Research News
Water body researchers from the UFZ install a sensor at the Rappbode Dam. They are trying to find the cause for the over the past years continuously increasing amount of dissolved organic carbon in the water. Photo: André Künzelmann/UFZ
More information:
Interviews with Prof. Dr Teutsch regarding the Water Science Alliance and the Water Research Horizon Conference for listening and reading:
An Alliance for Water Research
Flood, water pollution and water shortage are global problems that are continuously aggravated by climate change, increasing industrialisation and a growing population world-wide. To safeguard the availability of water as a resource in a sustainable manner, intensified cooperation across all disciplines is required between the various fields of water research. For this reason, the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ established the "Water Science Alliance".
In general, water research in Germany is in a good position. It features encompassing know how with regards to water body analysis and water management and is able to develop sophisticated technologies as well as complex systems for monitoring the environment and for early warning. So far, about 150 institutions annually receive public funds totalling 200 to 230 million Euro. Yet what is missing are long-term networking structures to optimally utilise the knowledge distributed across these institution. "In order to bundle the dispersed research landscape in the field of water sciences, the UFZ received a mandate from the Helmholtz Senate in 2009 to develop new concepts in the context of the "Water Science Alliance" and to create a joint platform", says Georg Teutsch, Scientific Director of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ. Within the framework of this "Water Science Alliance", leading research groups and institutions in future are to develop joint research goals and strategies towards an interdisciplinary cooperation in the field of water research To this effect, six research fields that are to be focused on with priority both on a national and an international level already were presented in a so-called "White Paper", which was drawn up in cooperation with stakeholders from water research, water management and the bodies providing research funding.
To fund the central framework of the water research alliance, the Helmholtz Association and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) allocated the first five million Euro. "Now the task is to tackle the big issues together with universities and other national and international partners and to form clusters of topics", says Georg Teutsch.
