Jule Thober - Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research

Dr. Jule Thober

Contact

Manager of Topic 5 "Landscapes of the Future" of the Helmholtz Program "Changing Earth - Sustaining our Future" (POF IV) Link

Manager of the Research Unit Smart Models and Monitoring Link

Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ

Permoserstr. 15
04318 Leipzig
Germany

Tel.: +49 341 6025 1465

jule.thober@ufz.de

Academic Background

since 2022	Scientific Manager at Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research
2017 - 2021	Postdoc at the Department Computational Landscape Ecology
2013 - 2016	PhD student at the Department of Ecological Modeling, in cooperation with Prof.Dr. Erik Gawel, Department of Economics.
2012	Research assistent at the Department of Computational Landscape Ecology. Development of a computer game on sustainable land management.
2006 - 2011	Diploma in Biomathematics, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-University of Greifswald. Thesis: Risk Measures and Decision Criteria for the Management of Natural Resources Under Uncertainty - Application to an Ecological-Economic Grazing Model.

Publications

Dressler, G., Groeneveld, J., Buchmann, C.M., Guo, C., Hase, N., Thober, J., Frank, K., Müller, B. (2019):
Implications of behavioral change for the resilience of pastoral systems—Lessons from an agent-based model
Ecol. Complex. 40, Part B , art. 100710 10.1016/j.ecocom.2018.06.002
Dressler, G., Groeneveld, J., Hetzer, J., Janischewski, A., Nolzen, H., Rödig, E., Schwarz, N., Taubert, F., Thober, J., Will, M., Williams, T., Wirth, S.B., Müller, B. (2022):
Upscaling in socio-environmental systems modelling: Current challenges, promising strategies and insights from ecology
Socio-Environmental Systems Modelling 4 , art. 18112 10.18174/sesmo.18112
Groeneveld, J., Müller, B., Angermüller, F., Drees, R., Dreßler, G., Klassert, C., Schulze, J., Weise, H., Schwarz, N. (2012):
Good modelling practice: Expanding the ODD model description protocol for socioenvironmental agent based models
In: Seppelt, R., Voinov, A.A., Lange, S., Bankamp, D. (eds.)
IEMSs 2012 - Managing resources of a limited planet: Pathways and visions under uncertainty. Proceedings of the 6th biannial meeting of the International Environmental Modelling and Software Society, Leipzig, Germany, July 1-5, 2012
p. 2480 - 2484
Groeneveld, J., Müller, B., Buchmann, C.M., Dressler, G., Guo, C., Hase, N., Hoffmann, F., John, F., Klassert, C., Lauf, T., Liebelt, V., Nolzen, H., Pannicke, N., Schulze, J., Weise, H., Schwarz, N. (2017):
Theoretical foundations of human decision-making in agent-based land use models – A review
Environ. Modell. Softw. 87 , 39 - 48 10.1016/j.envsoft.2016.10.008
Groth, J., Hermans, K., Wiederkehr, C., Kassa, E., Thober, J. (2021):
Investigating environment-related migration processes in Ethiopia – A participatory Bayesian network
Ecosyst. People 17 (1), 128 - 147 10.1080/26395916.2021.1895888
Langhammer, M., Thober, J., Lange, M., Frank, K., Grimm, V. (2019):
Agricultural landscape generators for simulation models: A review of existing solutions and an outline of future directions
Ecol. Model. 393 , 135 - 151 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2018.12.010
Müller, B., Balbi, S., Buchmann, C.M., de Sousa, L., Dressler, G., Groeneveld, J., Klassert, C.J., Le, Q.B., Millington, J.D.A., Nolzen, H., Parker, D.C., Polhill, J.G., Schlüter, M., Schulze, J., Schwarz, N., Sun, Z., Taillandier, P., Weise, H. (2014):
Standardised and transparent model descriptions for agent-based models: current status and prospects
Environ. Modell. Softw. 55 , 156 - 163 10.1016/j.envsoft.2014.01.029
Müller, B., Bohn, F., Dreßler, G., Groeneveld, J., Klassert, C., Martin, R., Schlüter, M., Schulze, J., Weise, H., Schwarz, N. (2013):
Describing human decisions in agent-based models - ODD+D, an extension of the ODD protocol
Environ. Modell. Softw. 48 , 37 - 48 10.1016/j.envsoft.2013.06.003
