Seit 1990 waren mehrere der großen Flussgebiete Mitteleuropas wiederholt von extremen Hochwassern betroffen. Da sowohl die Landoberfläche als auch die Flusssysteme weiter Teile Mitteleuropas in der Vergangenheit weitreichenden Eingriffen ausgesetzt gewesen sind, wird bei der Suche nach den Ursachen für diese Häufung von Extremereignissen auch die Frage nach der Verantwortung des Menschen hierfür diskutiert. Gewässerausbau, Flächenversiegelung, intensive landwirtschaftliche Bodenbearbeitung, Flurbereinigung und Waldschäden sind nur einige Beispiele und Folgen der anthropogenen Eingriffe in die Landschaft. Aufgrund der Vielfalt der beteiligten Prozesse und deren Wechselwirkungen gibt es allerdings bislang nur Schätzungen darüber, wie sehr sich die Hochwassersituation hierdurch verändert hat. Vorrangiges Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es, mit Hilfe eines hydrologischen Modells systematisch darzustellen, in welcher Weise, in welcher Größenordnung und unter welchen Umständen die Art der Landnutzung auf die Hochwasserentstehung Einfluss nimmt. Dies wird anhand exemplarischer Modellanwendungen in der hydrologischen Mesoskala untersucht. Zu diesem Zweck wurde das deterministische und flächendifferenzierte hydrologische Modell wasim-eth ausgewählt, das sich durch eine ausgewogene Mischung aus physikalisch begründeten und konzeptionellen Ansätzen auszeichnet. Das Modell wurde im Rahmen dieser Arbeit um verschiedene Aspekte erweitert, die für die Charakterisierung des Einflusses der Landnutzung auf die Hochwasserentstehung wichtig sind: (1) Bevorzugtes Fließen in Makroporen wird durch eine Zweiteilung des Bodens in Makroporen und Bodenmatrix dargestellt, die schnelle Infiltration und Perkolation jenseits der hydraulischen Leitfähigkeit der Bodenmatrix ermöglicht. (2) Verschlämmung äußert sich im Modell abhängig von Niederschlagsintensität und Vegetationsbedeckungsgrad als Verschlechterung der Infiltrationsbedingungen an der Bodenoberfläche. (3) Das heterogene Erscheinungsbild bebauter Flächen mit einer Mischung aus versiegelten Bereichen und Freiflächen wird berücksichtigt, indem jede Teilfläche je nach Versiegelungsgrad in einen unversiegelten Bereich und einen versiegelten Bereich mit Anschluss an die Kanalisation aufgeteilt wird. (4) Dezentraler Rückhalt von Niederschlagswasser kann sowohl für natürliche Mulden als auch für gezielt angelegte Versickerungsmulden mit definierten Infiltrationsbedingungen simuliert werden. Das erweiterte Modell wird exemplarisch auf drei mesoskalige Teileinzugsgebiete des Rheins angewandt. Diese drei Gebiete mit einer Fläche von zwischen 100 und 500 km² wurden im Hinblick darauf ausgewählt, dass jeweils eine der drei Hauptlandnutzungskategorien Bebauung, landwirtschaftliche Nutzung oder Wald dominiert. Für die drei Untersuchungsgebiete sind räumlich explizite Landnutzungs- und Landbedeckungsszenarien entworfen worden, deren Einfluss auf die Hochwasserentstehung mit Hilfe des erweiterten hydrologischen Modells simuliert wird. Im Einzelnen werden die Auswirkungen von Verstädterung, Maßnahmen zur Niederschlagsversickerung in Siedlungsgebieten, Stilllegung agrarisch genutzter Flächen, veränderter landwirtschaftlicher Bodenbearbeitung, Aufforstung sowie von Sturmschäden in Wäldern untersucht. Diese Eingriffe beeinflussen die Interzeption von Niederschlag, dessen Infiltration, die oberflächennahen unterirdischen Fließprozesse sowie, zum Beispiel im Fall der Kanalisation, auch die Abflusskonzentration. Die hydrologischen Simulationen demonstrieren, dass die Versiegelung einer Fläche den massivsten Eingriff in die natürlichen Verhältnisse darstellt und deshalb die stärksten (negativen) Veränderungen der Hochwassersituation hervorbringt. Außerdem wird deutlich, dass eine bloße Änderung des Interzeptionsvermögens zu keinen wesentlichen Veränderungen führt, da die Speicherkapazität der Pflanzenoberflächen im Verhältnis zum Volumen hochwasserauslösender Niederschläge eher klein ist. Stärkere Veränderungen ergeben sich hingegen aus einer Änderung der Infiltrationsbedingungen. Die Grenzen der entwickelten Methodik zeigen sich am deutlichsten bei der Simulation veränderter landwirtschaftlicher Bewirtschaftungsmethoden, deren mathematische Beschreibung und zahlenmäßige Charakterisierung aufgrund der Komplexität der beteiligten Prozesse mit großen Unsicherheiten behaftet ist. Die Modellierungsergebnisse belegen darüber hinaus, dass pauschale Aussagen zum Einfluss der Landnutzung auf die Hochwasserentstehung aufgrund der entscheidenden Bedeutung der klimatischen und physiographischen Randbedingungen unzulässig sind. Zu den klimatischen Randbedingungen zählen sowohl Niederschlagsintensität und -dauer als auch die Feuchtebedingungen vor einem hochwasserauslösenden Niederschlag. Die physiographischen Randbedingungen sind von der geomorphologischen und geologischen Ausstattung des Gebiets vorgegeben. Weiterhin muss der räumliche und zeitliche Maßstab, über den Aussagen getroffen werden, klar definiert sein, da sich mit steigender Einzugsgebietsgröße die relative Bedeutung sowohl der verschiedenen Niederschlagstypen als auch der physiographischen Eigenschaften