Theresa Piana
Research Interest
- Aquatic ecotoxicology
- Human/environmental interactions
- Freshwater ecology
- Nature conservation
Current Project: Causes, dynamics and effects of freshwater salinization in German waterways
Major research questions:
1.Causes and dynamics of freshwater salinization in German waterways
Which specific sources contribute to the salinization of German rivers, and how can their relative impacts be quantified? How has freshwater salinization evolved over the past decades, and considering the individual drivers, how is it expected to develop in the future in the context of ongoing climate change?
2.Effects of freshwater salinization
Can environmental monitoring data be used to establish salt concentration thresholds associated with shifts in the community composition of macroinvertebrates and macrophytes in freshwater ecosystems?
3.Impact of phosphate precipitation agents to freshwater salinization
Do metal salts used for phosphate precipitation in municipal wastewater treatment constitute a significant driver of salinization in running waters? If, what are the ecological responses of aquatic communities to this treatment and how do these effects vary along the river continuum?
Project funded by the German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU).
Interested in a thesis?: Evaluating the Ecological Effects of Metal Salt-Based Phosphate Precipitation in Municipal Wastewater Treatment on Freshwater Ecosystems
Personal Information
- Since 2023: PhD student at the Institute of Environmental Sciences, RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau (former: University Koblenz-Landau), Germany
- 2020 – 2022: Research Associate at the Institute for Geography and Geology, Julius-Maximillians-University Würzburg, Germany
- 2015 – 2019: Master of Science in Environmental Science at the Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany (Thesis: “Effects of irregularly shaped microplastics on the aquatic freshwater species Lumbriculus variegatus”)
- 2015: Internship at the Earth Observation Centre (Department of Remote Sensing), German Aerospace Centre (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft und Raumfahrt – DLR)
- 2011 – 2015: Bachelor of Science in Geography at the Julius-Maximillians-University Würzburg, Germany (Thesis: “Analysis of optical and electrical data from simulated volcanic eruptions generated with a pulse cannon – to help determine a model to predict the formation and development of volcanic ash clouds“)
07/2023
PhD scholarship (for 3 years) of the German Federal Environmental Foundation (Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt - DBU)