Müller, B., Schulze, J., Kreuer, D., Linstädter, A., Frank, K. (2015):
How to avoid unsustainable side effects of managing climate risk in drylands - The supplementary feeding controversy
Agric. Syst. 139 , 153 - 165 10.1016/j.agsy.2015.07.001
Schröter, M., Koellner, T., Alkemade, R., Arnhold, S., Bagstad, K.J., Erb, K.-H., Frank, K., Kastner, T., Kissinger, M., Liu, J., López-Hoffman, L., Maes, J., Marques, A., Martín-López, B., Meyer, C., Schulp, C.J.E., Thober, J., Wolff, S., Bonn, A. (2018):
Interregional flows of ecosystem services: Concepts, typology and four cases
Ecosyst. Serv. 31 (Part B), 231 - 241 10.1016/j.ecoser.2018.02.003
Schulze, J. (2016):
Social-ecological modeling for policy analysis in transformative land systems - Supporting evaluation and communication for sustainability
Dissertation, Universität Osnabrück
PhD Dissertation 5/2016
Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung - UFZ, Leipzig, XI, 230 pp.
Schulze, J., Frank, K., Müller, B. (2016):
Governmental response to climate risk: Model-based assessment of livestock supplementation in drylands
Land Use Pol. 54 , 47 - 57 10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.01.007
Schulze, J., Frank, K., Priess, J., Meyer, M.A. (2016):
Assessing regional-scale impacts of short rotation coppices on ecosystem services by modeling land-use decisions
PLOS One 11 (4), e0153862 10.1371/journal.pone.0153862
Schulze, J., Gawel, E., Nolzen, H., Weise, H., Frank, K. (2017):
The expansion of short rotation forestry: characterization of determinants with an agent-based land use model
GCB Bioenergy 9 (6), 1042 - 1056 10.1111/gcbb.12400
Schulze, J., Martin, R., Finger, A., Henzen, C., Lindner, M., Pietzsch, K., Werntze, A., Zander, U., Seppelt, R. (2015):
Design, implementation and test of a serious online game for exploring complex relationships of sustainable land management and human well-being
Environ. Modell. Softw. 65 , 58 - 66 10.1016/j.envsoft.2014.11.029
Schulze, J., Müller, B., Groeneveld, J., Grimm, V. (2017):
Agent-based modelling of social-ecological systems: achievements, challenges, and a way forward
JASSS 20 (2), art. 8 10.18564/jasss.3423
Seppelt, R., Martin, R., Finger, A., Henzen, C., Lindner, M., Pietzsch, K., Werntze, A., Zander, U., Schulze, J. (2014):
Experiences with a serious online game for exploring complex relationships of sustainable land management and human well-being: LandYOUs
In: Ames, D.P., Quinn, N.W.T., Rizzoli, A.E. (eds.)
Proceedings of the 7th International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software (iEMSs), June 15-19, San Diego, California, USA
International Environmental Modelling and Software Society (iEMSs), Manno, 1 - 8
Sun, Z., Lorscheid, I., Millington, J.D., Lauf, S., Magliocca, N.R., Groeneveld, J., Balbi, S., Nolzen, H., Müller, B., Schulze, J., Buchmann, C.M. (2016):
Simple or complicated agent-based models? A complicated issue
Environ. Modell. Softw. 86 , 56 - 67 10.1016/j.envsoft.2016.09.006
Thober, J., Schwarz, N., Hermans, K. (2018):
Agent-based modeling of environment-migration linkages: a review
Ecol. Soc. 23 (2), art. 41 10.5751/ES-10200-230241

Contact

Head
Prof. Dr. Sabine Attinger
Department of Computational Hydrosystems
tbl-modmon@ufz.de

Deputy Head
Prof. Dr. Luis Samaniego
Department of Computational Hydrosystems
luis.samaniego@ufz.de

Assistance
Nora Pabst
Phone +49 341 6025-2367

Sindy Bleiholder
Phone +49 341 6025-1250

Susanne Gangloff
Phone +49 341 6025-2533

sekces@ufz.de

Permoserstraße 15 | 04318 Leipzig

News / Press

Aug 2025

New research published in Nature Food by Batool et al. (2025) analyses the effectiveness of EU nitrogen reduction targets. Under the “Farm to Fork” (F2F) strategy of the “Green Deal”, the EU Commission aims to reduce nutrient losses by 50% by 2030 by requiring EU countries to cut chemical fertiliser use by 20%. As shown in our work such a uniform reduction in fertilizer use would not be sufficient.