verschiebt. Dies wird in der vorliegenden Arbeit im Gegensatz zu vielen anderen Untersuchungen konsequent berücksichtigt. In Abhängigkeit von Randbedingungen und räumlichen Maßstab sind aufgrund der gewonnen Erkenntnisse folgende Aussagen zum Einfluss von Landnutzungsänderungen auf die Hochwasserentstehung möglich: (1) Für intensive konvektive Niederschlagsereignisse mit tendenziell geringer Vorfeuchte ist der Einfluss der Landnutzung größer als für langanhaltende advektive Niederschläge geringer Intensität, da im ersten Fall veränderte Infiltrationsbedingungen stärker zum Tragen kommen als bei kleinen Niederschlagsintensitäten. (2) In kleinen Einzugsgebieten, wo kleinräumige Konvektivzellen zu Hochwassern führen können, ist der Einfluss der Landnutzung dementsprechend größer als in großen Flussgebieten wie dem Rheingebiet, wo vor allem langanhaltende advektive Ereignisse (unter Umständen verbunden mit Schneeschmelze) relevant sind. (3) In Gebieten mit guten Speichereigenschaften wie mächtigen, gut durchlässigen Böden und gut durchlässigem Gesteinsuntergrund ist der Einfluss der Landnutzung größer als in Gebieten mit geringmächtigen Böden und geringdurchlässigem Festgestein. Dies ist darin begründet, dass in Gebieten mit guten Speichereigenschaften bei einer Verschlechterung der Infiltrationsbedingungen mehr Speicherraum für Niederschlag verloren geht als in anderen Gebieten. / Since 1990, several of the large European river basins were affected repeatedly by extreme floods. As both the landscape and the river systems in large parts of Central Europe have undergone major changes in the past, during the search for the causes of this accumulation of extreme events also the impact of human activities on flooding has been discussed. River training, surface sealing, intensive agricultural land-use, consolidation of farmland, and damages to forests are only some examples and consequences of the anthropogenic interferences with the landscape. But due to the diversity of the processes and factors involved, by now it can only be estimated how far the flood situation has changed by these interferences. Therefore, the main target of this thesis is to describe systematically in which way, to what extent and under which circumstances the land-use exerts an influence on storm-runoff generation and subsequently the discharge of rivers. This is investigated by means of exemplary model applications at the hydrological meso-scale. For this task, the deterministic and distributed hydrological model wasim-eth was chosen due to its well-balanced mixture of physically-based and conceptual approaches. In the framework of this thesis, the model has been extended in order to cope with several phenomena which are important when aiming at a characterization of the influence of land-use on flood generation: (1) Preferential flow in macropores is treated by a division of the soil into macropores and a soil matrix. This so-called double-porosity approach allows for fast infiltration and percolation beyond the hydraulic conductivity of the soil matrix. (2) Siltation expresses itself within the model as a deterioration of infiltration conditions at the soil surface, depending on precipitation intensity and the degree of vegetation covering. (3) The heterogeneous appearance of built-up areas, consisting of both sealed areas and pervious areas, is taken into account by dividing each partial area into an unsealed part and a sealed part which is connected to the sewer system. (4) Decentralized storage can be simulated for natural depressions as well as for specific infiltration measures with defined infiltration conditions. The extended model is exemplarily applied to three meso-scale tributaries of the Rhine river. These three catchments with an area of between 100 and 500 km² were chosen with regard to their prevailing land-use, one of them being heavily urbanized, one dominated by agricultural use, and one being mainly forested. For these three catchments, spatially explicit land-use and land-cover scenarios were developed. The impact of these scenarios on storm-runoff generation is being simulated using the extended hydrological model. In this context, namely urbanization, infiltration measures in settlement areas, conversion of farmland to set-aside areas, altered agricultural management practices, affor estation and storm damages in forests are taken into account. These changes influence the interception of rainfall, its infiltration into the soil, the subsurface flow processes next to the soil surface as well as, for example in the case of sewer systems, also runoff concentration. The hydrological simulations demonstrate that sealing of the soil surface is the most intensive intervention in the natural conditions among the ones which are mentioned above. Therefore it results in the strongest (negative) changes of the flooding situation in a catchment. In addition to that, the simulations show that a simple alteration in the interception capacity does not yield significant changes in catchment response, because the storage capacity of vegetation surfaces is rather low compared to the volume of storm