HOAL Petzenkirchen

Hydrology Open Air Laboratory (HOAL) (in preparation)

Location

The catchment is situated in Petzenkirchen, in the western part of Lower Austria (15° 9’ E, 48° 8’ N).

Catchment size

The catchment area is 64 ha.

Climate

The climate can be characterised as humid with a mean annual temperature of 9.3 °C and a mean annual precipitation of around 750 mm. Mean annual flow from the catchment is about 4 l.s-1 and increased up to 2000 l.s-1 during a flood event in the 1980s. Catchment evapotranspiration varied from about 400 to 700 mm/yr in the period 2000-2009.

Topography

The elevation of the catchment ranges from 268 to 323 m a.s.l. with a mean slope of 8%.

Vegetation/Land use

At present, 87% of the catchment area is arable land, 5% is used as pasture, 6% is forested and 2% is paved. The crops are mainly winter wheat and maize.

Context of investigation

The purpose of the HOAL project is to advance the understanding of water related flow and transport processes involving sediments, nutrients and microbes in small catchments. The HOAL catchment is ideally suited for this purpose, because it features a range of different runoff generation processes (surface runoff, springs, tile drains, wetlands), the nutrients inputs are known and it is convenient from a logistic point of view as all instruments can be connected to the power grid and a high speed Local Area Network (glassfibre). A number of innovative measurement techniques are being tested or will be tested including video cameras, distributed temperature sensing, soil moisture clusters, genetic markers as well as a range of isotopic techniques. The HOAL is operated jointly by the Vienna University of Technology and the Federal Agency for Water Management and takes advantage of a Doctoral Programme on "Water Resource Systems" funded by the Austrian Science Foundation.

Links to project webpages

Map of the catchment

References

• Dorigo, W. (2011): Hydrological Open Air Laboratory (HOAL) Petzenkirchen Catchment, Austria