Project coordination:  Dr Ulf Mallast (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ)
Co-responsible:  Prof. Dr. Nils Moosdorf (Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) GmbH),   Dr. Hannelore Waska (ICBM )

Submarine groundwater inflow (SGD) as an input pathway for water and chemical constituents from land to sea is a recent topic, although its importance for substance cycles on a global scale is equivalent to that of rivers. Despite this importance, SGD quantities described so far contain large uncertainties, either because local point measurements have been extrapolated to regional scales or because they are based on modelling approaches of regional/global substance fluxes.

The network aims to provide a platform for a group of SGD experts to initiate and intensify cross-disciplinary collaboration. Through interdisciplinary validation, the network also aims to improve individual methods and provide a direct comparison between terrestrial and marine methods.

Ultimately, the network will produce an interdisciplinary catalogue of methods that highlights optimal combinations of methods from both disciplines for qualitative and quantitative SGD studies and that will form the basis for future SGD research. To achieve these goals, the network will be built around regular meetings and method comparison experiments in the littoral bay of Königshafen on Sylt.

The activities of the WG Physical Oceanography (Theory) within this network project include the development of a hydrodynamic model to simulate the flow conditions in the vicinity of the Königshafen Bay as well as the simulation of groundwater seeps and their distribution in the water column.

Images created by Niklas Barthel as part of a student research project