events which normally lead to significant floods. More pronounced changes arise from modifications in the infiltration conditions. The limits of the methodology which was chosen for this thesis become obvious when simulating altered agricultural management practices. Due the complexity of the processes involved, mathematical description and parameterization is difficult and therefore afflicted with high uncertainty. In addition to that, the modelling results prove that global statements on the influence of land-use on flood generation are illegitimate because of the paramount importance of the climatic and physiographic boundary conditions. Climatic boundary conditions are precipitation intensity and duration as well as the moisture conditions before a storm event. The physiographic boundary counditions are given by the geomorphological and geological catchment properties. Furthermore, with increasing scale there is a shift in the relative importance of the different types of rainfall as well as the different geophysical catchment properties. Therefore, the spatial and temporal scale for which the results are valid have to be clearly defined. This is taken into account consequently within this thesis – in contrast to many other studies on this topic. Depending on boundary conditions and spatial scale, the findings allow the following statements regarding the influence of land-use changes on storm-runoff generation: (1) For intensive convective storm events with generally low antecedent soil moisture, the influence of land-use is greater than for long-lasting advective storm events with low rainfall intensities, because in the first case changes in the infiltration conditions are more important than during times of low precipitation intensities. (2) In small catchments, where small-scale convective cells can lead to a flood, the influence of land-use is accordingly greater than in large river basins like the Rhine basin, where long-lasting advective rainfalls (possibly in combination with snowmelt) are relevant. (3) In areas with good storage conditions like thick, permeable soils and pervious rock underneath, the influence of land-use is greater than in areas with thin soils and only slightly permeable bedrock. This is due to the fact that in case of deteriorating infiltration conditions, more storage space for precipitation is lost in areas with good storage conditions than in other areas.

Land-use changes impact the energy balance of the Earth system, and feedbacks in the Earth system can dampen or amplify this perturbation. We analyze here from satellite data the response of clouds and subsequently radiation to a change of land use for the example of deforestation in the Amazon Basin. In this region, the characteristics of different cloud types over two vegetation types (forest and crop-/grasslands) were calculated for a time period of five years by using satellite data from the instruments MODIS and CERES. The cloud types are defined according to height, optical thickness, and fraction of cloud cover. For calculating the radiative forcing caused by deforestation, the dependency of spatial and temporal averages for the reflected shortwave and outgoing longwave radiation of the top of the atmosphere on vegetation types were determined as well. The results show distinct differences in cloud cover and radiative forcing over crop-/grasslands and forests for the two vegetation regimes, implying a potentially significant positive cloud feedback to deforestation.

Clay minerals and pedogenic metal (oxyhydr)oxides (hereafter termed ‛oxides’) significantly affect organic carbon (OC) storage and persistence in soils. Although it is known from laboratory experiments that minerals have a high variability in their reactivity, there is still a lack of fundamental knowledge how changing mineral composition under natural soil conditions works. The frequently used clay content (soil particles < 2-μm) or the dithionite-citrate-bicarbonate extractable Fe (Fed) content do not allow a mechanistic explanation of the function of clay minerals and pedogenic metal oxides. This is due to the fact that a similar relative mineral composition cannot necessarily be derived from the clay content. Therefore, the overall objective of the thesis was to identify the influence of defined mineralogical combinations on OC content, stock, and persistence under forest and cropland. The study examined highly weathered acidic soils (mainly Acrisols) from the East Usambara Mountains in NE Tanzania. The long-term weathering of geologically similar crystalline material under a humid tropical climate has produced a uniform spectrum of pedogenic minerals. Nonetheless, differences in the relative compositions of kaolinite (Al2Si2O5(OH)4), gibbsite (γ-Al(OH)3), goethite (α-FeOOH) and hematite (α-Fe2O3) were identified for the investigated soils. The soils were classified according to their mineralogical composition, based on the content of aluminous clay (kaolinite and gibbsite) and pedogenic Fe oxides (goethite and hematite). The applied approach generated a range of 149–434 g kg–1 for aluminous clay, and a range of 