Investigations are currently performed in the Elbe River with a particular focus on hydrological extremes within the MOSES initiative. The research vessel Albis was specifically designed for Elbe measurements and has a draft of 40 cm only. We perform longitudinal samplings according to travel time (so-called Lagrangian samplings): Starting from the Czech-German border, we follow a particular water parcel on its way downstream to Hamburg.
The temporal and longitudinal developement of the water body provides data regarding the increase of chlorophyll concentration (net growth rate of planktonic algae), the decrease of dissolved nutrients (nitrate, phosphate, silicate), the increase in bacterial numbers and activity, and the transformation of disslved organic matter.