
Watershed dynamics & environmental hazards
We develop new approaches to characterize water resources, environmental processes and hydrogeological hazards in data scarce systems. We also investigate the potential of cultural landscape restoration for water management and hazard mitigation, and the role of hydrological variability as driver of natural and industrial phenomena, such as floods, fluxes of particulate matters in river basins and the production of energy by means of hydropower plants.
Opportunities
We welcome ERASMUS+ Internship scholarship holders
interested in:
hydroclimatic data analysis
construction of databases from landscape, hydrological and historical information
data mining and machine learning

Sumra Mushtaq
Doctoral researcher

Felipe Saavedra
Doctoral researcher

Hsing-Jui Wang
Doctoral researcher
Alumni
Andrea Domin
Master thesis (Technical University of Dresden), January 2019 - September 2019
Lisa Hennig
Master thesis (Technical University of Braunschweig), October 2017 - May 2018
Now at University of Bayreuth, Germany
Zohreh Ghazanchaei
Master thesis (University of Stuttgart), October 2017 - May 2018
Internship (Technical University of Cologne), October 2017 - January 2018
Now at the Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies - IAMO, Germany
Mechanistic-stochastic and statistical methods for flood hazard assessment
- Applications and further development of the Metastatistical Extreme Value distribution (MEV)
- Further development of the PHysically-based Extreme Value distribution (PHEV!)
- Assessment of the propensity of rivers to extreme floods
Regional analyses of event runoff features and causes
- Large scale analyses of event runoff attributes
- Identification of triggering spatio-temporal atmospheric and catchment conditions
- Causative classification of runoff and flood events

Water-energy-ecosystem nexus in small run-of-river hydropower
- Economic-hydroecologic optimization of small run-of-river hydropower plants
- Methods to reconcile small hydropower and ecosystem services in river basins
Fluxes of solutes and particulate matters through river basins
- Effects of hydrological events on solute mobilization and delivery
- Roles of input stochasticity and river network morphology for fluxes of particulate matter