21–101 g kg–1 for Fed. A significant loss of 1.3 kg C m–2 was observed for the top 0–10 cm under cropland in comparison to the near-natural forests. Both the OC content and its persistence were significantly affected by the mineralogical composition in the soils. The ‛low clay‒high Fe’ combination had a similar or significantly higher OC content under both land uses, whereas significantly lower OC contents were measured for the other combinations under cropland. A more distinct effect of the mineral composition was measured for the mineral-associated OC (MAOC) content, which was determined by density fractionation and defined as OC associated with the heavy fraction (HF). A MAOC content of 37.4 g C kg–1 was measured for the ‛low clay‒high Fe’ combination, while only 19.4 g C kg–1 was found for the ‛high clay‒high Fe’ combination under cropland in the 0–10 cm depth. The lower OC and MAOC contents were accompanied by a significantly higher content of soil particles < 2-μm for the latter combination. This clearly reveals that no causal relationship between the OC and MAOC contents with the clay content can be established unless the dominant mineral phases and their composition for the soil sample are known. Analysis of the soils in the mineralogical combinations showed that with similar mineralogy, the Fed / aluminous clay ratio can be used as a metric to evaluate OC and MAOC contents and the persistence against land-use change. No significant changes were measured in the investigated soils under land-use change from forest to cropland for ratio values between 0.44 and 0.56. Results from a conducted incubation experiment and chemical oxidation of mineral-bound OC supported this result. The separation of the HF material in defined grain-size fractions along the respective mineralogical combinations revealed that the siltHF and clayHF fractions make an almost identical contribution to the total MAOC storage under undisturbed soil conditions. Thus, the MAOC content of the entire HF is mainly explained by the different mass of the grain-sizes fractions. Of particular note is the variable effect of land-use change on MAOC contents in the siltHF and clayHF fractions. While the MAOC content of the clayHF fraction showed little variation between land uses, the MAOC content of the siltHF fraction tracked the contents of the entire HF fraction along the mineralogical combinations. This result implies that small microaggregates / mineral-clusters (< 63-μm) are modified in their properties by changing mineral composition, which has a direct impact on the persistence of MAOC. Soil structure analysis revealed a high amount of very stable macroaggregates of the soils along the mineralogical combinations with small, but significant differences under both land uses. The results showed that an aluminous clay content of > 250 g kg–1 combined with Fed content of < 60 g kg–1 (‛high clay‒low Fe’) had a significantly positive effect on macroaggregation. The opposite combination (‛low clay‒high Fe’) caused a significant decrease in aggregates > 4 mm under cropland, which, however, was not associated with a significant decrease of the aggregate related OC content. Thus, the macroaggregation was influenced by the mineralogical combinations, but this had no significant effect on the related OC content. Rather, it becomes clear that interactions between minerals were particularly important in mineral clusters > 2-μm and < 63-μm, which determined the significant impact on the total (MA)OC content along the mineralogical combinations. Further studies can follow this trajectory to extend the mechanistic understanding of OC and MAOC content and persistence for highly weathered soils in the humid tropics.:1. General introduction 1.1 Soils of the humid tropics and their dominant mineral phases 1.2 Influence of mineralogy on the formation of mineral-associated OM in highly weathered soils of the humid tropics 1.3 Aggregation in weathered soils of the humid tropics: formation and associated organic carbon content 1.5 Scientific goals, main objectives, and hypotheses 2. Methodology 2.1 Characterization of the study area and the sampling strategy 2.2 Analyses to characterize mineral phases, MAOC and aggregation of the selected mineralogical combinations 2.3 Data set and applied statistical methods 3. General results and discussion 3.1 Soil mineralogical properties of the selected aluminous clay and pedogenic Fe oxide combinations 3.2 Basic considerations on bulk OC stocks and effect of mineralogical combinations on bulk OC and MAOC content and persistence 3.3 Effect of mineralogy on aggregation and aggregate-related OC contents 4. Conclusion 5. References Part II – Scientific publications 1. Impact of land use on soil organic carbon stocks in the humid tropics of NE Tanzania 1.0 Abstract 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Material and Methods 1.2.1 Study area 1.2.2 Description of the investigated land uses 1.2.3 Sampling, processing and analysis of soil 1.3 Results 1.3.1 Soil characterization 1.3.2 Content and stocks of SOC to 100 cm depth (soil profile approach) 1.3.3 SOC stocks of diagnostic soil