IP Freshwaters – Annual Retreat

27 Aug 2025, 10:30 → 28 Aug 2025, 14:30 Europe/Berlin

Villa Böckelmann

Jan Fleckenstein, Markus Weitere, Ilona Baerlund

IP Freshwaters - Annual Retreat 2025

We cordially invite all scientists and PhD students working within the Integration Platform (IP) Freshwaters to the Annual Retreat 2025.

The Meeting will take place at Villa Böckelmann, Magdeburg-Otterleben from 27.-28. August 2025.

For more information on IP Freshwaters please see here: https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=48617.

Building on the formats of our previous IP workshops in Barby 2022, Ottersleben 2023 and UFZ-KUBUS 2024, we once again would like to engage with you in discussions on our research within the Research Unit Water and Environment and across the RUs. The workshop will provide an opportunity to connect and synthesise some of our exciting research and outreach along multi-disciplinary lines. This especially to further strengthen and expand our collaborations and fine-tune our research portfolio in the light of the feedback from the evaluation in February 2025 and to discuss plans for the next POF period. Besides the interesting scientific discussions there will be ample room to also socialise and have a good time together.

The aim of the IP Workshop is to: 

• Inform and be informed – current achievements in the IP 
• Post-processing the UFZ scientific evaluation in February 2025 - status quo and next steps towards POF V
  
• Support alignment of own work towards common goals of Platform Projects / Integration Platform / UFZ
• Maintain the exchange across Departments and RUs
• Bring in a view from / to the outside - lecture by and discussion with an external guest 
• "BBQ"

We are especially looking forward to your posters – new or recycled – for the session in the afternoon of Day 1. You can register the posters together with your personal registration. Following the feedback from the last workshop, we have reserved time for a round of poster pitches in plenary.

A binding registration is required to assess the need for chairs, poster boards, beds and litres of coffee. We kindly ask you to register for the workshop until August, 13rd, 2025. A successful registration is confirmed by an automatic email reply.

All participants shall cover their travel expenses through their own cost allocation (Kostenstelle). The costs for meals and accommodation will be covered by the IP/TB Water integration budget.

For questions and suggestions, please contact the IP/TB manager Ilona Bärlund.

Looking forward to seeing you in Ottersleben!

Wednesday 27 August

10:30 Registration and coffee

Block 1: Plenary

• Welcome and formalities (Ilona Bärlund)
• Introduction to the workshop, IP updates (Jan Fleckenstein, Markus Weitere)

Block 2 - Plenary – project highlights

• Method development for low flow assessment in German rivers to identify vulnerable river sections - experiences from the LAWA project (Olaf Büttner, Christian Schmidt, Ralf Merz)
• Closing the loop: Phosphorus recovery and reuse for sustainable lake restoration (Tallent Dadi, Luis Braune)
• Using mQM to model nutrient exports into the Wadden Sea (NAPSEA) and beyond (Andreas Musolff, Tam Nguyen)

13:00 Lunch

Block 3: Plenary – PhD college session

• P-SPACE ending (Andreas Musolff & co.)
• SEESAW starting (Larisa Tarasova & co)

15:30 Coffee

Block 4: Poster pitches

Block 5: Mingle activity: Poster session

Optional: Time for group meetings

19:00 Dinner & informal get-together

Thursday 28 August

07:30 Breakfast for those staying overnight

Block 6: Plenary – external guest

Closing the global ambient water quality data gap

Stuart Warner (UNEP Water Quality Consultant, Cork/Ireland)

Stuart will address global efforts in in-situ monitoring of ambient water quality for the SDG 6.3.2 indicator. He will discuss strategies for closing existing data gaps, including the potential of citizen science and approaches to expand monitoring beyond basic water quality parameters (Level 1 data). The keynote will open a discussion on how our research can contribute to close this global data gap.

10:00 Coffee

Block 7: Quo vadis? [t.b.c.]

• Short update on plans for POF V and status quo of the UFZ strategy 2035 process
• Group discussions on Topic development (Topic “Functioning of the terrestrial Earth System”, Topic “Landscape Management”, Topic “Urban Transformation”, CCA “Pollution”, others?) and potential IP Freshwater contributions

Block 8: Plenary

• Administrative issues
• What happens next in the IP
• Workshop wrap-up

13:00 Lunch