Cultural landscapes for water management

PREDICTED
Propensity of rivers to extreme floods: climate-landscape controls and early detection
(DFG Research Project, grant 421396820, 2019-2022)
DYNAMO
Events as dynamic drivers of pollutant transport, turnover and export in catchments – from monitoring to models
Subproject 3: Effects of hydrological events on solute mobilization and delivery in German river catchments
(Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ PhD college, 2020-2023)
Index:
You could use our publication index for further requests.
2023 (6)
- Basso, S., Merz, R., Tarasova, L., Miniussi, A. (2023):
Extreme flooding controlled by stream network organization and flow regime
Nat. Geosci. 16 (4), 339 - 343
full text (doi) - Bieroza, M., Acharya, S., Benisch, J., ter Borg, R.N., Hallberg, L., Negri, C., Pruitt, A., Pucher, M., Saavedra, F., Staniszewska, K., van’t Veen, S.G.M., Vincent, A., Winter, C., Basu, N.B., Jarvie, H.P., Kirchner, J.W. (2023):
Advances in catchment science, hydrochemistry, and aquatic ecology enabled by high-frequency water quality measurements
Environ. Sci. Technol. 57 (12), 4701 - 4719
full text (doi) - Miniussi, A., Merz, R., Kaule, L., Basso, S. (2023):
Identifying discontinuities of flood frequency curves
J. Hydrol. 617, Part B , art. 128989
full text (doi) - Tarasova, L., Lun, D., Merz, R., Blöschl, G., Basso, S., Bertola, M., Miniussi, A., Rakovec, O., Samaniego, L., Thober, S., Kumar, R. (2023):
Shifts in flood generation processes exacerbate regional flood anomalies in Europe
Commun. Earth Environ. 4 , art. 49
full text (doi) - Wachholz, A., Dehaspe, J., Ebeling, P., Kumar, R., Musolff, A., Saavedra, F., Winter, C., Yang, S., Graeber, D. (2023):
Stoichiometry on the edge - humans induce strong imbalances of reactive C:N:P ratios in streams
Environ. Res. Lett. 18 (4), art. 044016
full text (doi) - Wang, H.-J., Merz, R., Yang, S., Tarasova, L., Basso, S. (2023):
Emergence of heavy tails in streamflow distributions: the role of spatial rainfall variability
Adv. Water Resour. 171 , art. 104359
full text (doi)
2022 (9)
- Basso, S., Bakken, T.H. (2022):
Editorial: Reconciling small hydropower and ecosystem services in river basins
Front. Environ. Sci. 10 , art. 874065
full text (doi) - Giani, G., Tarasova, L., Woods, R.A., Rico-Ramirez, M.A. (2022):
An objective time-series-analysis method for rainfall-runoff event identification
Water Resour. Res. 58 (2), e2021WR031283
full text (doi) - Merz, B., Basso, S., Fischer, S., Lun, D., Blöschl, G., Merz, R., Guse, B., Viglione, A., Vorogushyn, S., Macdonald, E., Wietzke, L., Schumann, A. (2022):
Understanding heavy tails of flood peak distributions
Water Resour. Res. 58 (6), e2021WR030506
full text (doi) - Merz, R., Miniussi, A., Basso, S., Petersen, K.-J., Tarasova, L. (2022):
More complex is not necessarily better in large-scale hydrological modelling: A model complexity experiment across the contiguous United States
Bull. Amer. Meteorol. Soc. 103 (8), E1947 - E1967
full text (doi) - Mushtaq, S., Miniussi, A., Merz, R., Basso, S. (2022):
Reliable estimation of high floods: A method to select the most suitable ordinary distribution in the Metastatistical extreme value framework
Adv. Water Resour. 161 , art. 104127
full text (doi) - Peña-Guerrero, M.D., Umirbekov, A., Tarasova, L., Müller, D. (2022):
Comparing the performance of high-resolution global precipitation products across topographic and climatic gradients of Central Asia
Int. J. Climatol. 42 (11), 5554 - 5569
full text (doi) - Saavedra, F.A., Musolff, A., von Freyberg, J., Merz, R., Basso, S., Tarasova, L. (2022):
Disentangling scatter in long-term concentration–discharge relationships: the role of event types
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 26 (23), 6227 - 6245
full text (doi) - Winter, C., Tarasova, L., Lutz, S.R., Musolff, A., Kumar, R., Fleckenstein, J.H. (2022):
Explaining the variability in high-frequency nitrate export patterns using long-term hydrological event classification
Water Resour. Res. 58 (1), e2021WR030938
full text (doi) - Yang, S., Büttner, O., Kumar, R., Basso, S., Borchardt, D. (2022):
An analytical framework for determining the ecological risks of wastewater discharges in river networks under climate change
Earth Future 10 (10), e2021EF002601
full text (doi)
2021 (3)
- Basso, S., Botter, G., Merz, R., Miniussi, A. (2021):
PHEV! The PHysically-based Extreme Value distribution of river flows
Environ. Res. Lett. 16 (12), art. 124065
full text (doi) - Basso, S., Ghazanchaei, Z., Tarasova, L. (2021):
Characterizing hydrograph recessions from satellite-derived soil moisture
Sci. Total Environ. 756 , art. 143469
full text (doi) - Miniussi, A., Marra, F. (2021):
Estimation of extreme daily precipitation return levels at-site and in ungauged locations using the simplified MEV approach
J. Hydrol. 603, Part B , art. 126946
full text (doi)
2020 (8)
- Basso, S., Lazzaro, G., Bovo, M., Soulsby, C., Botter, G. (2020):
Water-energy-ecosystem nexus in small run-of-river hydropower: Optimal design and policy
Appl. Energy 280 , art. 115936
full text (doi) - Merz, R., Tarasova, L., Basso, S. (2020):
The flood cooking book: ingredients and regional flavors of floods across Germany
Environ. Res. Lett. 15 (11), art. 114024
full text (doi) - Merz, R., Tarasova, L., Basso, S. (2020):
Parameter's controls of distributed catchment models—How much information is in conventional catchment descriptors?
Water Resour. Res. 56 (2), e2019WR026008
full text (doi) - Miniussi, A., Marani, M. (2020):
Estimation of daily rainfall extremes through the Metastatistical Extreme Value Distribution: uncertainty minimization and implications for trend detection
Water Resour. Res. 56 (7), e2019WR026535
full text (doi) - Miniussi, A., Marani, M., Villarini, G. (2020):
Metastatistical Extreme Value Distribution applied to floods across the continental United States
Adv. Water Resour. 136 , art. 103498
full text (doi) - Miniussi, A., Villarini, G., Marani, M. (2020):
Analyses through the Metastatistical Extreme Value distribution identify contributions of Tropical Cyclones to rainfall extremes in the Eastern US
Geophys. Res. Lett. 47 (7), e2020GL087238
full text (doi) - Tarasova, L., Basso, S., Merz, R. (2020):
Transformation of generation processes from small runoff events to large floods
Geophys. Res. Lett. 47 (22), e2020GL090547
full text (doi) - Tarasova, L., Basso, S., Wendi, D., Viglione, A., Kumar, R., Merz, R. (2020):
A process‐based framework to characterize and classify runoff events – the event typology of Germany
Water Resour. Res. 56 (5), e2019WR026951
full text (doi)
2019 (1)
- Tarasova, L., Merz, R., Kiss, A., Basso, S., Blöschl, G., Merz, B., Viglione, A., Plötner, S., Guse, B., Schumann, A., Fischer, S., Ahrens, B., Anwar, F., Bárdossy, A., Bühler, P., Haberlandt, U., Kreibich, H., Krug, A., Lun, D., Müller‐Thomy, H., Pidoto, R., Primo, C., Seidel, J., Vorogushyn, S., Wietzke, L. (2019):
Causative classification of river flood events
Wiley Interdiscip. Rev.-Water 6 (4), e1353
full text (doi)
2018 (3)
- Müller, C., Musolff, A., Strachauer, U., Brauns, M., Tarasova, L., Merz, R., Knöller, K. (2018):
Tomography of anthropogenic nitrate contribution along a mesoscale river
Sci. Total Environ. 615 , 773 - 783
full text (doi) - Tarasova, L., Basso, S., Poncelet, C., Merz, R. (2018):
Exploring controls on rainfall‐runoff events: 2. Regional patterns and spatial controls of event characteristics in Germany
Water Resour. Res. 54 (10), 7688 - 7710
full text (doi) - Tarasova, L., Basso, S., Zink, M., Merz, R. (2018):
Exploring controls on rainfall‐runoff events: 1. Time series‐based event separation and temporal dynamics of event runoff response in Germany
Water Resour. Res. 54 (10), 7711 - 7732
full text (doi)
2016 (1)
- Tarasova, L., Knoche, M., Dietrich, J., Merz, R. (2016):
Effects of input discretization, model complexity, and calibration strategy on model performance in a data-scarce glacierized catchment in Central Asia
Water Resour. Res. 52 (6), 4674 - 4699
full text (doi)