horizons compared to fixed depth increments (satellite approach) 1.3.4 Content of clay, dithionite- and oxalate-extractable Fe and Al, and relationships to SOC content 1.4. Discussion 1.4.1 Impacts of land use on SOC stocks and potential controls of SOC stabilization 1.4.2 Effects of sampling schemes on the analysis of SOC stocks 1.5 Conclusions 1.6 References 2. Iron oxides and aluminous clays selectively control soil carbon contents and stability in the humid tropics 2.0 Abstract 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Results and Discussion 2.2.1 Mineralogical and geochemical properties of soil mineralogical combinations 2.2.2 Dependence of bulk soil carbon on aluminous clay and pedogenic Fe oxides 2.2.3 Effects of aluminous clay and pedogenic Fe oxides on mineral-associated carbon 2.2.5 Chemical and biological resistance of bulk and mineral-associated carbon 2.3 Implications 2.4. Methods 2.4.1 Study area and soil sampling 2.4.2 Basic soil properties 2.4.3 Density fractionation 2.4.4 Aluminous clay and pedogenic Fe oxide contents 2.4.5 Total element contents and weathering indicators 2.4.6 X-ray diffraction (XRD) 2.4.7 Mössbauer spectroscopy 2.4.8 Specific surface area (SSA) 2.4.9 13C Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy 2.4.10 Wet chemical oxidation and soil respiration 2.4.11 Statistics and calculations 2.5 References 2.6 Supplementary material 3. Aluminous clay and pedogenic Fe oxides modulate aggregation and related carbon contents in soils of the humid tropics 3.0 Abstract 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Material and methods 3.2.1 Study area and soil sampling 3.2.2 Soil analyses 3.2.2.1 Basic soil properties and terminology of selected mineralogical combinations 3.2.2.2 Aggregate size distribution and aggregate stability 3.2.2.3 Statistics and calculations 3.3 Results 3.3.1 Mineralogical composition and general soil properties 3.3.2 Aggregate size distribution 3.3.3 Aggregate stability 3.3.4 Organic carbon in soils and aggregate size fractions 3.4 Discussion 3.4.1 Aggregation and aggregate stability as controlled by aluminous clay and pedogenic Fe oxides 3.4.2 Importance of aggregation for OC persistence – effects of aluminous clay and pedogenic Fe oxides 3.5 Conclusions 3.6 References 3.7 Supplementary material 4. Appendix Erklärung zur Eröffnung des Promotionsverfahrens

Soils contain a large amount of carbon (C) that is a critical regulator of the global C budget. Already small changes in the processes governing soil C cycling have the potential to release considerable amounts of CO2, a greenhouse gas (GHG), adding additional radiative forcing to the atmosphere and hence to changing climate. Increased temperatures will probably create a feedback, causing soils to release more GHGs. Furthermore changes in soil C balance impact soil fertility and soil quality, potentially degrading soils and reducing soils function as important resource. Consequently the assessment of soil C dynamics under present, recent past and future environmental conditions is not only of scientific interest and requires an integrated consideration of main factors and processes governing soil C dynamics. To perform this assessment an eco-hydrological modelling tool was used and extended by a process-based description of coupled soil carbon and nitrogen turnover. The extended model aims at delivering sound information on soil C storage changes beside changes in water quality, quantity and vegetation growth under global change impacts in meso- to macro-scale river basins, exemplary demonstrated for a Central European river basin (the Elbe). As a result this study: ▪ Provides information on joint effects of land-use (land cover and land management) and climate changes on croplands soil C balance in the Elbe river basin (Central Europe) presently and in the future. ▪ Evaluates which processes, and at what level of process detail, have to be considered to perform an integrated simulation of soil C dynamics at the meso- to macro-scale and demonstrates the model’s capability to simulate these processes compared to observations. ▪ Proposes a process description relating soil C pools and turnover properties to readily measurable quantities. This reduces the number of model parameters, enhances the comparability of model results to observations, and delivers same performance simulating long-term soil C dynamics as other models. ▪ Presents an extensive assessment of the parameter and input data uncertainty and their importance both temporally and spatially on modelling soil C dynamics. For the basin scale assessments it is estimated that croplands in the Elbe basin currently act as a net source of carbon (net annual C flux of 11 g C m-2 yr-1, 1.57 106 tons CO2 yr-1 entire croplands on average). Although this highly depends on the amount of harvest by-products remaining on the field. Future anticipated climate change and observed climate change in the basin already accelerates soil C loss and increases source strengths (additional 3.2 g C m-2 yr-1, 0.48 106 tons CO2 yr-1 entire croplands). But anticipated changes of agro-economic conditions, translating