Hydrogeology Group
Welcome to the home of the Hydrogeology Research Group.
The Hydrogeology Research Group is led by Prof. Dr. Oliver S. Schilling and develops both fundamental concepts as well as quantitative methods for the study of the interactions between surface water, shallow and deep groundwater, as well as groundwater dependent ecosystems. Integral part of the Hydrogeology Research Group is the Applied and Environmental Geology (AUG) working group under the lead of PD. Dr. Jannis Epting. The AUG's focus lies on the study of, and the development of application-oriented methods for, urban geology and hydrogeology as well as the management of water, energy and underground resources.
The Hydrogeology Research Group is part of the Department of Environmental Sciences (DUW) of the University of Basel and the Department Water Resources and Drinking Water of Eawag, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology. The Hydrogeology Research Group is also active member of the Swiss Water Earth-Systems PhD School.
University of Basel
Department Environmental Sciences
Hydrogeology Research Group
Bernoullistr. 32
CH-4056 Basel, Switzerland
phone +41 61 207 3591
Info - News - Events
| 2025 news | The UNI NOVA research magazine of the University of Basel produced a very nice photo report of our tracer and modelling research on volcanic aquifer systems, which we have been conducting in Japan's Mt. Fuji, Mt. Aso and Mt. Unzen watersheds. The report can be found here: |
| 2025 publication | See our new original article Musy, S., Hinsby, K., Wachs, D., Sültenfuß, J., Troldborg, L., Aeschbach, W., Schilling, O.S., & Purtschert, R. (in press): Bridging the 39Ar-14C Groundwater Dating Gap: A Dual-Permeability Transport Perspective Based on Numerical Modeling and Field Data. Water Resour. Res. |
| 2025 publication | See our new original article Currle, F., Therrien, R., & Schilling, O.S. (2025). Explicit simulation of reactive microbial transport with a dual-permeability, two-site kinetic deposition formulation using the integrated surface-subsurface hydrological model HydroGeoSphere. Hydrol. Earth Sys. Sci., 29, 5383-5403. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-5383-2025 |
| 2025 team | It is our great pleasure to welcome Andrin Aeschbach to the Hydrogeology Research group. Andrin is a geological modeller and works in Applied and Environmental Geology group (AUG) in the Bernoullianum. |
| 2025 report | See our new map product: The soil classification map (Baugrundklassenkarte) for earthquake hazard assessment in the canton of Basel-Landschaft. The map can be accessed via the cantonal viewer. also read about it here: |
| 2025 publication | See our new article and report on the development of future river water temperatures in Switzerland. Article: Report: also read about it here: |
| 2025 publication | See our new original article on microbial community and dissolved gas dynamics in the hydrothermal system of Lavey-les-bains in Switzerland by Sebastien Giroud of Eawag. Giroud, S., Deng, L., Lever, M.A., Schilling, O.S., & Kipfer, R. (2025). Resilience of Deep Aquifer Microbial Communities to Seasonal Hydrological Fluctuations. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 122(0), e2422608122. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2422608122 also read about it here: |
| 2025 team | It is our great pleasure to welcome Angela Welham to the Hydrogeology Research group. Angela is a PhD candidate and works in our Tracer Hydrogeology group at Eawag. The focus of her thesis lies on crosyphere-groundwater interactions. |
| 2025 publication | Have a look at our commentary on the benefits of data sharing and FAIR open data in hydrological sciences in Nature Water: Hill, R. A., Lin, S., Grape, E. S., Zhang, Y., Schilling, O.S., & Voiry, D. (2025). Stories of data sharing. Nat. Water, 3(7-10). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-024-00375-7 |
| 2024 publication | See our new original article on the first He4/U-Th dating of quaternary deposits in the journal Geology. Tomonaga, Y., Buechi, M. W., Deplazes, G., & Kipfer, R. (2024). First dating of an early Chibanian (Middle Pleistocene) glacial overdeepening in the Alpine Foreland using the 4He/U-Th method. Geology. https://doi.org/10.1130/G52544.1 also read about it here: |
| 2024 team | It is with great pleasure that we welcome Dr. Qi Tangback in our team. She now has the role of senior scientist in the SNSF BRIDGE Discovery project Integrated Hydrological Modelling for Operational Forecasting and Decision-making, and is continuing to act as the national coordinator of the Water-Earth Systems PhD School |
| 2024 publication | See our new perspectives article on Mountain-Cryospehre-Groundwater interactions in Nature Water. The article is the culmination of a fantastic workshop and initiative by the three lead authors and the Mountain Research Insititute MRI. Van Tiel, M., Aubry-Wake, C., Somers, L. D., Andermann, C., Avanzi, F., Baraer, M., Chiogna, G., Daigre, C., Das, S., Drenkhan, F., Farinotti, D., Fyffe, C., de Graaf, I. E. M., Hanus, S., Immerzeel, W. W., Koch, F., McKenzie, J. M., Müller, T., Popp, A. L., Saidaliyeva, Z., Schaefli, B., Schilling, O. S., Teagai, K., Thornton, J. M., & Yapiye, V. (2024). Cryosphere-groundwater connectivity is a missing link in the mountain water cycle. Nat. Water, 2, 624-637. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-024-00277-8 |
| 2024 publication | See our new review article on the hydrological application of eDNA in WIREs Water. The review has been conducted in the framework of an eDNA4hydrology initiative launched by Dr. Natalie Ceperley. URycki, D. R., Kirtane, A., Aronoff, R., Avila, C., Blackman, R. C., Carraro, L., Evrard, O., Good, S. P., Hoyos, D., López-Rodríguez, N., Mora, D., Schadewell, Y., Schilling, O. S., & Ceperley, N. (2024). A new flowpath: eDNA connecting hydrology and biology. WIREs Water, e1749. https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1749 |
| 2024 publication | See our original paper on the simulation of large-scale/regional groundwater-surface water interactions in Journal of Hydrology: Delottier, H., Schilling, O. S., & Therrien, R. (2024). Assessing the impact of surface water and groundwater interactions for regional-scale simulations of water table elevation. J. Hydrol., 639, 131641. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2024.131641 |
| 2024 publication | See our new original article on HGS-PDAF, the coupling of the data assimilation toolbox PDAF to the integrated surface-subsurface hydrological model HydroGeoSphere in the journal Geoscientific Model Development: Tang, Q., Delottier, H., Kurtz, W., Nerger, L., Schilling, O. S., & Brunner, P. (2024). HGS-PDAF (version 1.0): A modular data assimilation framework for an integrated surface and subsurface hydrological model. Geosci. Model Dev., 17(8), 3559-3578. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-3559-2024 |
| 2024 publication | Oliver Schilling contributed the prologue to the recent Aqua&Gas journal with a focus on water resources: Schilling, O. S. (2024). Prolog: Daten für nachhaltige Wasserwirtschaft nötig. Aqua & Gas, 9/24. |
| 2024 publication | See our new outreach article the thermal use of underground structures in Aqua&Gas: Epting, J., Affolter, A., Dresmann, H., Février, S., & Schilling, O. S. (2024). Thermischer Einfluss von Untergrund-Bauten - Evaluierungsansätze und Nutzenpotenziale. Aqua & Gas, 6/24. |
| 2024 publication | The hydrogeology research group is currently editing a special edition in Frontiers in Water on “Advances in Integrated Surface—Subsurface Hydrological Modeling”, together with Prof. Matteo Camporese of Uni Padova and Prof. Hoori Ajami of UC Riverside. The submission window is now open and we invite relevant contributions to the topic.” |
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