May 2024

New research published in Nature Communications by Hussian et al., (2024) emphasizes the game-changing potential of near-real-time and impact-based flood prediction. Their study demonstrates a 10-meter floodplain inundation hindcast of the 2021 European Summer Flood, showcasing a 17-hour lead time for better disaster preparedness. Impact-based early warnings can empower local authorities with crucial data on citizens at-risk for targeted emergency responses.

July 30, 2023

Hitze und Dürre - Interview with climate researcher Jakob Zscheischler
in Deutschlandfunk (only in German, 10:50 min) Link to interview

May 16, 2023

Start of ESA funded project 4DHydro

The overarching objective of 4DHydro is to foster collaborations between the Earth Observation (EO) water cycle community developing novel high-resolution EO data products, and the land surface and hydrological modelling community (LSM/HM) engaged in advancing hyperresolution modelling of the hydrological cycle at regional and continental scales. By involving several European institutions 4DHydro will assess and improve data sets of EO as well as synchronize EO products and LSM/HM models in order to improve predictions of the hydrological system. Overall, it will assist end-users and decisions-makers as well as the EU Destination Earth initiative. The project’s kick-off meeting will take place in Leipzig on 21st of June 2023.

Jan 30, 2023

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The following paper received the ASCE-EWRI 2023 Award for Best Case Study in the Journal of Hydrologic Engineering.

Mai, J. , B. A. Tolson, H. Shen, É. Gaborit, V. Fortin, N. Gasset, H. Awoye, T. A. Stadnyk, L. M. Fry, E. A. Bradley, F. Seglenieks, A. G. Temgoua, D. G. Princz, S. Gharari, A. Haghnegahdar, M. E. Elshamy, S. Razavi, M. Gauch, J. Lin, X. Ni, Y. Yuan, M. McLeod, N. B. Basu, R. Kumar, O. Rakovec, L. Samaniego, S. Attinger, N. K. Shrestha, P. Daggupati, T. Roy, S. Wi, T. Hunter, J. R. Craig, and A. Pietroniro (2021):
The Great Lakes Runoff Intercomparison Project Phase 3: Lake Erie (GRIP-E)
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering, 26(9), 05021020. Accepted Feb 16, 2021.

https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/%28ASCE%29HE.1943-5584.0002097

Dec 1, 2022

Award Poster Masooma Batool

Masooma Batool won the "Best student poster award" at the XXI International Nitrogen Workshop.
This conference, hosted by ETSIAAB, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, brought together nearly 300 papers from authors from 40 countries in Madrid, Spain, October 24-28, 2022.
At the conference, Masooma and her colleagues presented long-term trends in soil nitrogen (N) surplus across Europe (1850-2019). Excess N provides information on the trends and spatial distribution of N surplus in soil systems across Europe, highlighting agricultural areas in Central Europe as nitrogen hotspots. These areas have undergone dramatic changes over the past 150 years. Importantly, we show that estimates of N surplus are subject to large uncertainties, requiring explicit consideration of these uncertainties when analyzing past trends in N surplus.

Nov 15, 2022

Earthrise - Mission Klima
How our research contributes to climate mitigation and adaptation is demonstrated in this WELT report.

Video at www.welt.de (only in German)

05:50': Hohes Holz research station
10:40': FORMIND in the Vislab
15:45': Fragmentation of forests
43:00': FORMIND and climate scenarios

Oct 12, 2022

Dr. Husain Najafi won the UFZ Young Scientist Award for Applied Research 2022. The award goes to him for his excellence and dedication in development of the operational drought forecasting system in Germany and investigation of 2021 summer flood predictability. Hydrological forecasting systems are the fundamental component of early warning systems - disaster risk reduction.

Older news are stored in the news archive.