to altered crop share distributions, display stronger effects on soil C storage than climate change. Depending on future use of land expected to fall out of agricultural use in the future (~ 30 % of croplands area as “surplus” land), the basin either considerably looses soil C and the net annual C flux to the atmosphere increases (surplus used as black fallow) or the basin converts to a net sink of C (sequestering 0.44 106 tons CO2 yr-1 under extensified use as ley-arable) or reacts with decrease in source strength when using bioenergy crops. Bioenergy crops additionally offer a considerable potential for fossil fuel substitution (~37 PJ, 1015 J per year), whereas the basin wide use of harvest by-products for energy generation has to be seen critically although offering an annual energy potential of approximately 125 PJ. Harvest by-products play a central role in soil C reproduction and a percentage between 50 and 80 % should remain on the fields in order to maintain soil quality and fertility. The established modelling tool allows quantifying climate, land use and major land management impacts on soil C balance. New is that the SOM turnover description is embedded in an eco-hydrological river basin model, allowing an integrated consideration of water quantity, water quality, vegetation growth, agricultural productivity and soil carbon changes under different environmental conditions. The methodology and assessment presented here demonstrates the potential for integrated assessment of soil C dynamics alongside with other ecosystem services under global change impacts and provides information on the potentials of soils for climate change mitigation (soil C sequestration) and on their soil fertility status. / Böden speichern große Mengen Kohlenstoff (C) und beeinflussen wesentlich den globalen C Haushalt. Schon geringe Änderungen der Steuergrößen des Bodenkohlenstoffs können dazu führen, dass beträchtliche Mengen CO2, ein Treibhausgas, in die Atmosphäre gelangen und zur globalen Erwärmung und dem Klimawandel beitragen. Der globale Temperaturanstieg verursacht dabei höchstwahrscheinlich eine Rückwirkung auf den Bodenkohlenstoffhaushalt mit einem einhergehenden erhöhten CO2 Fluss der Böden in die Atmosphäre. Weiterhin wirken sich Änderungen im Bodenkohlenstoffhaushalt auf die Bodenfruchtbarkeit und Bodenqualität aus, wobei eine Minderung der Bodenkohlenstoffvorräte wichtige Funtionen des Bodens beeinträchtigt und folglich den Boden als wichtige Ressource nachhaltig beinflusst. Demzufolge ist die Quantifizierung der Bodenkohlenstoffdynamik unter heutigen und zukünftigen Bedingungen von hohem Interesse und erfordert eine integrierte Betrachtung der wesentlichen Faktoren und Prozesse. Zur Quantifizierung wurde ein ökohydrologisches Flusseinzugsgebietsmodell erweitert. Ziel des erweiterten Modells ist es fundierte Informationen zu Veränderungen des Bodenkohlenstoffhaushaltes, neben Veränderungen der Wasserqualität, der Wasserverfügbarkeit und des Vegetationswachstums unter Globalem Wandel in meso- bis makroskaligen Flusseinzugsgebieten bereitzustellen. Dies wird am Beispiel eines zentraleuropäischen Flusseinzugsgebietes (der Elbe) demonstriert. Zusammenfassend ergibt diese Arbeit: ▪ eine Quantifizierung der heutigen und zukünftigen Auswirkungen des Klimawandels sowie von Änderungen der Landnutzung (Bodenbedeckung und Bodenbearbeitung) auf den Bodenkohlenstoffhaushalt agrarisch genutzter Räume im Einzugsgebiet der Elbe. ▪ eine Beurteilung welche Prozesse, und zu welchem Prozessdetail, zur integrierten Simulation der Bodenkohlenstoffdynamik in der meso- bis makroskala zu berücksichtigen sind. Weiterhin wird die Eignung der Modellerweiterung zur Simulation dieser Prozesse unter der Zuhilfenahme von Messwerten dargelegt. ▪ darauf begründet wird eine Prozessbeschreibung vorgeschlagen die die Eigenschaften der Bodenkohlenstoffspeicher und deren Umsetzungsrate mit in der betrachteten Skala zur Verfügung stehenden Messdaten und Geoinformationen verbindet. Die vorgeschlagene Prozessbeschreibung kann als robust hinsichtlich der Parametrisierung angesehen werden, da sie mit vergleichsweise wenigen Modelparametern eine ähnliche Güte wie andere Bodenkohlenstoffmodelle ergibt. ▪ eine umfassende Betrachtung der Modell- und Eingangsdatenunsicherheiten von Modellergebnissen in ihrer räumlichen und zeitlichen Ausprägung. Das in dieser Arbeit vorgestellte Modellsystem erlaubt eine Quantifizierung der Auswirkungen des Klima- und Landnutzungswandels auf den Bodenkohlenstoffhaushalt. Neu dabei ist, dass neben Auswirkungen auf den Bodenkohlenstoffhaushalt auch Auswirkungen auf Wasserverfügbarkeit, Wasserqualität, Vegetationswachstum und landwirtschaftlicher Produktivität erfasst werden können. Die im Rahmen dieser Arbeit dargelegten Ergebnisse erlauben eine integrierte Betrachtung der Auswirkungen des Globalen Wandels auf wichtige Ökosystemfunktionen in meso- bis makro-skaligen Flusseinzugsgebieten. Weiterhin können hier gewonnene Informationen zur Potentialabschätzung der Böden zur Linderung des Klimawandels (durch C Festlegung) und zum Erhalt ihrer Fruchtbarkeit genutzt werden.

No description available.

