Projects
Running projects
Solozori
Eroding food security - Cropland soil loss in the Rwenzori mountains of Uganda (Solozori)
Duration: from 2025 to 2028
Funding institution: German Research Foundation (DFG)
Principal Investigator(s): Prof. Dr. Peter Fiener, Dr. Florian Wilken
Associate Researchers: Prof. Dr. Markus Keck, Dr. Sebastian Purwins
Research topic: Soil degradation and cropland collapse in the wet tropics of Africa
EARL-MOD
Large-scale modelling of water and tillage erosion with a focus on model testing and uncertainty analysis in the framework of project Erosion and Runoff Laboratory (EARL)
Duration: from 2025 to 2027
Funding institution: Bavarian Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forestry (StMELF)
Principal Investigators: Prof. Dr. Peter Fiener (University of Augsburg) and Florian Ebertseder (LfL)
Associate Researches: Dr. Florian Wilken, Dr. Pedro Batista (University of Augsburg)
Research topics: upscaling of monitoring data, large-scale erosion modelling, analysing model uncertainties
BayCliMit
Indicator System for the Evaluation of Measures of the Bavarian Climate Mitigation (BayCliMit) Programme
Duration: from 2023 to 2026
Funding institution: Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment and Consumer Protection (StMUV)
Principal Investigator(s): Prof. Dr. Jennifer Kunz (Coordinator), PD Dr. Stephan Bosch, Prof. Dr. Peter Fiener, Prof. Dr. Harald Kunstmann, Dr. Laura Ludwig
Associate Researchers: Patricia Borel, Stefan Kurz
Research topic: Measuring climate mitigation measures in Bavaria
DYLAMUST
Soil erosion in agricultural landscapes in the context of dynamic changes of land use
patterns and structures (DYLAMUST)
Duration: from 2023 to 2026
Funding institution: German Research Foundation (DFG)
Principal Investigator(s): Prof. Dr. Peter Fiener, Prof. Dr. Thomas Scholten (University Tübingen)
Associate Researchers: Kay Seufferheld, Dr. Hadi Shokati (University Tübingen)
Research topics: soil erosion, hybrid modelling, machine learning, deep learning, landscape patterns and structures
DynAWI
Dynamic Agricultural Weather Indicators (DynAWI) to forecast extreme weather events in agriculture using artificial intelligence and machine learning
Duration: from 2021 to 2024
Funding institution: German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL)
Principal Investigator(s): Prof. Dr. Peter Fiener
Associate Researchers: Dr. Pedro Batista
Research topics: agricultural weather indicators (AWI), scalable spatial data infrastructure (DataCube), artificial intelligence
SOPLAS
SOPLAS - Macro- and microplastic in agricultural soil systems
Duration: from 2021 to 2024
Funding institution: European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme
under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement
Principal Investigator(s): Prof. Dr. Peter Fiener
Associate Researchers: Dr. Florian Wilken, Alessandro Fabrizi, Ana Carolina Cugler Moreira
Research topics: Click here
LaPaSed
The effect of landscape structure and patchiness on soil erosion, sediment transport and retention capacity
Duration: from 2020 to 2022
Funding Institution: German Academic Exhange Service (DAAD)
Principal Investigator(s): Prof. Dr. Peter Fiener, Prof. Dr. Tomáš Dostál (CTU Prag)
Associate Researchers: Dr. Florian Wilken, Dr. Josef Kasra, Dr. David Zumr, Dr. Miroslav Bauer, Dr. Pedro Batista
Research topics: soil erosion, sediment connectivity, patchiness of landscapes
SOLITAIRE
Quantifying the impact of soil erosion and climate change on soil security by using alternative fallout radionuclides (SOLITAIRE)
Duration: from 2020 to 2023
Funding institution: Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities co-financed by EU
Principal Investigator(s): Tom Vanwalleghem (University of Córdoba)
Cooperation partners: Andres Penuela, Adolfo Peña Acevedo and Vanesa García-Gamero (University of Córdoba), José Luis Mas and Santiago José Hurtado Bermúdez (University of Sevilla), Peter Fiener (University of Augsburg), Michael E. Ketterer
DeMipSo3D
Detecting microplastic in soils using 3D Laser-Scanning-Confocal Microscopy (DeMipSo3D)
Duration: from 2019 to 2023
Funding institution: University Augsburg; German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) Project MicBin
Principal Investigator(s): Prof. Dr. Peter Fiener
Associate Researchers: Tabea Scheiterlein, M.Sc.
