Stanislaus Josef Schymanski (Stan Schymanski)







NEW Contact:
ETH Zürich
Soil and Terrestrial Environmental Physics
Universitätstrasse 16
8092 Zürich
Switzerland
Phone: +41 44 633 63 65
Email: stan.schymanski at env.ethz.ch

For more information, please also check: http://www.step.ethz.ch/people/scientific-staff/stan-schymanski

Summary

  • Scientist (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, since 2011)
  • Scientist (Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, 2007-2011)
  • Ph.D. (University of Western Australia, 2002-2006)
  • Scientific Assistant (Forstliche Versuchs- und Forschungsanstalt Baden-Württemberg, 2001-2002)
  • Diplom-Biologe (University of Freiburg, 1997-2001 and Technical University of Darmstadt, 1995-1997)

Research Interests

  • General principles guiding the adaptation of natural vegetation to its environment
    • Does a community of plants self-organise guided by optimality?
    • What is the objective function of the optimisation?
    • What are the adjustable levers?
    • What are the costs and benefits of the adjustable levers in terms of the objective function?
    • What are the physiological constraints?
  • Reasons for the emergence of patterns in nature and their functions
    • Under what conditions do small-scale processes lead to organisation at a larger scale?
    • Do organised structures have certain functions?
  • Ways of vegetation to influence its environment
    • Does vegetation create favourable conditions for itself?
    • How does vegetation affect soil hydraulic properties?
  • Physical constraints to life
    • What is the content of free energy in sunlight?
    • How much life does it theoretically permit?
    • How efficient are metabolic cycles in the degradation of free energy?

Past and Current Projects

PhD Thesis at the University of Western Australia. Status: FINISHED.

Access to the model code and documentation is being prepared. The aim is to create a forum for users of the model to help understanding and running the model, share code improvements and discuss problems. Please send me an email and I will inform you about the progress. Status: ONLINE.

The model resulting from my PhD thesis is being further tested on catchments with natural vegetation in Europe. The aim of the current project is to test whether the model can capture the wide variety of water use strategies encountered in Europe's natural vegetation without parameter fitting, or whether the deep rooting cost parameter has to be changed from site to site in order to reproduce the observed fluxes. Status: IN PROGRESS.

A simple model simulating vegetation stripes in a semi-arid landscape is used to better understand the organising principles that cause spontaneous formation of patterns. A special focus is put on biomass production and the principle of Maximum Entropy Production (MEP). Status: IN PROGRESS.

An existing soil water balance model will be used to simulate spontaneous water fluxes between the soil layers and the atmosphere and to estimate the associated entropy production. The use of the Maximum Entropy Production (MEP) principle for predicting the partitioning of water between different processes will be investigated. Status: IN PROGRESS

Refereed Publications

(If you wish to receive a copy of any of the accepted or published articles below, please send me an email. Thanks!)

  • S. J. Schymanski, M. L. Roderick, M. Sivapalan, L. B. Hutley, and J. Beringer (2007): A test of the optimality approach to modelling canopy properties and CO2 uptake by natural vegetation. Plant, Cell & Environment 30 (12): 1586-1598, doi:10.1111/j.1365-3040.2007.01728.x. URL:http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-3040.2007.01728.x
    • Additional information: link
  • S. J. Schymanski, M. L. Roderick, M. Sivapalan, L. B. Hutley, and J. Beringer (2007): A canopy scale test of the optimal water use hypothesis. Plant Cell & Environment 31 (1): 97–111, doi:10.1111/j.1365-3040.2007.01740.x URL:http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-3040.2007.01740.x
    • Additional information: link
  • S. J. Schymanski, M. Sivapalan, M. L. Roderick, J. Beringer and L. B. Hutley, (2008): An Optimality-Based Model of the Coupled Soil Moisture and Root Dynamics. Hydrology and Earth System Science 12: 913-932. URL:http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/12/913/2008/hess-12-913-2008.html
  • S. J. Schymanski (2008): Optimality as a concept to understand and model vegetation at different scales. Geography Compass 2(5): 1580-1598, doi:10.1111/j.1749-8198.2008.00137.x. URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-8198.2008.00137.x
    • Additional information: link
  • A. Kleidon and S. Schymanski (2008): Thermodynamics and optimality of the water budget on land: A review, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L20404, doi:10.1029/2008GL035393.
  • A. Kleidon, S. Schymanski, S. and M. Stieglitz (2008): Thermodynamics, Irreversibility, and Optimality in Land Surface Hydrology. In Skvarenina, J. et al. (eds.): Bioclimatology and Natural Hazards. Springer Netherlands, 107-118. URL: http://www.springerlink.com/content/r955q6j885rq4830
  • S. J. Schymanski, M. Sivapalan, M. L. Roderick, L. B. Hutley and J. Beringer (2009): An optimality-based model of the dynamic feedbacks between natural vegetaton and the water balance. Water Resources Research, 45, W01412, doi:10.1029/2008WR006841, URL: http://www.agu.org/journals/wr/wr0901/2008WR006841.
    • Additional information: link
  • H. Lei, D. Yang, S. J. Schymanski, and M. Sivapalan, (2008). Modeling the crop transpiration using an optimality-based approach. Science in China Series E - Technological Sciences, 52, 60-75, URL: http://www.scichina.com:8082/sciEe/EN/abstract/abstract411701.shtml.
    • Additional information: link
  • S. J. Schymanski, A. Kleidon, M. L. Roderick, (2009): Ecohydrological Optimality. In Malcolm G. Anderson (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Hydrological Sciences. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. DOI 10.1002/0470848944.hsa319

URL: http://www.mrw.interscience.wiley.com/emrw/9780470848944/ehs/article/hsa319/current/abstract?

  • Additional information: link
  • S. J. Schymanski, A. Kleidon, M. Stieglitz, J. Narula (2010): Maximum Entropy Production allows a simple representation of heterogeneity in semiarid ecosystems. Philosophical Transactions B 365: 1449-1455. URL: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/365/1545/1449
    • Additional information: link
  • B. Schaefli, C. J. Harman, M. Sivapalan, and S. J. Schymanski (2011): Hydrologic predictions in a changing environment: behavioral modeling, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 15: 635-646. (Link) (Discussion)

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