CD (Christopher) Wittmann, MSc

I have an interdisciplinary academic background in Environmental and Resource Management (B.Sc.) and Hydro Science and Engineering (M.Sc.) with a strong focus on issues relating to water management. Before beginning my PhD, I worked as a project engineer for the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive, where I developed catchment scale river restoration strategies and planned individual stream restoration, connectivity as well as water retention and peat protection measures.

During this work, I became aware of the insignificance of individual measures when decontextualized from the surrounding landscape, as well as the importance of restoring hydrological functions of the catchment for reaching the goals of the Water Framework Directive. Hence, I quickly realized the need for overarching strategies for re-equilibrating the natural hydrological cycle to cope with future hydrometeorological extremes such as floods and droughts.

My current research topic involves developing a modeling framework for assessing the impact and limitations of water retention measures, particularly Nature based Solutions, on a catchment scale. The aim is to find a robust approach to integrate these measures into a large-scale hydrological model to test different strategies and scenarios and predict their impact. This will provide the basis for developing catchment wide retention strategies and upscaling the implementation of measures.