Felipe Saavedra Melendez

My project investigates the Effects of hydrological events on solute mobilization and delivery in German river catchments. The project is a part of the DYNAMO Cohort, which integrates four multidisciplinary PhD projects with the aim of improving the characterization of pollutant dynamics in river catchments. In my project, we plan to analyze the concentration-discharge (C-Q) relationships of a wide range of catchments to understand the variability of export regimes across different hydrological conditions.
Relationships between solute concentrations and streamflow rates observed at catchment outlets provide useful information on hydrological functioning and biogeochemical transformations at catchment scale. The shape of C-Q relationships of solutes encodes export regimes and determines the quantity of critical substances such as nutrients delivered to streams. A considerable scatter in C-Q relationships indicates an abundance of ambivalent situations that is possibly related to different hydrological event conditions occurring at sampling time. Furthermore, extreme hydrological events may even trigger lasting changes in export dynamics of solutes and produce adverse effects on water quality in streams despite mitigation efforts.