Dr. Carolin Winter
Akademische Rätin auf Zeit
Professur für Umwelthydrosysteme
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
Friedrichstraße 39
79098 Freiburg
„Blauer Container“, Stefan-Meier-Straße 31a
Tel: 0761 – 203 3509
Researche Gate
Research interests
Catchment hydrology | water quality | climate change | high-frequency monitoring
CV
Current position
| Since 2023 | Lecturer (akademische Rätin auf Zeit) at the Chair of Environmental Hydrological Systems, University of Freiburg, Germany |
Education
| 2020 – 2023 | PhD at the Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Sciences – UFZ, Department for Hydrogeology, Leipzig, Germany |
| 2018 – 2019 | Researcher at the Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Sciences – UFZ, Department for Hydrogeology, Leipzig, Germany |
| 2015 – 2018 | M. Sc. Hydrology at the University of Freiburg, Germany |
| 2011 – 2015 | B. Sc. Environmental Sciences (major) and Environmental Hydrology (minor) at the University of Freiburg, Germany |
Time abroad
| 2023 | Research stay at the Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zurich |
| 2022 | Research stay at the Department of Soil, Water and Ecosystem Sciences, University of Florida |
| 2017 | Internship at Mahila SEWA housing trust (MHT) in Jaipur, India |
| 2017 | Internship at the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) |
| 2017 | EUCOR exchange: M. Sc. Water Science and Engineering at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) |
| 2014 | Internship at Centro AGUA in Cochabamba, Bolivia |
| 2014 | Internship at Bosque Nativo in Valdivia, Chile |
| 2013 – 2014 | Exchange year: Ing. En Recursos Naturales, University Austral de Chile (UACh), Valdivia, Chile |
Awards and Scholarships
| 2025 | Helmuth-Lieth-Award for Environmental Sciences, for the Research Article Forest dieback in drinking water protection areas – a hidden threat to water quality |
| 2023 | Early Career Research Award, Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research (BayCEER) |
| 2023 | Dissertation Prize, awarded by the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) |
| 2021 | Editors’ Choice Award by Water Resources Research for the Research Article Disentangling the impact of catchment heterogeneity on nitrate export dynamics from event to long‐term time scales |
| 2017 | Scholarship by the German academic exchange service (DAAD) for the internship at MHT in Jaipur, India |
| 2016 – 2017 | M. Sc. Scholarship of the “Förderverein Hydrologie e.V.” |
| 2015 | Think Forests Video Competition Award [runner up] by CIFOR (Centre for International Forestry Research) |
Publications
Publikationen auf FreiDok plus
-
Hettler, W., Stahl, K., Ebeling, P., Fohrer, N., Kiesel, J., & Winter, C. (2026). Using large-sample high-frequency records to optimise water quality sampling. Copernicus GmbH. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-445
-
Winter, C., Kattenborn, T., Stahl, K., Szillat, K., Weiler, M., & Schnabel, F. (2026). Wie Waldverlust zu einem Problem für unser Trinkwasser werden kann. In Umweltimpulse – 19 Wege in eine lebenswerte Zukunft : vernetztes Wissen – konkrete Lösungen – Handlungsoptionen (pp. 115–119). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-72198-8_11
-
Romero-Saavedra, F., Vergopolan, N., Musolff, A., Merz, R., Winter, C., & Tarasova, L. (2025). Uncovering the impact of hydrological connectivity on nitrate transport at the catchment scale using explainable AI. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-11159
-
Winter, C., Knapp, J. L. A., & Kirchner, J. W. (2025). Drought affects export patterns across different solutes. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-10198
-
Romero-Saavedra, F., Vergopolan, N., Musolff, A., Merz, R., Winter, C., Wang, Z., & Tarasova, L. (2025). From soil moisture patterns to hydrological connectivity: an explainable AI approach for nitrate modeling. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-20591
-
