At the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, scientists are conducting research on numerous projects with a research focus on water on the African continent. Projects that have already been completed are also mentioned.
ASAP - Agroforestry in Southern Africa – new Pathways of innovative land use systems under a changing climate
Southern Africa needs to find innovative land use solutions to adapt to a rapidly changing climate to mitigate predicted impacts on rural livelihoods. ASAP targets the application of agroforestry systems as a potential response. An increase in drought and flooding events and shifts in rainfall patterns might cause loss of productive cropland and hence negatively affect economic, ecological and social aspects of sustainable development. The project aims at investigating the ecosystem services and environmental benefits of agroforestry systems (AFS) as an innovative, multi-purpose land-use management practice in southern Africa. A special focus will be the exploration of human-environment interactions within agroforestry systems and its benefits for rural livelihoods.
A multidisciplinary team aims at further developing knowledge concerning agroforestry systems in southern Africa by applying simple and easily replicable methodology across several study regions to cover a climatic gradient. The project studies the effects of tress within farmed landscapes from the perspective of soil processes, hydrological fluxes and flows, shading and nutrient exports, wind erosion risk and woody biomass production. Nine working packages divided into three thematic areas 1. knowledge transfer and educational transmission, 2. ecosystem services and environmental benefits and 3. human-environment interactions.
The three main goals of the ASAP project are:
• The investigation of ecosystem services and environmental benefits of agroforestry systems as an innovative, multi-purpose land-use management practice in southern Africa.
• An exploration of human-environment interactions within AFS and its benefits for rural livelihoods and local stakeholders.
• A development and increase of German-Southern African research, educational cooperation and capacity building with the bi-directional transfer of knowledge and educational transmission between partner organisations. Providing multiple opportunities for exchange and collaboration at all academic levels.
Institute: IWU Institut für Wasser und Umwelt - Hydrologie
Contact: Dr. Sibylle Haßler, Svenja Hoffmeister
Duration: 2019 – 2023
Homepage: IWU / Hydrologie -Forschung - Forschungsschwerpunkte - Agroforestry in Southern
Africa – new Pathways of innovative land use systems under a changing climate (ASAP)
OUTLAST - Development of an operational, multi-sectoral, global drought hazard forecasting system
The aim of the OUTLAST research project is to develop the first global, cross-sectoral and operational drought forecasting system for quantifying drought hazards in
- water supply,
- river ecosystems,
- non-agricultural terrestrial ecosystems,
- rain-fed agriculture and
- irrigated agriculture and to implement it as a component of the Global Hydrological Status and Outlook System (HydroSOS) of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Institute: KIT Capus Alpin IMK-IFU
Contact: Prof. Dr. Harald Kunstmann
Duration: 2022 – 2025
Homepage: https://bmbf-grow.de/de/outlast
SPS Blue Nile - Development and transfer of a Seamless Prediction System for decision support in transboundary water management of the Blue Nile
The goal is to develop a meteorological-hydrological forecasting system for transboundary water management of the Blue Nile River, using a "seamless" approach with intersecting forecast horizons ranging from days to several months (Seamless Prediction). This integrates predictive variables critical to regional water management, such as precipitation, reservoir inflow, sediment input and - transport, and even potential agricultural yield, to enable a comprehensive assessment and the derivation of recommended actions within the Water-Food-Energy nexus for the Blue Nile reservoirs and, in particular, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) reservoir.
Special focus of the ensemblebased and thus probabilistic forecasting is on the warning of hydrometeorological extreme events such as heavy precipitation and floods (forecast horizon of several days) up to droughts and heat periods (forecast horizon of weeks to several months, i.e. Subseasonal to Seasonal - S2S).
For the transfer into practice, the developed approaches will be transferred into cloud-ready modules or microservices, which allows an implementation adapted to local conditions of, e.g., the pure hydrometeorological forecast or the visualization module. The development and
implementation of the forecasting system will be carried out in close collaboration with Sudanese and Ethiopian partners from scientific, political and water management sectors. By designing the PhD research and training as a sandwich program, jointly organizing workshops and training courses, and concretely participating in higher-level initiatives and networks, an international technical dialogue
between Ethiopian, Sudanese, German and other international water experts will be enabled.
Institute: IMK-IFU
Contact: Prof. Dr. Harald Kunstmann
Duration: 2022 – 2025
Homepage: https://bmbf-grow.de/de/sps-blue-nile
HOTMATS - Targeted elimination of antibiotic resistance genes in wastewater areas that have been identified as hotspots for the emergence of antimicrobial resistance
The aim of the project is to prevent the emergence of antimicrobial resistance through improved wastewater management. To this end, wastewater treatment is being tested in hotspots such as hospitals, nursing homes and slaughterhouses that combines different oxidative, adsorptive and
light-based methods to develop an appropriate antibacterial effect. A cost-benefit analysis is being carried out to demonstrate the advantages of the approach, which is primarily intended to serve health care. The technology is to be used primarily in middle and low-income countries.
The project is part of a transnational research network within the framework of the Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance (JPIAMR). In the network, scientists from Germany, Norway, Ghana and Kenya are working together to solve this research question.
The aim of the funding measure is to bring together complementary expertise and resources from relevantly qualified working groups from the participating countries. Cooperative research approaches are intended to achieve progress in the prevention, surveillance and control of antibiotic resistance that cannot be achieved at the national level alone.
Institute: IFG Institut für Funktionelle Grenzflächen
Contact: Prof. Dr. Thomas Schwarz
Duration: 2021 – 2023
Link: HOTMATS - Gerichtete Beseitigung von Antibiotikaresistenzgenen in Abwasserbereichen, die als Hotspots für ein Auftreten von antimikrobiellen Resistenzen identifiziert sind - Gesundheitsforschung BMBF