The objective of this study was to analyze patterns, dynamics and processes of land-use/cover changes in the transboundary Mara River Basin in East Africa. We specifically focused on deforestation and expansion of agriculture in the watershed. The intensity analysis approach was used to analyze data from satellite imagery-derived land-use/cover maps. Results indicate that swap change accounted for more than 50% of the overall change, which shows a very dynamic landscape transformation. Transition from closed forest to open forest was found to be a dominant landscape change, as opposed to a random change. Similarly, transition from open forest to small-scale agriculture was also found to be a dominant transition. This suggests a trend (pathway) of deforestation from closed forest to small-scale agriculture, with open forest as a transitional land cover. The observed deforestation may be attributed to continuous encroachment and a series of excisions of the forest reserve. Transition from rangeland to mechanized agriculture was found to be a dominant land-use change, which was attributed to change in land tenure. These findings are crucial for designing strategies and integrated watershed management policies to arrest further deforestation in the forest reserves as well as to sustainably control expansion of agriculture.

The objective of this study was to analyze patterns, dynamics and processes of land-use/cover changes in the transboundary Mara River Basin in East Africa. We specifically focused on deforestation and expansion of agriculture in the watershed. The intensity analysis approach was used to analyze data from satellite imagery-derived land-use/cover maps. Results indicate that swap change accounted for more than 50% of the overall change, which shows a very dynamic landscape transformation. Transition from closed forest to open forest was found to be a dominant landscape change, as opposed to a random change. Similarly, transition from open forest to small-scale agriculture was also found to be a dominant transition. This suggests a trend (pathway) of deforestation from closed forest to small-scale agriculture, with open forest as a transitional land cover. The observed deforestation may be attributed to continuous encroachment and a series of excisions of the forest reserve. Transition from rangeland to mechanized agriculture was found to be a dominant land-use change, which was attributed to change in land tenure. These findings are crucial for designing strategies and integrated watershed management policies to arrest further deforestation in the forest reserves as well as to sustainably control expansion of agriculture.

Land-use changes impact the energy balance of the Earth system, and feedbacks in the Earth system can dampen or amplify this perturbation. We analyze here from satellite data the response of clouds and subsequently radiation to a change of land use for the example of deforestation in the Amazon Basin. In this region, the characteristics of different cloud types over two vegetation types (forest and crop-/grasslands) were calculated for a time period of five years by using satellite data from the instruments MODIS and CERES. The cloud types are defined according to height, optical thickness, and fraction of cloud cover. For calculating the radiative forcing caused by deforestation, the dependency of spatial and temporal averages for the reflected shortwave and outgoing longwave radiation of the top of the atmosphere on vegetation types were determined as well. The results show distinct differences in cloud cover and radiative forcing over crop-/grasslands and forests for the two vegetation regimes, implying a potentially significant positive cloud feedback to deforestation.

Die Steppen Kasachstans haben seit dem Zusammenbruch der Sowjetunion einen tiefgreifenden Wandel erfahren. Insbesondere die Veränderung der Landnutzung, welche traditionell von der Acker- und Weidenutzung geprägt ist, sowie die daraus resultierenden Effekte auf das Feuerregime sind aktuell noch nicht ausreichend verstanden. Das Hauptziel dieser Dissertation besteht daher in der Kartierung und Analyse der Veränderungen im Mensch-Umweltsystem des nördlichen Kasachstans seit den 1980er Jahren. Ein auf jährlichen Landsat-Zeitreihen basierender Ansatz wurde entwickelt, um den Zeitpunkt der Aufgabe und Rekultivierung von landwirtschaftlichen Flächen mit hoher räumlicher und zeitlicher Auflösung zu dokumentieren. Dieser Datensatz ermöglichte z.B. die Schätzung des Anteils organischer Kohlenstoffbindungen im Boden auf Basis der Nutzungsgeschichte der letzten Jahrzehnte. Eine Kartierung der Änderungen im Feuerregime zeigte eine siebenfache Zunahme an verbrannter Fläche und eine Verachtfachung von Bränden innerhalb des Untersuchungszeitraumes. Sowohl landwirtschaftliche Feuer als auch die Landaufgabe waren mit einem erhöhten Brandrisiko assoziiert. Darüber hinaus wurde mithilfe von Spektralindizes und einem Random Forest Modell quantifiziert, wie sich der Beweidungsdruck nach dem Zerfall der Sowjetunion verändert hat. Die Analyse ergab einen Rückgang des Beweidungsdrucks in der kasachischen Steppe nach 1992, meist in der Nähe von aufgegebenen Nutzviehhaltestationen. In dieser Dissertation konnte gezeigt werden, wie Landsat-Zeitreihen genutzt werden können, um den Einfluss von Landnutzungsänderungen auf die Ökologie von Steppen besser zu verstehen. Die entwickelten Datensätze ermöglichen es, die Prozesse, die zur Landaufgabe und den damit zusammenhängenden Auswirkungen auf die kasachische Steppe führten, zu entwirren und können zur Entscheidungsfindung in der Landnutzungs- und Naturschutzplanung verwendet werden. / The steppes of Kazakhstan are one of the world regions that experienced massive changes in land-use intensity and widespread land-use change