Press Release, 03. September 2026

Improving predictions of water dynamics in the landscape

UFZ researcher Larisa Tarasova awarded an ERC Starting Grant

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded UFZ hydrologist Dr. Larisa Tarasova an ERC Starting Grant. The grant is worth around 1.5 million euros. With her earth.zip project Larisa Tarasova will investigate how structural similarity of landscapes at different spatial scales shape water dynamics. Larisa Tarasova is thus one of 113 researchers across Europe whose project proposal was successful out of 1.261 submissions in the field of life sciences.

Since the Earth’s formation, the landscape has been constantly changing. In the process, a diverse forms and structures have emerged on the Earth’s surface, ranging from large scale features like mountain ranges and plains to smaller ones like ridges and valleys. These distinctive relief patterns determine how water and matter are stored, transported and ultimately move from land into rivers and oceans. To predict how the Earth’s flowing waters might change in the future, it is therefore essential to understand the influence of these patterns. However, current water models do not capture this as they divide the landscape into grid cells and average their characteristics within these cells. This is why water models need new ways for representing landscapes at different spatial scales.

As part of the earth.zip project, Larisa Tarasova will spend the next five years developing a new method for representing landscapes using wavelets. These are mathematical functions used to decompose signals – in this case regional geospatial data from space observations and aerial imagery – which can be used to detect both large-scale features and tiny landscape details, easily interpretable by AI. By bringing these together with thermal drone and isotope measurements, her project aims to demonstrate how structures on the Earth’s surface and in the subsurface – between terrestrial landscapes and streams – mutually influence one another. Her research findings are intended to help integrate Earth Observation data more effectively into water models. “The ambition is to predict changes in water dynamics and extreme events, such as floods and drought, more reliably under ongoing global change”, says Larisa Tarasova.

Larisa Tarasova has been conducting research at the UFZ’s Department ‘Catchment Hydrology’ since 2016 and has been head of the ‘Watershed Dynamics and Hydrological Extremes’ research group since 2024. Her research focuses on understanding the influencing factors and the processes underlying the development of hydrological extreme events at large scales. Larisa Tarasova obtained her PhD from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in 2020 and graduated from Leibniz University Hannover in 2015 with a Master of Science in Water Resources and Environmental Management.

The European Research Council (ERC) forms part of the ‘Scientific Excellence’ priority area of the EU’s Horizon Europe Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. Its aim is to support individual researchers with new, outstanding ideas. To this end, the ERC offers funding schemes for different career stages – ranging from ‘Starting Grants’ for early-career researchers to ‘Advanced Grants’ for experienced researchers. In addition, the ERC supports outstanding early-career research teams and initiatives designed to turn ERC project ideas into innovations. https://erc.europa.eu/news-events/news

ERC press release: https://erc.europa.eu/news-events/news/erc-2026-starting-grants-results

Further information

Dr Larisa Tarasova
UFZ Department Catchment Hydrology
larisa.tarasova@ufz.de

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Susanne Hufe
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