Anna Scaini’s appetite for becoming a researcher was stirred at University, stemming from a desire to ‘save’ the last natural river in Europe, which runs close to her home town and causes dangerous local flooding. The Italian national is taking the first step towards pursuing her goal as she prepares to complete her PhD thesis in Hydrology at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST).
The braided Tagliamento river flows freely from the Alps to the Adriatic sea, stretching over a length of 178km. It is one of a kind, in that its morphological units are intact (complexity is intact), like it was for most of the European rivers before human intervention. The river’s ecosystem is in danger from local government plans to instate large flood retention basins. Anna Scaini became a scientist to help save the river and explains:
“Being a researcher allows me to gain the technical knowledge required to have a critical and objective view on the problem, a necessary first step to pursue my dream.”
Investigating water paths
Anna Scaini research domain is hydrology, but what researching rivers look like in practice? Anna’s PhD project is part of an FNR CORE project – Anna explains what it’s about:
“My research tries to quantify the importance of water flowing below the soil surface until reaching a stream located in a forested catchment in Luxembourg.”
“To do this, I am studying a ‘slice’ of the stream, combining artificial irrigation experiments with a hillslope model, meant to reproduce and understand the data collected in the field.”
“I am investigating which path water is taking before reaching the stream, and how combined water and tracer information can be used to understand discharge dynamics. The site is characterized by slate bedrock, which means that water can infiltrate through fractures up to an unknown and variable depth where the fractures close up.”
“These kinds of structures make it difficult to predict water movement below the soil surface, and that is what we try to do with my research.”
Anna has completed the field work for her PhD and is currently in the process of physically writing her thesis, meaning her daily routine is currently not quite as exciting as investigating rivers:
“I press the snooze button a few times before managing to get out of bed, check emails and news, get ready quickly and go to work in LIST, at the Belvaux site. I need to read a lot of articles, prepare and fix some figures, use some Matlab scripts, all of that with the aim of writing up the last chapters for my thesis.”
“Conditions are great here in Luxembourg”
Luxembourg naturally has a high concentration of researchers from other countries, but how did Anna end up in Luxembourg of all places?
“I chose Luxembourg amongst other options because I felt I was considered an employee first. The drawback when I started was that the University environment was somehow far from the cultural point of view, but during the years things have improved noticeably and today the situation is better than ever.”
She adds: “Conditions are great here in Luxembourg: too often young researchers are considered cheap and student-like labour. I immediately liked the higher role we can have here, I find it fair.”
Impacting society as much as science
Anna’s PhD project will help her gain the know-how needed to help tackle the issues facing the Tagliamento river, and give her the ability to view the issues both critically and objectively. This is not the only area where Anna wants to make an impact during her career, she explains that she would like to help push forward the domain of hydrology:
“I would like to work on something important, on a problem that if solved, would make a difference, pushing forward not only science but also society. Hydrology is a relatively young but very interdisciplinary science, and there are still many unknowns and gaps to fill. I hope I can actively work on that.”
More about the project
CORE Project ‘Eco-hydrological couplings for investigating stream flow generation processes’ – ECSTREAM (C12/SR/40/8854) – PI: Laurent Pfister, LIST
Publication related to this project: Scaini, A., Audebert, M., Hissler, C., Fenicia, F., Gourdol, L., Pfister, L., John Beven, K., 2017. Velocity and celerity dynamics at plot scale inferred from artificial tracing experiments and time-lapse ERT. J. Hydrol. 546, 28–43. doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2016.12.035
Published 30 March 2017
In 2015, Anna won the AGU (American Geophysical Union) student video contest, which enabled her to attend the AGU Fall Meeting in the US, the largest Earth and space science meeting in the world.
SEE ALSO..
RELATED PROGRAMMES
About Spotlight on Young Researchers
Spotlight on Young Researchers is an FNR initiative to highlight early career researchers across the world who have a connection to Luxembourg. This article is the fourth in a series of around 20 articles, which will be published on a weekly basis. You can see more articles below as and when they are published.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: How is scientific quality fostered by research collaboration?
In the last decades, how research is conducted has been profoundly changed by ICT, and there has also been a shift from the ‘sole genius’ towards teamwork and especially interdisciplinarity: Today, millions of researchers worldwide collaborate across organisational, disciplinary, and cultural boundaries, extending the possibilities of new scientific discovery. This, and the associated data, has paved the way for the scientific field Science of Science, where one key question is understanding exactly how scientific quality is fostered by research collaboration.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Konstantinos Papadopoulos
During his computer science studies, Konstantinos Papadopoulos realised how many unexplored areas there are in the field and his desire for becoming a researcher was born. Now in the 2nd year of his PhD at the SnT at the University of Luxembourg, the Greek national works on developing innovative new approaches to security surveillance.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Harnessing the potential of the Internet of Things and satellites to make smart agriculture a reality
Lack of access to fast and reliable Internet in rural and remote areas is a [multi-step] challenge that must be addressed to pave the way for smart agriculture and precision farming, a vital step toward ensuring food security in a changing climate. In the quest for smart agriculture, researchers are working on solutions for connecting Internet of Things (IoT) with satellite communication (SATCOM) systems.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Understanding drug resistance in skin cancer
Melanoma is a rare type of skin cancer, but it is the deadliest type – and incidence is on the rise. Metastatic melanoma has seen a rapid emergence in drug resistance: After a few months, treatment stops working and tumours begin to grow again. Molecular biologists are working to understand why this happens.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Toward a risk assessment system for natural and biological systems
Is it possible to use mathematical indicators to alert about natural disasters and help in the early detection of disease and health issues? Over the past 15 years, scientists have been working on bridging mathematical theory and empirical evidence to do just that. To move the science forward, a key challenge is the underlying mathematical problem, as well as determining how the indicators should be applied.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Assessing the sustainability of Luxembourgish agriculture
Deforestation and soil degradation is one of many consequences of climate change. Food production systems alone are responsible for around a quarter of annual emissions. Researchers in Luxembourg are working with local actors to create models to help assess the sustainability of Luxembourgish farms.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Gilles Tossing
Gilles Tossing’s fascination for the human brain – and why it sometimes fails – led him to the path of research. Now in the second year of his AFR PhD at Université de Montréal in Canada, the Luxembourg national investigates neurodegenerative diseases, with the aim of improving treatments for those affected.
Spotlight on Young Researchers – revisited 5 years later: From Luxembourg to Australia
When we wrote about Chetan Arora in the 2017 edition of Spotlight on Young Researchers, he was a Postdoc working in requirements engineering at the SnT, having just completed his PhD. 5 years later, Chetan is on the other side of the world working as a Senior Lecturer and Academic Director for coursework research. We spoke to Chetan about how he is still a “houfreg Lëtzebuerger”, what he is working on now, and why after working both in industry and academia, he found his heart to be in the world of research.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Steve Dias Da Cruz
While machine learning and deep learning have come a long way, they are not yet at a stage where autonomous vehicles can handle unexpected situations. As part of a public research-industry collaboration, early career researcher Steve Dias Da Cruz investigates possibilities to reduce the amount of data needed to train reliable deep learning models for safety critical applications in the automotive industry.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Pit Ullmann
Pit Ullmann’s interest in natural sciences was piqued in high school. The Luxembourg national went on to study molecular biology at the University of Innsbruck and then found himself desiring a job that would be both interdisciplinary and diversified – fast forward and Pit is now completing his AFR PhD at the University of Luxembourg, where his research group studies why and how colon cancer develops and spreads.