Nicole Hanselmann is one of the beneficiaries of the competition for funding student and PhD candidates mobility within the HarSval project. She received 8846.77 PLN funding for the specialized course: PGR Catchment Science Summer School, University of Birmingham.

Enjoy reading her report below:

“Thanks to the funding of the HarSval project, I could attend the PGR Catchment Science Summer School 2024 at the University of Birmingham. The Summer School focused on the physical processes related to headwater catchments, hands on modelling and exchange of experience between experts and young scientists.
The lectures about processes related to water infiltration and moving within the ground, were deepening my understanding and I got new ideas how to transfer this knowledge to my study site. A crucial part of the course was to present the advantages and disadvantages of different kinds of hydrological models starting from simple lumped models to complete process-based models. These lectures sharpened my attention on the selection of hydrological models depending on the purpose of the application and modeled processes. I also learned why simplification can be useful, especially when dealing with complex problems.
During a field day, we visited the experimental catchment Plynlimon in Wales. This visit was useful to understand, the challenges in working with natural catchments and how human interaction within a catchment could alter the hydrological processes.
I am really grateful that HarSval gave me the opportunity to attend the PGR Catchment Science Summer School 2024, where I could connect with other scientists dealing with similar topics and gain many new ideas about what future studies I will conduct within my catchments.”