Welcome to our latest member, UFZ

Today we welcome a new IGD-TP member, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ).

The Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) is one of the world’s leading research centres in the field of environmental research, enjoying high social recognition (www.ufz.de).  As an international competence centre for environmental sciences, the UFZ investigates interrelationships between humans and nature under the influence of global change.  In the energy sector (resources and waste management), the covered topics range from process modelling and simulation to development of innovative monitoring strategies and investigation of socio-economic aspects. In particular the specific strength of one of the departments (the department of Environmental Informatics (ENVINF): www.ufz.de/index.php?en=34216) is the modelling and numerical simulation of individual and multiple coupled physical (Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical) and geochemical (C) processes in the geological subsurface.

Numerically speaking, this means, that T-H-M-C modelling activities in the ENVINF department of UFZ can provide quantitative evaluation for the performance of a radioactive waste disposal facility, identifying key physico-chemical processes at different scales that contribute to the long-term safety of the facility. For this purpose, the open source modelling platform OpenGeoSys (www.opengeosys.org) is continuously developed and coordinated in this department of UFZ, extended and applied in Nuclear waste management. Additionally, an integrated part of the OpenGeoSys platform includes workflows and system components for the 3D visualization of complex, heterogeneous data from different sources.

The quality and relevance of the numerical methods developed and their implementation into OpenGeoSys is continuously assured by the knowledge integration of our group of experts in different disciplines (i.e. computational sciences, physics, mathematics, geology, hydrogeology, geochemistry and civil, environmental and mechanical engineering) in the scientific community and the participation and organization of international benchmarking initiatives (i.e DECOVALEX, SeS Bench).

Finally, due to the interdisciplinary approach applied in the simulations, there is a strong collaboration of the ENVINF department with other national and international research institutes (i.e. PSI, KIT, Jülich and HZDR) and universities (i.e. TU Bergakademie Freiberg). Of particular importance is the incorporation of the experimental knowledge and mechanistic understanding generated at different scales (i.e. field and laboratory) in GFZ, KIT, Jülich and HZDR in projects like iCross (www.ufz.de/index.php?en=46097) funded by the Federal Minister of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers where the ENVINF department is the WP leader of modelling workpackage.

Further information is available at www.ufz.de or from Vanessa Montoya or Olaf Kolditz .