Brunner, Philip Andreas

Philip Brunner's CV

Research Project

My project region is the semiarid Yanqi Basin in Xinjiang, northwestern China. The project focuses on the modelling of the water and salt fluxes through this agriculturally used basin in order to quantify the salination process and to give advice to the local authorities on how to manage their natural resources (water and soil) in a sustainable way.
Quantifying the process of salination in a high spatial and temporal resolution involves several challenges, as the fluxes, e.g. the net exchange rate of water between soil, groundwater and atmosphere are difficult to quantify. The process of salination is dependent on various factors and can be studied with the help of several techniques, involving the fields of geodesy, remote sensing, modelling, GIS, soil science and hydrology. The final goal of this project is to understand and reproduce the process of salination and to simulate alternative strategies of water management that lead to sustainability of agriculture.
The salination process observed in the Yanqi Basin is a typical example for a misuse of the resource water in a semiarid region. Similar problems are found in Australia, Israel, Pakistan, just to mention a few. The methodology developed within this project can be adapted to other project regions where similar problems occur.

Publications

Brunner, P., Eugster, M., Bauer, P. and Kinzelbach, W., 2004. Using remote sensing to regionalize local precipitation recharge rates obtained from the chloride method. Journal of Hydrology, in press.

Brunner, P., 2004. Folgen einer intensiven Bewässerungslandwirtschaft am Beispiel des Yanqi-Beckens, China. Dr. rer nat J.L. Lozan Verlag, Hamburg, in press

Brunner, P., Kinzelbach, W. and Li, H.T., 2004. Generating large scale soil salinity maps with geophysics and remote sensing, General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union. European Geosciences Union, Nizza, France

Bauer, P., Brunner, P., Alberich, C.M. and Kinzelbach, W., 2004. THE USE OF REMOTE SENSING DATA IN WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT: SOME EXAMPLES FROM AFRICA AND CHINA. submitted to Géo Observateur.

Kinzelbach, W. P. Bauer, T. Siegfried, P. Brunner, 2004. Sustainable groundwater management- scientific problems and tools. Episodes, Vol. 4, 125-131

Brunner, P., 2003. Wasserhaushalt im Yanqi Becken, ETH Bulletin, pp. 14-17.

Brunner, P., Khan, S. and Kinzelbach, W., 2003. Comparing different arid basins with secondary salination: Towards a unified definition of sustainability. In: S. Kang, B. Davis, L. Shan and H. Cai (Editors), International Conference on Water- Saving Agriculture and Sustainable Use of Water and Land Resources in Arid and Semiarid Areas. Shaanxi Science and Technology Press, Yanglin, China, pp. 866-877.

Bauer, P., Brunner, P. and Kinzelbach, W., 2002. Quantifying the next exchange of water between land and atmosphere in the Okavango-Delta, Botswana. In: Z.H. K. Kovar (Editor), ModelCARE 2002. Acta Universitatis Carolinae-Geologica, Prag, pp. 581-584.

Kinzelbach, W., P. Bauer, T. Siegfried, P. Brunner, 2003. Nachhaltige Grundwasserwirtschaft - Probleme und wissenschaftliche Werkzeuge. Österreichische Wasserwirtschaft, 55(3-4).

Brunner, P. et al., 2002. Assessing the Groundwater Budget for Watersupply in an Area of Low Groundwater Recharge in Northern Botswana, Proceedings of the International Conference on Balancing the Groundwater Budget, Darvin, Australia.

Brunner, P. and Kinzelbach, W., 2002. Use of spreadsheet for soil water balance method, A survey of methods for analysing groundwater recharge in arid and semi-arid regions. Early Warning and Assessment Report Series. United Nations Environment Programme/UNESCO, Nairobi, Kenya

Brunner, P., Bauer, P. and Kinzelbach, W., 2002. Determination of recharge patterns by combining remote sensing and the chloride method. In: Z.H. K. Kovar (Editor), ModelCare 2002: Calibration and Reliability in Groundwater Modelling. IAHS Redbook. IAHS Publications, Prag, pp. 389-395.

Links