Ebeling, P., Turner, N., Graeber, D., Musolff, A., Dupas, R., Fleckenstein, J. H., Kumar, R., & Winter, C. (2025). Trends in instream nitrogen-to-phosphorus ratios: a 30-year study of ecological relevance across 750 catchments. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6390
-
Winter, C., Kattenborn, T., Stahl, K., Szillat, K., Weiler, M., & Schnabel, F. (2025). Forest dieback poses a hidden threat to drinking water quality. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-3475
-
Szillat, K., Winter, C., Hellwig, J., & Stahl, K. (2025). Comprehensive mapping and classification of Germany’s drinking water protection areas. Environmental Sciences Europe, 37(1), 168. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12302-025-01233-3
-
Dupas, R., Lintern, A., Musolff, A., Winter, C., Fovet, O., & Durand, P. (2025). Water quality responses to hydrological droughts can be predicted from long-term concentration-discharge relationships. Environmental Research, 1(1), 015001. https://doi.org/10.1088/3033-4942/adb906
-
Winter, C., Mueller, S. K., Kattenborn, T., Stahl, K., Szillat, K., Weiler, M., & Schnabel, F. (2025). Forest dieback in drinking water protection areas – a hidden threat to water quality. Earth’s Future, 13(4), e2025EF006078. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025ef006078
-
Szillat, K., Winter, C., Hellwig, J., & Stahl, K. (2025). Water protection areas (WPAs) in Germany: dataset [Dataset]. https://doi.org/10.6094/UNIFR/263651
-
Romero-Saavedra, F., Vergopolan, N., Musolff, A., Merz, R., Wang, Z., Winter, C., & Tarasova, L. (2025). From soil moisture spatial patterns to catchment nitrate dynamics using explainable AI. Water Resources Research, 61(11), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025wr040295
-
Winter, C., Mueller, S. K., Kattenborn, T., Stahl, K., Szillat, K., Weiler, M., & Schnabel, F. (2024). Forest dieback in drinking water protection areas – a hidden threat to water quality. In bioRxiv beta. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.08.07.606951
-
Winter, C., Jawitz, J. W., Ebeling, P., Cohen, M. J., & Musolff, A. (2024). Divergence between long‐term and event‐scale nitrate export patterns. Geophysical Research Letters, 51(10), e2024GL108437. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024gl108437
-
Winter, C., Jawitz, J. W., Cohen, M. J., Ebeling, P., & Musolff, A. (2023). Surprising consistency in event-scale nitrate export patterns across catchments. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-5599
-
Wachholz, A., Dehaspe, J., Ebeling, P., Kumar, R., Musolff, A., Romero-Saavedra, F., Winter, C., Yang, S., & Graeber, D. (2023). Stoichiometry on the edge-humans induce strong imbalances of reactive C:N:P ratios in streams. Environmental Research Letters, 18(4), 044016. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acc3b1
-
Winter, C., Nguyen, T. V., Musolff, A., Lutz, S. R., Rode, M., Kumar, R., & Fleckenstein, J. H. (2023). Droughts can reduce the nitrogen retention capacity of catchments. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 27(1), 303–318. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-303-2023
-
Bieroza, M., Acharya, S., Benisch, J., ter Borg, R. N., Hallberg, L., Negri, C., Pruitt, A., Pucher, M., Romero-Saavedra, F., Staniszewska, K., Veen, S. G. M. van’t, Vincent, A., Winter, C., Basu, N. B., Jarvie, H. P., & Kirchner, J. W. (2023). Advances in catchment science, hydrochemistry, and aquatic ecology enabled by high-frequency water quality measurements. Environmental Science and Technology, 57(12), 4701–4719. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c07798
-
Winter, C., Nguyen, T. V., Musolff, A., Lutz, S. R., Rode, M., Kumar, R., & Fleckenstein, J. H. (2022). A multi-year drought can alter the nitrate retention capacity of a catchment. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-3618
-
Winter, C., Tarasova, L., Lutz, S. R., Musolff, A., Kumar, R., & Fleckenstein, J. H. (2022). Explaining the variability in high-frequency nitrate export patterns using long-term hydrological event classification. Water Resources Research, 58(1), e2021WR030938. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021wr030938