New SONATA BIS project at the Department of Hydrology and Hydrodynamics
We are very pleased to announce that Assoc. Prof. Michael Nones from the Hydrology and Hydrodynamics Department IG PAS has been awarded the SONATA BIS grant for the project “Impact of global warming on large river sinuosity.”
SONATA BIS is a competition for research projects aimed at the establishment of a new scientific team, carried out by persons holding a degree or title who obtained their doctoral degree between 5 and 12 years before the year of application.
Taking advantage of the recent development in acquiring and processing satellite information via Google Earth Engine this project aims to investigate the impact that global warming has on large rivers, looking at changes in their sinuosity and the development of riparian vegetation within their banks.
To quote one of the reviewers - "The main strength of this proposal is the resonance of its aim – to explore and identify signatures of climate-driven change in planform channel expression for rivers globally. That research ambition is well-articulated and well-contextualised."
As lateral migration of river channels allows for connecting the main river with its floodplains, eventually controlling sediment deposition and carbon stock outside of the main current, a reduction in river sinuosity might have negative feedback on the greenhouse-gas budgets of the Earth through the competing effects of silicate weathering and organic matter degradation under a warming climate.
Existing studies correlating changes in river sinuosity with climate are limited to cold regions, as those regions are more sensitive to climate change, and are experiencing a faster rate of warming. However, a global dataset of changes in river sinuosity is still missing, and the present project will address this knowledge gap by analyzing large watercourses flowing at all latitudes.
Project Manager said: “Partially this project interacts with my current PreludiumBis 3 grant, and the medium/long term idea is to create a bigger group working on remote sensing of freshwater systems. I plan to have 1 PhD student for 4 years and a postDoc for 3 years.” The proposal was developed in collaboration with University of Bologna (Italy) and Liverpool (UK), so the idea is to further collaborate with them also developing joint projects on remote sensing and rivers.
The project budget is PLN 1,565,260.
We encourage you to read the project summary.
We sincerely congratulate you and wish you success in its implementation.
