Urban Catchments

Video content by Urban Catchments, Visualization by Karsten Rink and Lars Bilke


Project title: Managing Water Resources for Urban Catchments - Chaohu

Short project description:

The overall goal of the project is the development of sanitary and environmental engineering system solutions for sustained water quality improvement in the city of Chaohu. It will involve an innovative approach - Urban Water Resources Management (UWRM) - that provides for efficient sanitary systems in urban and rural areas as well as with the needs of natural aquatic ecosystems. Lake Chao plays a central role as the ecological and economic resource and drinking water source for the city of Chaohu to be protected for future generations. This R&D project contributes greatly to the sustainable development of the Chaohu region and Anhui Provincial Government’s master plan “Ecological Lake City of Chaohu”.

Lake Chao currently exhibits extremely high levels of pollution (some areas are at the worst Level V). The causes are not only the lacking capacity of water treatment used in industry and in-tense regional agriculture, but also the lack of integrated plans for resilient environmental engineering for urban and rural areas. Many scientific studies have examined the most prevalent pollutants—lake and river sediments contain sometimes high levels of heavy metals, alkylbenzene, and pesticides—but research on technical solutions to improve the water quality has not been substantial. Summer algal blooms in Lake Chao are regular occurrences due to extremely high phosphorus imports, which then results in high levels of cyanotoxins (microcystin, in particular). Lake Chao is the most important source of drinking water in the area, and this severe human health hazard presents an urgent need for action towards improving the water quality.

Project duration: 04/13 – 08/13 (definition phase); 04/15 – 03/18 (main project phase)

Funding organisation: BMBF

BMBF


Project partners:
  • AMC – Analytik & Messtechnik GmbH Chemnitz
  • Anhui Jianzhu University (China)
  • BBE Moldaenke GmbH Schwentinental
  • CAS, Institute of Geography and Limnology (China)
  • CAS, Institute of Hydrobiology (China)
  • CAS, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences (China)
  • Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences (China)
  • Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ – coordinator
  • Institut für technisch-wissenschaftliche Hydrologie GmbH Hannover
  • OpenGeoSys e.V.
  • Shanghai Jiaotong University (China)
  • Technische Universität Dresden
  • TONGJI University (China)
  • WISUTEC Umwelttechnik GmbH Chemnitz

At the Department of Environmental Informatics, research for this project was being conducted at the work group Complex Groundwater Systems.

Project website: https://www.ufz.de/urbancatchments


This research was also part of the OpenGeoSys initiative (www.opengeosys.org).

Final report of the consortium (definition phase): https://www.tib.eu/de/suchen/id/TIBKAT%3A815906633

Final report (main project phase): forthcoming

CWS

Book project: Chinese Water Systems (Volume 2)