Katoria Lekarkar

Katoria Lekarkar

PhD Candidate at Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Posts by Collection

portfolio

publications

Paper Title Number 4

Published in GitHub Journal of Bugs, 2024

This paper is about fixing template issue #693.

Recommended citation: Your Name, You. (2024). "Paper Title Number 3." GitHub Journal of Bugs. 1(3).
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talks

EGU 2024: A global dataset of soil moisture from microclimate sensors

Published:

In this talk, I mainly focused on the importance and challenges of soil moisture monitoring and the utility of low-cost soil moisture sensors to tackle this challenge. I presented about the SoilTemp, an initiative of researchers harmonizing observations of soil moisture temperature and moisture from across the world. I also gave examples of various projects where soil moisture sensors have been successfully applied used, such as the ‘Curious Noses’ project in Belgium.

Open Water Symposium 2024: Open hardware and Open Software Solutions for hydrology

Published:

This workshop was organized by the UNESCO IHP in Cape Town, South Africa. It focused on the applications of open hardware and open software as sustainable technologies for water resources. In my presentation, I talked about how low-cost soil moisture sensors can be used in conventional scientific approaches as well as in citizen science initiatives to tackle environmental problems such as droughts and floods.

EGU 2025: Quantifying water retention potential of Nature-Based Solutions

Published:

During this talk, I presented preliminary results of my ongoing research on coupling a conceptual hydrological model and in situ observations from low-cost soil moisture sensors to assess the effectiveness of local-scale nature-based water retention measures to retain more water in the soil. Here is the abstract of our work.

UNESCO IHP 2025: Strengthening Open Hydrology and Citizen Science

Published:

On the occasion of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme, I presented the activities we were undertaking under the UNESCO Chair on Open Water Science and Education led by Prof. Ann van Griensven. I gave three different presentations. In the first one, I presented the activities of the chair in coordinating the collection of hydrological data using low-cost soil moisture sensors and how we are collaborating with UNESCO to make this data accessble through the UNESCO-IHP Water Information Network System (WINS). The second talk I was a plenary where I was part of a panel discussing how citizen science can be explored to benefit hydrology. In this session I also presented the citizen science activities we are coordinating in Kenya and Bolivia under the chair and demonstrated a citizen science toolbox we are using to consolidate citizen science data. The third one was a more technical presentation during the 2nd International Drought Symposium organized by UNESCO-IHP Belgium. Here I present my research work on combining in situ measurements and process-based models to quantify the impacts of nature-based interventions as a measure to mitigate the impacts of droughts.

teaching

Surface Water Modelling

Masters course, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 2023

Practical sessions using the SWAT+ model for students following the IUPWARE programme.

Integrated Project

Academic Fieldwork Project, Vrije Universieit Brussel and KU Leuven, 2024

Supervising IUPWARE students during their academic fieldwork and modelling for evaluating water retention potential in a restored nature conservation area in Boechout, Province of Antwerp Belgium

Surface Water Hydrology

Masters course, Vrije Universiteit Brussel and KU Leuven, 2024

Programme: Interuniversity Programme on Water Resources Engineering (IUPWARE)

Guiding practical hydrological modelling sessions for first year students using the NAM model

Topics covered:

Sensitivity analysis, model calibration and validation