New publications

Najafi, H., Shrestha, P.K., Rakovec, O. et al. High-resolution impact-based early warning system for riverine flooding. Nat Commun 15, 3726 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-48065-y
Henniger, H., Huth, A., Frank, K., & Bohn, F. J. (2023). Creating virtual forests around the globe and analysing their state space. Ecological Modelling, 483, 110404. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2023.110404

In this paper we present the "Forest Factory 2.0″ algorithm, which generates various virtual forest stands for different biomes on Earth. To demonstrate the potential of this approach, we analyse different forest-structure->ecosystem-function relationships across biomes.
Friedrich Boeing, Oldrich Rakovec, Rohini Kumar, Luis Samaniego, Martin Schrön, Anke Hildebrandt, Corinna Rebmann, Stephan Thober, Sebastian Müller, Steffen Zacharias, Heye Bogena, Katrin Schneider, Ralf Kiese, Sabine Attinger, and Andreas Marx. High-resolution drought simulations and comparison to soil moisture observations in Germany. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 5137–5161, 2022. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-5137-2022

In this paper, we deliver an evaluation of the second generation operational German drought monitor ( https://www.ufz.de/duerremonitor ) with a state-of-the-art compilation of observed soil moisture data from 40 locations and four different measurement methods in Germany. We show that the expressed stakeholder needs for higher resolution drought information at the one-kilometer scale can be met and that the agreement of simulated and observed soil moisture dynamics can be moderately improved.
Mahnken, M., Cailleret, M., Collalti, A., Trotta, C., Biondo, C., D’Andrea, E., ... & Reyer, C. P. O. (2022). Accuracy, realism and general applicability of European forest models. Global Change Biology. DOI: 10.1111/gcb.16384
Pacheco-Labrador, J., Weber, U., Ma, X., Mahecha, M. D., Carvalhais, N., Wirth, C., Huth, A., Bohn, F. J., Kraemer, G., Heiden, U., FunDivEUROPE members, and Migliavacca, M.: EVALUATING THE POTENTIAL OF DESIS TO INFER PLANT TAXONOMICAL AND FUNCTIONAL DIVERSITIES IN EUROPEAN FORESTS, Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci., XLVI-1/W1-2021, 49–55, 2022. DOI: 10.5194/isprs-archives-XLVI-1-W1-2021-49-2022
Bevacqua, E., De Michele, C., Manning, C., Couasnon, A., Ribeiro, A.F.S., Ramos, A.M., Vignotto, E., Bastos, A., Blesić, S., Durante, F., Hillier, J., Oliveira, S.C., Pinto, J.G., Ragno, E., Rivoire, P., Saunders, K., van der Wiel, K., Wu, W., Zhang, T., Zscheischler, J. (2021): Guidelines for Studying Diverse Types of Compound Weather and Climate Events. Earth Future. 10.1029/2021EF002340
Najafi H, Robertson AW, Massah Bavani AR, Irannejad P, Wanders N, Wood EF. Improved multi-model ensemble forecasts of Iran's precipitation and temperature using a hybrid dynamical-statistical approach during fall and winter seasons. Int
J Climatol. 2021;1–28. DOI: 10.1002/joc.7148

Hari, V., Rakovec, O., Markonis, Y. et al. Increased future occurrences of the exceptional 2018–2019 Central European drought under global warming. Sci Rep 10, 12207 (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-68872-9

Schmidt, L., Heße, F., Attinger, S., Kumar, R., (2020): "Challenges in applying machine learning models for hydrological inference: A case study for flooding events across Germany", Water Resources Research DOI: 10.1029/2019WR025924

Jing, M., Kumar, R., Heße, F., Thober, S., Rakovec, O., Samaniego, L., Attinger, S., (2020): "Assessing the response of groundwater quantity and travel time distribution to 1.5, 2, and 3 °C global warming in a mesoscale central German basin", Hydrology and Earth System Sciences DOI: 10.5194/hess-24-1511-2020

Sep 2, 2022

The collaborative project "Standardisiertes Monitoring von Wachstumsreaktionen wichtiger Waldbaumarten auf klimatische Extremereignisse" (MW³) with participation of the UFZ will develop a standardized monitoring system and protocol to record growth responses of important Central European forest tree species with a focus on climatic extremes. Future extreme events and their impact on forest carbon fluxes in Germany will be analyzed using smart models.