Tracing Day 2022

Tracing Day 2022

TRACING 2022

Thematic International Study Day

Novel strategies of sediment tracing in catchments and river systems

Sunday 22 May 2022

Meeting place: University of Vienna, Austria

Main organizers:

Dr. Sabine Kraushaar (Univ. of Vienna, Austria) and Dr. Olivier Evrard (LSCE, Univ. Paris-Saclay, France)

With the financial support of the following institution

 

Previous initiatives (TRACING 2021 Thematic School)

Information on the TRACING 2021 School is available on this page.

A publication describing the main outputs of the discussions held during the TRACING School has been accepted in the Journal of Soils and Sediments in March 2022.

Evrard, O., et al. (2022, in press). Improving the design and implementation of sediment fingerprinting studies: Summary and outcomes of the TRACING 2021 Scientific School. Journal of Soils and Sediments.

A link will be made available here when the final version of the publication will be accessible on the journal website.

Description of the Tracing Day 2022

Context and objectives of the event

Soil and water resources that are essential to human and aquatic life are increasingly threatened by human activities and the impacts of land use and climate change. Sediment and sediment-associated constituents, in particular, can contribute substantially to water-quality impairment. In order to take effective conservation measures to protect these resources from erosion and alteration, and use them in a more sustainable way, a preliminary assessment is needed to: (1) quantify soil losses; (2) identify the sources and the pathways of runoff and sediment across the landscapes to the river systems; and (3) calculate the transfer and residence times of sediment and particle-bound contaminants in the river network.

Several innovative techniques have been developed recently opening up new avenues to establish this assessment of sediment flux in the critical zone. These innovative techniques include the tracing or “fingerprinting” methods to identify the sources and quantify the dynamics of sediment and particle-bound contaminants, high resolution topographic mapping using various emerging technologies (i.e Lidar) to map connectivity and sediment pathways, the development and installation of multiple low-cost sensors in the rivers. However, the use of these techniques is often associated with several methodological and statistical limitations, that are often reported although rarely addressed in the framework of concerted actions taken at the level of the international scientific community. Among the main methodological difficulties associated with these techniques are the following:

• conservativeness of tracers during the erosion to delivery cycle;
• collection and representativeness of sampling in the field;
• use of correction factors to remove the effect associated with differences in particle size or organic matter content between source and target samples;
• Bayesian versus multivariate statistical analyses;
• calibration of sensors/samplers installed in the field/in rivers;
• validation and uncertainty of model results.

In this context, the objective of this Thematic Scientific Meeting Day is to bring together international experts working on these topics together. It is organised to follow-up the discussions initiated during specifically dedicated sessions organised during the last years at the General Assembly of the European Geoscience Union (EGU) and the American Geophysical Union (AGU). This event will take place on Sunday 22 May 2022 – just before the 2022 edition of the EGU conference starts – to facilitate the participation of European and non-European colleagues and minimize the environmental impact of the meeting. In the future, we hope that other similar events will be organised in the framework of international conferences (e.g. EGU 2023) to continue stimulating discussions about this topic in coming years.

Audience

Researchers/lecturers, postdoctoral fellows, PhD students.

Depending the covid regulations in application in May 2022, up to 30 to 50 participants are expected.

The official language of the Thematic Day will be English.

Logistics

The event will take place at the Lecture Hall 1 at the

University of Vienna (Subway station U2 Schottentor)

Universitätsring 1

1010 Wien

It will be organised on Sunday 22 May from 9:30 am to 5:15 pm just before the opening of the EGU General Assembly on Monday 23 May 2022.

Link to the website of the EGU General Assembly 2022

To plan your journey and identify the best itinerary to the Tracing Day in Vienna, please consult the Wiener Linien transport website.

Participation cost

The participation to the event will be free, and the intention is to provide free-of-charge coffee breaks and a lunch to the confirmed participants. All the participants will be required to register in advance (see below). No participation in hybrid mode will be possible.

 

Programme of the Tracing Day

9:30 – 10:00 Welcome coffee/tea

10:00 – 10:15 General introduction by the organisers

10:15 – 10:30 First keynote lecture on the design of tomorrow’s tracers

10:30 –10:45 Second keynote lecture on optimized modelling methods

10:45 – 12:15 General discussion between the audience and the keynote speakers

12:15 – 13:00  Lunch break

13:00 – 13:15 Feedback on a Tracing Thematic School organised in 2021 and proposition to organise a tracing inter-comparison exercise

13:15 – 14:30 Work in three thematic groups: (1) design of tomorrow’s tracers; (2) optimized modelling methods; (3) organisation of an inter-comparison tracing exercise.

14:30 – 15:00 Feedback from the group (1) and discussion with the audience

15:00 – 15:30 Feedback from the group (2) and discussion with the audience

15:30 – 16:00 Feedback from the group (3) and discussion with the audience

16:00 – 17:00 General discussion on the organisation of future exchange events and potential sponsors

17:00 – 17:15 General conclusions by the organisers