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Resilient water management in tectonically active, intensely used watersheds - Combining online tracer & seismic monitoring with integrated hydrological modelling of climate change & water use

Research Project
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01.01.2023
 - 31.03.2026

Out of all our natural resources, water underpins sustainable development by far the most, and is thus critical in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) defined by the United Nations in 2015. While water is the focus of only 1 of the 17 SDG, guaranteeing safe and sustainable drinking water resources to future societies is elementary for achieving every single SDG. Groundwater (GW) - the most elusive component of the water cycle - comprises more than 30% of the word's freshwater resources. While often overlooked or dramatically over-simplified in hydrological analyses, a robust assessment of the temporal and spatial distribution of GW quantity, quality and renewal rates was identified as a key factor in designing resilient and sustainable water resources management plans for future societies. One of the hydrologic systems most in need of improved methods for the development of integrated water management plans are tectonically active, volcanic watersheds, particularly volcanic island states, as volcanic systems represent an important and highly valuable source of clean water, owing to their typically large subsurface permeability & porosity (i.e., outstanding filtering capacity) and good water quality. The water cycle of the volcanic island nation Japan (JP) with its over 100 active volcanos, for example, is deeply linked to the volcanic activity of the Pacific Ring of Fire. The tendency of volcanic systems to form complex networks of faults, fissures, and clinkers makes Japan's watersheds some of the most complex on Earth, with groundwater-surface water (GW-SW) interactions being even more dynamic than elsewhere and GW flow paths extremely difficult to identify and characterize. To design resilient and sustainable water resources management plans of volcanic watersheds for future societies, a robust conceptual understanding and accurate quantification of GW recharge rates, flow paths, and SW-GW interactions are indispensable. However, most of the widely employed hydrological tracer and modelling methods are unsuitable for a robust assessment of GW circulation, renewal rates, and GW-SW interactions in volcanic systems, and conceptual gaps in understanding volcanic GW circulation exist. Considering the accelerated anthropogenic and climate-induced changes to our environment, international crises and increasing water use conflicts, an interdisciplinary understanding of volcanic GW systems is more important than ever before. To overcome these impediments and provide guidance for the design of resilient sustainable integrated water resources management plans for future societies, new hydrological tracer and modelling methods that can be used to detect and quantify deep GW circulation in tectonically active, volcanic watersheds must be developed. In this research project, we thus develop a framework for the integrated assessment of water resources in volcanic regions, building on technologies that only recently became accessible for watershed-scale hydrological studies: Integrated surface-subsurface hydrological modelling, high-resolution 3-D models of complex geological systems, continuous on-site monitoring of dissolved gases and microbes in water, and high resolution local/regional projections of climate change until the end of the 21 st century. The watershed of Mt. Fuji, JP, where deep GW was found to flow up along the tectonically most active fault system of JP and enrich shallow GW and springs based on the aforementioned tracers, will serve as experimental site. Continuous monitoring stations of deep and shallow GW and spring sites will be setup, combining novel gas-equilibrium membrane-inlet portable mass spectrometry and online flow cytometry technologies. The continuous tracer analyses will be complemented with a large body of additional tracer analyses and hydraulic observations, serve to detect the influence of seismicity on deep GW circulation, and be used for calibration of an integrated SW-GW flow model of Fuji watershed. Climate change and water use projections will then be used for predictive modelling with the calibrated model, and based thereon, resilient and sustainable water resources management strategies designed.

Collaborations & Cooperations

2025 - Participation or Organization of Collaborations on an international level
Kato, Kenji, Prof. Em., Shizuoka University, Research cooperation
2025 - Participation or Organization of Collaborations on an international level
Takahata, Naoto, Dr., University of Tokyo, Research cooperation
2025 - Participation or Organization of Collaborations on an international level
Tokunaga, Tomochika, Prof., University of Tokyo, Research cooperation

Funding

Resilient water management in tectonically active, intensely used watersheds – Combining online tracer & seismic monitoring with integrated hydrological modelling of climate change & water use

SNF Projekt (GrantsTool), 01.2023-12.2025 (36)
PI : Schilling, Oliver.
CI : Tomonaga, Yama.

Publications

Giroud, Sébastien et al. (2025) ‘Resilience of deep aquifer microbial communities to seasonal hydrological fluctuations’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(23). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2422608122.

URLs
URLs

Currle, Friederike, Therrien, René and Schilling, Oliver S. (2025) ‘Explicit simulation of reactive microbial transport with a dual-permeability, two-site kinetic deposition formulation using the integrated surface-subsurface hydrological model HydroGeoSphere’. Copernicus GmbH. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-372.

URLs
URLs

Urycki, Dawn R. et al. (2024) ‘A new flow path: eDNA connecting hydrology and biology’, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water, 11(6), p. Early Access. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1749.

URLs
URLs

van Tiel, Marit et al. (2024) ‘Cryosphere–groundwater connectivity is a missing link in the mountain water cycle’, Nature Water. 19.07.2024, 2, pp. 624–637. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-024-00277-8.

URLs
URLs

Van Tiel, M. et al. (2024) ‘Cryosphere-groundwater connectivity in the mountain water cycle - where does meltwater go?’, in EGU General Assembly 2024. Vienna, Austria (EGU General Assembly 2024), pp. EGU24–4092. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-4092.

URLs
URLs

Academic Activities

Academic Networking, Outreach and Reputation

2025 - International Scientific Conferences, listed by Name
Oral Presentation: "Integrating eDNA, Noble Gases, and Isotopic Tracers to Unravel Groundwater Origins in Volcanic Island Aquifers: The Example of Mt. Fuji watershed in Japan"
2025 - Organization of Congresses, listed by Name
Chair session 10g: Tracers and Models to Assess the Dynamics of Water and Fluid Systems
2025 - International Scientific Conferences, listed by Name
Oral Presentation: "Mt. Fuji’s Watershed Under the Lens: Advancing 3D Hydrogeological Models for Climate Resilience"
2025 - International Scientific Conferences, listed by Name
Poster Presentation: "Long-term on-line gas monitoring at Mt. Fuji What do we learn (from a hydrological and geochemical perspective)?"
2025 - Organization of Congresses, listed by Name
Chair Session A-HW23 "Tracer Hydrology: Advances in Measurement and Modelling"
2024 - Organization of Congresses, listed by Name
Chair Session 5.06 "Innovative field and tracer methods"

Members (6)

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Oliver Schilling

Principal Investigator
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Yama Tomonaga

Co-Investigator
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Stephanie Musy

Postdoc
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Friederike Currle

PhD Student
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Yuji Sano

Co-PI, Kochi University
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Teresa Nakajima Ma

Postdoc, Kochi University

Linked Projects & Collaborations

Development of a membrane inlet system for in-situ and continuous monitoring of noble and greenhouse gas fluxes in snowpacks & soils with a portable mass spectrometer system

Research Project

Advancing the characterization of cryosphere-groundwater interactions in Alpine spaces for resilient water management: A study combining dissolved gases, water isotopes, eDNA and trace elements analyses with fully-integrated modelling

Research Project

Revisiting Mt. Fuji's groundwater origins with helium, vanadium and eDNA tracers

Research Project