after the breakdown of the Soviet Union. Cropping and grazing regime changes across the steppes of Kazakhstan are understudied, and related spatio-temporal changes, e.g. in fire regimes, are still poorly understood. The main research goal of this thesis was to develop a methodology to map related change at appropriate scales and to provide novel datasets to enhance our understanding of how the coupled human-environment in Northern Kazakhstan has changed since the 1980s. An approach was developed to identify the timing of post-Soviet cropland abandonment and recultivation in northern Kazakhstan. Knowing the timing of abandonment allowed for deeper insights into what drives these dynamics: for example, recultivation after 2007 happened mainly on land that had been abandoned latest. Knowing the timing of abandonment allowed for substantially more precise estimates of soil organic carbon sequestration. Mapping changes in fire regimes highlighted a sevenfold increase in burnt area and an eightfold increase in number of fires after the breakdown of the Soviet Union. Agricultural burning and abandonment were associated with increased fire risk. Grazing probabilities, derived from Landsat using a random forest, were found to provide the best metrics to capture grazing pressure. The analysis revealed a general decline in grazing pressure in the Kazakh steppe after 1992, especially near abandoned livestock stations. Collectively, the dissertation highlights how dense records of Landsat images can be utilized to better understand land use changes and the ecology of steppes across large areas. The datasets developed within this thesis allow to disentangle the processes leading to and the impacts of agricultural abandonment in the temperate Kazakh steppes, and may be used to support decision-making in land-use and conservation planning.

As the global population continues to grow, urbanization is one of the most significant anthropogenic processes linked to ecological change. But even in countries where the overall population is stagnating, migratory movements toward urban centres will continue to place pressure on the finite resource of land. Therefore, it is particularly important to determine and describe the development of settlement areas as precisely as possible in order to inform spatial planning decisions. For this reason, this dissertation presents vector-based methods to analyse, quantify and evaluate small-scale changes in settlement area. In this work, which constitutes a cumulative dissertation, novel methods are described that can be used to determine not only areal change in settlement and traffic areas (SuV), but also the type of building change and urban densification. This is of particular interest for the spatial planning of expanding metropolitan areas, where the question arises: Where, how and to which extent can built-up areas be further densified in order to reduce the consumption of land for new settlement areas? The methods presented here can facilitate spatially detailed analyses and already form the basis for a nationwide monitoring of settlement and open space development. This work shows how geometric deviations and changes in the underlying data model can be taken into account when determining SuV growth from data of the Authoritative Topographic-Cartographic Information System (ATKIS). In this context, positional inaccuracies of linearly and arealy modelled geometries are each treated in a special way so that minor positional offsets no longer affect the SuV increase. In addition, changes in the data model are accommodated by disregarding specific object reallocations when determining the SuV increase. To test these methods, the SuV increase was determined and analysed for Germany using national ATKIS data sets that feature geometric positional inaccuracies and data model changes. It could be shown that a considerable share of the calculated SuV increase is not due to real-world changes but to modelling issues. Furthermore, a novel method for the detection of building changes is presented, which focuses on the differentiation between modified and replaced buildings. It could be shown that this new approach is more accurate than other investigated methods. Furthermore, an algorithm was developed in this work to generate defined location deviations. This could be used to show how position deviations affect the accuracy of the examined procedures. The threshold values determined in this work can form the basis for similar investigations. In addition, an indicator was developed to track changes in building density. This indicator not only reflects the extent of building change but also the size of the existing building stock. Moreover, the indicator was designed in such a way as to allow comparison of the densification of developed and undeveloped areas, and thus also inner and outer urban areas. Furthermore, the indicator can be used to symmetrically calculate a decrease in the building stock, enabling a comparison of densification and de-densification processes.:1. Introduction 1.1 Motivation 1.2 Problem description 1.3 Aims 1.4 Structure 2. Dissertation main articles 2.1 Measuring land take in Germany 2.2 Detecting building change 2.3 Indicator for building densification 3. Methods for measuring settlement changes 3.1 Measuring changes through land use data 3.2 Detection of building changes 3.3 Measuring changes in building density 4. Main findings 4.1 Effects of non-real changes on land take 4.2 Distinguishing building modification and replacement 4.3 Impact of building changes on building density 4.4 How the articles are connected 4.5 Additional relevant publications 5. Conclusion and Outlook References Abbreviations List of figures List of author’s publications Articles Conference Papers Acknowledgments Appendix with publications