Project Team Dynamic Imaging and Modelling of Subsurface processes

Dr. Andrea Carminati
Andrea Carminati

Research areas

  • Water flow in the vadose zone
  • Soil-Plant interactions
  • Mechanical behaviour of unsaturated structured soils
  • Imaging techniques for monitoring water distributions

Key working areas

  • Aggregated soils. Model and measurements of the aggregate-aggregate contacts and their relation with hydraulic conductivity. Capillary barriers at the aggregate contacts.
  • Change of hydraulic conductivity of aggregated soils during compression
  • Water uptake by roots. Impact of roots on the hydraulic properties of soils
  • Neutron and X-ray tomography

Projects

  • EU Marie Curie Project "Water Watch". Non-invasive imaging of the water dynamics in a soil plant groundwater system. Started on March 2007
  • Project "Mechanical behavior of unsaturated structured soils: Neutron tomography and modeling". Collaboration between ETH Zürich (CH), EPF Lausanne (CH) and Paul Scherrer Institute (CH). 2003-2007

Scientific carrier

  • 2002: Degree in Physics, Universita' Statale degli Studi di Milano. Title of the Thesis "Calibration of a model of the groundwater flow in the province of Milan". Supervisor Prog. Giansilvio Ponzini.
  • 2003-2006: PhD at ETH Zürich (Switzerland). Title of the Thesis: "Unsaturated water flow through soil aggregates". Supervisor Prof. Hannes Flühler.
  • 2007-Today: Scientist in the departments of "Hydrogeology" and "Soil Physics" at UFZ Leipzig-Halle (Germany)

Publications

(Peer-reviewed journal publications)

  • A. Carminati, A. Kaestner, O. Ippisch, A. Koliji, P. Lehmann, R. Hassanein, P. Vontobel, E. Lehmann, L. Laloui, L. Vulliet and H. Flühler, 2007, Water flow between soil aggregates, Transport in Porous Media 68(2): 219-236.
  • A. Carminati, A. Kaestner, R. Hassanein, O. Ippisch, P. Vontobel and H. Flühler, 2007, Infiltration through series of soil aggregates: Neutron radiography and modelling, Adv. Water Res. 30: 1168-1178.
  • R. Hassanein, H. O. Meyer, A. Carminati, M. Estermann, E. Lehmann and P. Vontobel, 2006, Investigation of water imbibition in porous stone by thermal neutron radiography, J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 39: 4284-4291.

Research Seminar

next seminar
past seminars (2012/11)

Special Issue on GW-SW Interactions

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Advances in Water Resources
Ground water-surface water interactions
Edited by Jan H. Fleckenstein, Stefan Krause, David M. Hannah, Fulvio Boano
Volume 33, Issue 11, Pages 1291-1295

Interest in groundwater (GW)-surface water (SW) interactions has grown steadily over the last two decades. New regulations such as the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) now call for a sustainable management of coupled ground- and surface water resources and linked ecosystems. New interdisciplinary research on GW-SW systems that addresses the linkages between hydrology, biogeochemistry and ecology at nested scales and methods to assess these patterns and integrated surface-subsurface numerical models have been refined and have improved our understanding of processes and dynamics.