Research group Prof. Herget - Paleohydrology and Geomorphology

The focus of our research lies upon the reconstruction of river floods. Thereby extreme events since the Pleistocene are investigated, for example outbursts of natural dam-lakes. Numerous historical floods are documented in respect of water levels; in order to interpret these floods for risk assessment and disaster prevention water levels have to be converted into peak discharges. Floods often leave specific small-scale morphological features in the landscape, which can be interpreted hydraulically by using methods of process-orientated research. Here these methods primarily comprise experiments in laboratory flumes.