Jens Liebe

Email: jrl58@cornell.edu
Phone: 607-255-0185
Office: 165 Riley Robb Hall
Advisor: Tammo Steenhuis
Degree Program: Ph.D.

Research Interests

Hydrology in semi-arid areas, Sub-Saharan Africa, GIS & Remote Sensing, water resource management.

Research on small reservoirs

In support of my Ph.D. I do hydrological research on small reservoirs within the Small Reservoirs Project. In rural Africa and other semi-arid areas, small reservoirs are an important means to supply the scattered population with larger volumes of water for non-drinking purposes, such as irrigation, livestock, fishing, building, and household use.

Despite their importance for rural water supply and the urgent need for further development, small reservoirs have hardly been studied.

In my reasearch I look at small reservoirs at different scales:
On a local scale we study the water fluxes relevant for the filling and emptying of small reservoirs in an experimental watershed in northern Ghana. Special focus is set on measuring unproductive evaporation losses from small reservoirs, for which we have developed an automated floating evaporation pan.

Automated floating evaporation pan with weather station
view larger image

On a regional scale we aim at developing tools to inventory reservoirs and their storage volumes in data scarce environments, as well as for impact assessment. This includes promoting the use of optical and radar remote sensing for inventories of small reservoirs, and monitoring of reservoir storage volumes. Data aggregation techniques will be implemented to simplify regional impact assessment of current reservoirs and further reservoir development on downstream areas.

Small reservoirs on ENVISAT ASAR, polarization HV, date of acquisition: 19-Sep-2005 view larger image

Publications

Liebe, J., M. Andreini, N. van de Giesen, and T. Steenhuis, (forthcoming). The Small Reservoirs Project: Research to Improve Water Availability and Economic Development in Rural Semi-arid Areas. Cambridge Scholars Press.

Hafeez, M., M. Andreini, J. Liebe, J. Friesen, A. Marx, and N. van de Giesen, (accepted). Hydrological parameterization through Remote Sensing in the Volta Basin, West Africa. Journal for River Basin Management.

Gemperli, A., N. Sogoba, E. Fondjo, M. Mabaso, M. Bagayoko, O. Briet, D. Anderegg, J. Liebe, T. Smith, and P. Vounatsou, 2006. Mapping Malaria Transmission in West and Central Africa. Tropical Medicine & International Health 11(7), 1032-1046.

Liebe, J., N. van de Giesen, and M. Andreini, 2005. Estimation of small reservoir storage capacities in a semi-arid environment. A case study in the Upper East Region of Ghana. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth 30 (2005), 448–454.

van de Giesen, N., H. Kunstmann, G. Jung, J. Liebe et al., 2002. The GLOWA Volta Project: Integrated Assessment of Feedback Mechanisms between Climate, Landuse, and Hydrology. In: M. Beniston (Editor), Climatic Change: Implications for the Hydrological Cycle and for Water Management. Advances in Global Change Research. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp. 151-171.