Congratulations!Kira Kalinski successfully defended her doctoral thesis

8 February 2021

Photo: private

We are proud to announce the successful disputation of our SICSS member Kira Kalinski.

Her dissertation "Ecosystem services of urban floodplain soils under changing climate and water management" was supervised by Prof. Dr. Annette Eschenbach and Prof. Dr. Kai Jensen.

Kira studies the ecosystem services of urban floodplain soils. She investigates the current state and main drivers of water retention, pollutant retention and carbon storage in two urban catchments in the city of Hamburg. The investigations included soil mapping, analysis of soil parameters, and field experiments on carbon decomposition and soil water balance. From the results obtained, Kira derived strategies for the optimization of the respective ecosystem services and placed them in the context of existing urban planning concepts in urban floodplains.

Kira was a member of the Institute of Soil Science at the Universität Hamburg

Kira's future plans?
Kira would like to put the results of her doctoral thesis into practice and thus contribute to improved rainwater management and flood protection in cities. Following up on her doctoral thesis, Kira'sresearch interest is in the development of valuation methods for soil-related ecosystem services in order to improve their integration into urban planning concepts. Implementation of optimized soil-related ecosystem services can improve future urban planning concepts and contribute to a resilient city against climate change.