science

Günter Blöschl

Günter Blöschl is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Günter Blöschl rather than just read about it. In short: Professor Günter Blöschl (born 11 July 1961) is an Austrian hydrologist, engineer and academic. In 2020, Blöschl was elected as a member of the US National Academy of Engineering for international leadership in the prediction and management of extreme hydrological events.

Key takeaways

Günter Blöschl belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Günter Blöschl to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Günter Blöschl from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Professor Günter Blöschl (born 11 July 1961) is an Austrian hydrologist, engineer and academic. In 2020, Blöschl was elected as a member of the US National Academy of Engineering for international leadership in the prediction and management of extreme hydrological events.

Education Günter Blöschl holds a Diploma (Dipl.-Ing.) in Civil Engineering (1985), a Ph.D. in Hydrology (1990), and a Senior Doctorate (Habilitation) in Hydrology (1997), all from the Vienna University of Technology.

Career and research Blöschl was an assistant professor (1985–1992, 1994–1997) at the Vienna University of Technology. During that time, he was a research fellow at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver (1989), a visiting fellow at the University of Melbourne (1992–1993, 1997), and a research fellow at the Australian National University, Canberra (1992–1994). In 1997, he was appointed associate professor of Hydrology and in 2007 full professor and chair of Hydrology and Water Resources Management at the Vienna University of Technology. Since 2012 he has been the Head of the Institute of Hydraulic Engineering and Water Resources Management at Vienna University of Technology. In 2014 he was appointed advisory professor at Hohai University, Nanjing, and a distinguished visiting professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing in 2017. Blöschl chairs the Scientific Advisory Council of the German Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG) and has been chair of the Predictions in Ungauged Basins (PUB) initiative of the International Association Hydrological Sciences whose Synthesis book he has edited. From 2013 to 2015 he was president of the European Geosciences Union. For 2017-2021 he is the president of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences. He was editor of the American Geophysical Union’s journal Water Resources Research. He has been a member of the Progetto Firenze 2016 International Advisory Board that provided strategic advice on flood-proofing for the city of Florence after the devastating 1966 flood. His main research interests are in hydrology and water resource management and in particular understanding and predicting floods. An ERC Advanced Grant on ‘Deciphering River Flood Change’ was awarded to him. Using this grant, he demonstrated the role of climate change in increasing flood risk at the European scale which he published in Science Magazine 2017 and in Nature 2019. He is currently leading the HORA 3.0 project where flood risk is mapped for 30,000 km (19,000 mi) of Austrian streams. As the director of the Vienna Doctoral Programme on Water Resource Systems, which is funded by the Austrian Science Fund, Blöschl is coordinating interdisciplinary water research. He is also directing the Hydrology Open Air Laboratory (HOAL) where detailed field observations are performed to understand water and matter fluxes in the landscape. Throughout his career, Günter Blöschl has been a strong advocate of bridging the gap between understanding fundamental processes and the practice of water resources management. He has published about 300 peer-reviewed papers and several books.

Awards and honours Blöschl is an international member of the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna (2017) and the National Academy of Engineering (2020). He received the Robert E. Horton Medal from the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in 2015, became a Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) in 2014, received the Helmholtz International Fellow Award of the Helmholtz Association, Germany in 2014, and the International Hydrology Prize from the IAHS in 2013. He was named Boussinesq Lecturer of the Royal Academy of Sciences, the Netherlands in 2013. He also is an ERC Advanced Grant Laureate, and was named Leonardo Lecturer: EGU in 2011. He received the Creativity Prize of the Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water in 2018 and the John Dalton Medal from the European Geophysical Union in 2019. Blöschl is a member of the German Academy of Science and Engineering (Acatech) (2010), and has been a fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) since 2006, and the International Water Academy, Norway, since 2003.

References

External links "Günter Blöschl - Google Scholar Citations". scholar.google.at. Retrieved 1 October 2017. ORCID. "Gunter Bloschl (0000-0003-2227-8225) - ORCID - Connecting Research and Researchers". orcid.org. Retrieved 1 October 2017.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Günter Blöschl

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Günter Blöschl claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Günter Blöschl before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Günter Blöschl ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Günter Blöschl

In research: Günter Blöschl appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Günter Blöschl in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Günter Blöschl is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1961 births, Academic staff of TU Wien, Hydrologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Günter Blöschl outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Günter Blöschl in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Günter Blöschl means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Günter Blöschl out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Günter Blöschl in simple terms?

Why does Günter Blöschl matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Günter Blöschl?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Günter Blöschl.