The working group is dedicated to a holistic view upon interactions between land use, land management, water and soil resources. Therefore, interdisciplinary research at the intersection between hydrology, soil science, geomorphology, agronomy and biogeochemistry is essential, and is the focus of the working group members.

Special interests within the working group are:

 

  • Surface runoff and soil redistribution as affected by landscape patchiness and connectivity.
  • Modelling soil redistribution with conceptual, physically-oriented and data-driven, machine learning approaches
  • Sediment-burden carbon redistribution and its effects upon terrestrial and aquatic carbon balance.
  • Macro and Microplastic in agricultural soil systems (coordinating the EU Innovative Training Network SOPLAS)
  • Sustainable management of water and soil resources.
  • Land use and land management interactions with regional climate

We use and refine a wide range of conceptual, physically oriented and date-driven, machine learning models to analyse different aspects of water, sediment, carbon and microplastic fluxes on various spatial and temporal scales. Moreover, field as well as laboratory measurements are carried out to improve process understanding, which range from sediment, carbon and microplastic analyses to continuous monitoring in small catchments.

Apart from research in Central Europe, the working group is active in the tropical South of India as well as in Central and Western Africa. The research group is part of the faculty of Applied Informatics of University Augsburg and is also involved into the activities of the Environmental Science Centre (WZU) and the Centre for Climate Resilience (ZfK).

Overview

Working Group
The Measuring and Modelling of Erosion for Soil Health Network (M²ESH)

News

Oct. 27, 2025

Farmers’ Association Visits Institute to Discuss Plastic Use in Agriculture

We were pleased to welcome members of the Württemberg-Franconian Turkey Producers Association to the Institute of Geography for a constructive discussion on plastic contamination in agricultural soil systems.

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Oct. 13, 2025

New Letter

Brandes, E., Fiener, P., & Gessler, A. (2025).
Scaling laboratory results with machine learning is no silver bullet to strengthen global (micro) plastic mitigation policy.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122 (42), e2515836122.

 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2515836122 

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Oct. 1, 2025

New Book Chapter

Maarten W., Pedro P.V.B., & Andrew B. (2025). 

Accelerating soil erosion and sediment yields in (sub)tropical savannas of the Anthropocene, Elsevier, Reference Module in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences, ISBN: 9780124095489

 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-443-14082-2.00158-7

 

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All News

Contact

 

Prof. Dr. Peter Fiener

 

Professor

Water and Soil Resource Research

 

Phone: +49 821 598 2665

Email: peter.fiener@geo.uni-augsburg.de

 

Petra Richter

 

Secretary

Physical Geography and Climate Science

 

Phone: +49 821 598 2670

Email: sekretariat-phygeo@geo.uni-augsburg.de

General Contact:

 

Address

Arbeitsgruppe Wasser- und Bodenressourcen Forschung

Institut für Geographie

Universität Augsburg

Alter Postweg 118

 

86159 Augsburg

 

 

Phone (Secretary): +49 821 598 2670

E-Mail (Secretary): sekretariat-phygeo@geo.uni-augsburg.de

 

 

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  Institute of Geography   

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