Research topic: analytical techniques, particle analyses, microplastic, agriculture soil
Completed Projects
MIRSed
Improving the quantification of sub-basin spatial sediment provenance fingerprinting using diffuse reflectance mid-infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy
Duration: from 2021 to 2022
Funding Institution: Humboldt Foundation
Principal Investigator(s): Prof. Dr. Kazem Nosrati, Prof. Dr. Peter Fiener (host)
Research topics: sediment finger printing, mid-infrared spectroscopy
SoErAl
Acceleration of soil erosion from arable land following climate and land management change
Duration: from 2020 to 2021
Funding institution: German Academic Exhange Service (DAAD)
Principal Investigator(s): Prof. Dr. Peter Fiener, Prof. Dr. Tomáš Dostál (CTU Prag)
Associate Researchers: Dr. Florian Wilken, Dr. Josef Kasra, Dr. David Zumr
Research topics: climate and land use change, soil erosion
TilEro
Tillage erosion affects crop yields and carbon balance in hummocky landscapes
Duration: from 2019 to 2022
Funding institution: German Research Foundation (DFG)
Principal Investigator(s): Prof. Dr. Peter Fiener, Prof. Dr. Michael Sommer (ZALF)
Associate Researchers: Lena Katharina Öttl
Research topics: tillage erosion, crop yields, soil organic carbon
MONSOON
MONSOON - Feedbacks between land cover, people, and climate
in the seasonally arid tropics
Duration: from 2018 to 2022
Funding institution: German Academic Exhange Service (DAAD) & German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) program Make our Research Great Again 2018-2022
Principal Investigator(s): Prof. Dr. Jed O. Kaplan, Prof. Dr. Peter Fiener (host)
Associate Researchers: Jake Simpson, Fenner Holman, Silvia Schrötter, Solveig Blöcher, Anna Stegmann
Research topics: vegetation modelling, climate and land surface interactions, wet and dry tropics
SoBio
Evaluating the role soil nutrients have on soil biogeochemical processes
in a tropical rain forest and sugarcane plantations in Uganda (SoBio)
Duration: from 2018 to 2022
Funding institution: German Academic Exhange Service (DAAD)
Principal Investigator(s): Prof. Dr. Peter Fiener, Jospeh Tamale
Associate Researchers: Prof. Dr. Sebastian Doetterl
Research topics: greenhaus gas fluxes, N fluxes, land use effects, humid tropics
ModABC
Duration: from 2018 to 2019
Funding Institution: German Academic Exhange Service (DAAD)
Principal Investigator(s): Prof. Dr. Peter Fiener, Prof. Dr. Tomáš Dostál (CTU Prag)
Associate Researchers: Dr. Florian Wilken, Dr. Josef Krasa, Dr. David Zumr
Research topics: analysis of erosion modelling in Europe
MicBin
Microplastic in fresh water systems (MicBin)
Duration: from 2017 to 2021
Funding institution: German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
programm Plastic in the Environment
Principal Investigator(s): Prof. Dr. Peter Fiener
Associate Researchers: Raphael Rehm, Tabea Scheiterlein
Research topics: microplastic in agricultural soils, microplastic erosion from arable land, 3D laser microscopy
TropSOC
Tropical soil organic carbon dynamics along erosional disturbance gradients
in relation to variability in soil geochemistry and land use (TropSoc)
Duration: from 2016 to 2021
Funding institution: German Research Foundation (DFG), Emmy-Noether-Programm
Principal Investigator(s): Prof. Dr. Peter Fiener, Prof. Dr. Sebastian Doetterl
Associate Researchers: Benjamin Bukombe, Mario Reichenbach, Florian Wilken
Research topics: Click here
TEROS
Lateral soil redistribution processes in an arable sloil landscape
Duration: from 2012 to 2018
Funding Institution: German Research Centre for Geoscience (GFZ),
Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), University Augsburg
Principal Investigator(s): Prof. Dr. Peter Fiener, Prof. Dr. Michael Sommer (ZALF), Dr. Oliver Bens (GFZ)
Associate Researchers: Dr. Florian Wilken
Research topics: soil redistibution and soil organic carbon balance, physically-based modelling
IGCS Carbon
Effects of soil organic carbon redistribution upon green house gas effluxes from terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in a small agricultural catchment in South-East India
Duration: from 2011 to 2012
Funding Institution: Indian Institute of Technology Madras, German Academic Exhange Service (DAAD)
Principal Investigator(s): Prof. Dr. Peter Fiener, Dr. Kristin Steger
Research topics: soil and soil organic carbon redistribution, green house gas fluxes from water harvesting lakes