Function and Responsibilities:

Head Section Hydrology

Research Interests:

• Flood Risk
• Hydrological Extremes, Multi-hazards
  
• Monitoring and Simulation of Hydrological and Hydraulic Processes
• Risk Analysis, Non-linear Statistical Methods

Career:

• 2009 - 2015: Director Department 5 Earth Surface Processes, GFZ
• 2007 - 2009: Director Department Geoengineering, GFZ
• 2006: Professor for Engineering Hydrology and Management of Georisks, University of Potsdam
  
• 2002 - today: Head Section Hydrology, GFZ
• 2000 - 2002: Scientist, Section Geomechanics, GFZ
• 1996 - 2000: Secretary of the Scientific Advisory Board of the German Committee for Disaster Mitigation
• 1990 - 1997: Scientist, Institute for Hydrology and Water Resources Planning, University Karlsruhe
• 1988 - 1990: Research scholarship, Chair of River Engineering, University Kyoto, Japan

Education:

• 2005: Habilitation in Hydrology and Water Resources Management, University of Potsdam, Flood risks: Possibilities and limitations of risk assessments.
  
• 1996: Dissertation in Water Resources Management, University of Karlsruhe, Simulation of rainfall-runoff processes under consideration of natural variability. 
• 1988: Diploma in Civil Engineering, University Karlsruhe.
  

Projects:

• RFM - Regional Flood Model Germany
• ClimXtreme: Subprojekt C5 - FLOOD - Linking extreme, large-scale river floods and their impact in Central Europe to climate and weather mechanisms
• KAHR - Climate Adaptation, Floods and Resilience
• Compound Flooding - Assessing the Risk of Compound Pluvial and River Flooding
• JCAR-ATRACE - Joint cooperation on flood and drought management
• MOSES - Modular Observation System for Earth Systems

Research Boards and Committees:

• President of the German Hydrological Society DHG
• Member of the AGU Macelwane Medal Committee
• Member of the Scientific Programme Council of JCAR-Atrace
• Member of the Advisory Board EU Project 'Water efficient allocation in a Central Asian transboundary river basin' WE-ACT
• Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Water Security
• Member of the Editorial Board of Hydrologie und Wasserbewirtschaftung

Awards:

• AGU Editors’ Choice Award 2022: Merz et al., Understanding heavy tails of flood peak distributions. Water Resources Research, 58, e2021WR030506
  
• IAHS-UNESCO-WMO International Hydrology Prize: Volker Medal 2020
• Digital Science Award 2020 for „Digital Earth – Integration of Data Science in Earth System Sciences“ (Digital Leader Award 2020)
• AGU Fellow Class 2018
• Plinius Medal of the EGU Natural Hazards Division, 2017
  
• AGU Editors’ Choice Award 2015: Schröter et al., 2014, How useful are complex flood damage models? Water Resoures Research, 50(4), 3378-3395
• AGU Editors’ Citation for Excellence in Refereeing, Water Resources Research, 2013
• EGU HESS Best Paper Award 2011: Uhlemann et al., 2010, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 14(7), 1277-1295
• Honorary Senator Huber Award, University Karlsruhe, 1996
• MONBUSHO Fellowship, University Kyoto, Japan, 1988-1990