The expected global warming will lead to dramatic changes in the environment resulting in severe disturbances in global elemental and hydrologic cycles and associated socioeconomic consequences. This research project focuses on the effect of climate change on ecosystem functioning and water quality of lakes. Coupled hydrodynamic-ecological models are used because they can explicitly account for climate mediated effects on lake ecosystems. Such models contain a hydrodynamic compartment that is directly forced by meteorological data and include an ecological model accounting for the complexity of the relevant ecological processes. In particular, we study how an increased frequency of extreme events (e.g. heat waves, floods) will affect ecosystem dynamics and interfere with other anthropogenic stressors like eutrophication or invasive species. While we firstly focus only on 1D simulations we will at a later stage include spatial effects by using 3D models, e.g. differential cooling and its effect on deep water renewal and oxygen concentration.
