Niklas Bruns

Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research

Department for Ecological Modeling

Permoserstr. 15
04318 Leipzig
Germany

Building 1.0

niklas.bruns@ufz.de

Research Interests

• Interactions between soil moisture drought and forest structures
• Development of forests in Germany under climate change
• Environmental models as Formind and mHM
  
• Model coupling using the UFZ coupling framework FINAM
  

Research Project

Forest are facing increasing environmental pressures under climate change, e.g., droughts. Climate change and human-induced changes in the water cycle alter forest dynamics. But processes as transpiration within forest ecosystems alter the water balance themselves, too, and therefore might have an influence on length and severity of soil moisture droughts. Examining such interactions is important for the understanding of multifunctional forest ecosystems, but made difficult by the specialisation of environmental models. Forest models such as the UFZ model Formind were developed to analyse forest growth under climate change. However, crucial soil water dynamics are only represented in simplistic ways in these models. In contrast, the UFZ hydrological model mHM simulates soil water dynamics in much greater detail but neglects the dynamics and species diversity of forest ecosystems, which may influence their resilience against drought impacts. The project aim is therefore to develop an improved model framework that combines the strengths of both models, FORMIND and mHM, in order to investigate the interactions between soil moisture drought and forest structures.

The project is part of the PhD College LISA.

CV