustainable Water Management and Monitoring System). The aim of the project is to develop, test and apply a community-based sustainable water monitoring and management system together with German and South African partners as part of the BMBF funding measure "Water Security in Africa - WASA, Initial Phase Southern Africa".
The scenarios, criteria and concepts for the CoSMOS main phase will be developed on the basis of two pilot regions in South Africa. These are the Sub-catchment areas of the Groot Letaba River and the Kaap River. Both rivers are located in the north-east of South Africa.
During the fifteen-month initial phase, the current state of research will be assessed, local needs and practice-oriented requirements for water management will be collected, criteria for the selection of research priorities and scenarios for piloting and demonstration will be defined and an implementation concept for the subsequent main phase will be drawn up. Local practice partners and advisory institutional partners will already be involved in the initial phase.
Image source: Wiggett (Groot Letaba River, South Africa)
The specialisation "Sustainability in the built environment" can now be studied as part of the Master's degree in Environmental Engineering.
The focus here is on quantitative methods in order to be able to evaluate measures in relation to climate protection and the various resources - such as water or building materials in building and infrastructure construction. The Master's degree deals with sustainability, environmental planning and environmental modeling on different scales.
The report "Adaptation of forests and forest management to climate change" by the Scientific Advisory Council on Forest Policy, of which Prof Annette Hafner is a member, was officially presented to the public on 8 February. Deutschlandfunk radio reported on it in the programme Forschung aktuell
Link to the report from Deutschlandfunk
The individual recommendations of the report were presented in accompanying YouTube videos:
Link to the Youtube channel „Wissenschaftlicher Beirat Waldpolitik“
As part of the "Research-based learning - sustainability research in practice" programme, students are given the opportunity to actively shape the sustainability development of their own university by using new approaches to sustainability research or working on and testing new topics. Students of the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering can participate in the programme through their project work, Bachelor's theses or Master's theses.
Further information can be found at the following Link (German only)
By 2050, 70 per cent of the world's population will live in cities. That is 15 per cent more than today and they will all need living space. At the same time, the construction sector consumes large amounts of energy, materials and water and produces waste. One option for climate-friendly and resource-saving construction is timber construction. But how much CO2 does timber save compared to mineral materials? And what happens if a timber house catches fire? Journalist Anna Schunck talks to Annette Hafner about the advantages of this renewable raw material compared to other building materials and how it is used in urban centres in particular. We talk about the multifunctional forest, the Charter for Wood 2.0 and the Paris climate protection targets.
Podcast Link (German only): Schützen Hochhäuser aus Holz das Klima, Annette Hafner?
As part of Informatics 2020, the 1st workshop "Artificial Intelligence in Environmental Informatics" will take place on Friday, 2 October - completely virtual and free of charge. We cordially invite you to attend!
What is it about? Environmental informatics deals with the interdisciplinary analysis and evaluation of environmental issues. From an information technology perspective, for example, simulations of complex systems, geographic information systems and spatial data analysis, measurement networks and sensor data processing as well as remote sensing and image processing play a major role. There are also close links and overlaps with agricultural, hydro, energy and health informatics as well as green IT, i.e. the efficiency of information systems.
The application of AI methods and technologies is therefore an obvious choice. The first workshop will feature eight high-calibre scientific presentations on topics such as water, energy and land use and the application of various AI methods, introduced by a keynote speech from Prof. Dr Werner, Professor of Big Geospatial Data Management at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). Join the discussion!
Programme and all information: www.umwelt-ki.de
From 18 to 19 October 2019, Dr Christian Jolk from the Centre for Environmental Resource Management took part in the "Eco-Islands" workshop on Chongming Island in Shanghai, where the "International Eco-Island Science Alliance" was founded.
On 7 May 2019, the kick-off meeting of the R&D project "Holzbau-GIS" took place at RUB. Together with the project partners REB and U+Ö im Bauwesen as well as the company Disy Informationssysteme, the project contributes to the reduction of greenhouse gases by building with wood. An existing and further developed carbon calculation is embedded in a GIS-based web-enabled specialised information system and places the knowledge gained in a regional context.
In the ongoing "iWaGSS" R&D project, U+Ö im Bauwesen is developing a 1D hydrodynamic water model for the Lower Olifants in coordination with the South African Department of Water Affairs and methods for assessing the risk of contamination of water resources due to possible pollutant inputs from point sources and diffuse sources in the entire Olifants river catchment area. At this year's status workshop in Phalaborwa, U+Ö took the opportunity to present the results to date and carry out field work in the study area.
U+Ö im Bauwesen, in cooperation with the Centre for Environmental Resource Management (CERM), is a partner in the BMBF-funded joint R&D project "iWaGSS" (Integrated Water Governance Support System). The aim of the joint R&D project is the development and practical testing of an innovative water governance system based on new technologies and tools for the sustainable management of water resources in the South African pilot region of the Olifants river basin. One aspect of the research project being developed by U+Ö in civil engineering is the development of a watercourse model for the Lower Olifants River Basin. As part of a measurement campaign, the project partner "DIE GEWÄSSEREXPERTEN" collected UAV images of watercourses in the study area, which can be used to develop the watercourse model. This data can be used to determine exact ground heights for the derivation of flow cross-sections.
The 14th International Water Association (IWA) Specialist Conference on Watershed and River Basin Management took place on 9-11 October 2017 in Kruger National Park in South Africa. The conference was organised by the "IWA Watershed and River Basin Management Specialist Group" in partnership with the "Water Institute for Southern Africa (WISA)" and the "IWA-South Africa (IWA-SA)". The conference focussed on forward-looking issues relating to the sustainable management of river basins in the wake of climate change. The Centre for Environmental Resource Management (ZUM) made a contribution in the form of a presentation on "Contamination Risk Assessment on the example of the Middle Olifants in South Africa".
The Centre for Environmental Resource Management (CERM) in collaboration with the Chair of Environmental Engineering + Ecology in Civil Engineering (U+Ö) is a partner in the joint R&D project iWaGSS (Integrated Water Governance Support System for the Olifants river basin in South Africa).
The Centre for Environmental Resource Management (CERM) has successfully acquired a new joint research project in collaboration with the Chair of Environmental Engineering + Ecology in Civil Engineering (U+Ö).
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Last update: Jun 11, 2024
