Tonsee / Credit: Christopher Winkler
The forecasts underlying your research topic are quite bleak overall. What gives you hope that we humans can learn to use water resources more consciously?
Farmers and landowners from the Spreewald region have already approached us to obtain information about water retention options. Water extremes are now so commonplace that we tend to encounter interest in our work.
The SpreeWasser:N project brings together many partners. How does working across different disciplines and institutions work?
From the outset, we were very interested in setting up the project on a broad basis in order to address as many aspects of the water cycle in the Lower Spree model region as possible in as much detail as possible. It can sometimes be a little tricky to bring partners who are highly specialized in their respective fields back from their more global perspective to our pilot region. Essentially, however, it is precisely this comprehensive knowledge that benefits our project. Collaboration across disciplinary boundaries greatly enriches the discourse in our working group – even if the lively discussions can sometimes go on for a very long time.
Dear Irina, thank you for the interview!