dr. L. Wöhler (Lara)

Expertise

• Earth and Planetary Sciences

  • Water Footprint
  • Drug
  • Water
  • Catchment
  • Investigation
  • Pollution
  • Water Pollution
  • Environment

Organisations

My background is in environmental science and water resources engineering and I hold a PhD in water management. Specifically I looked at various aspects related to pharmaceuticals in water systems by integrating pollution modelling with social science methods. The integration of diverse methods as well as perspectives on environmental problems has caught my interest and I am looking forward to intensify this work in the future.

Publications

Research profiles

Affiliated study programs

Courses academic year 2026/2027

Courses in the current academic year are added at the moment they are finalised in the Osiris system. Therefore it is possible that the list is not yet complete for the whole academic year.

Courses academic year 2025/2026

Courses academic year 2024/2025

Interreg DIWA (Drought Strategies in Water Management)

https://deutschland-nederland.eu/en/projects/diwa/

Drought is increasingly becoming a threat to both Germany and the Netherlands. The dry summers of recent years clearly demonstrate that cross-border cooperation is urgently needed. Just like water, drought does not stop at the border. The need is recognized on both sides of the border. However, drought has only recently made its way onto the cooperation agenda between Germany and the Netherlands after several dry years. This is partly due to the absence of national and European drought policies and limited monitoring and exchange of drought data. Additionally, different data, models, and assessment methods are used in Germany and the Netherlands. The Interreg-VI project DIWA, short for Drought Strategies in Water Management, aims to develop a cross-border drought management approach that will allow stakeholders in the DIWA area, as well as parties in other border regions of the Netherlands and Germany, to face the climate developments related to drought in the coming years. The project partners are working together within DIWA to achieve better alignment between governments and area managers in both the Netherlands and Germany. The DIWA project partners are implementing several measures to achieve this goal. A governance model for drought management is being developed. Additionally, the goal is to expand and automate the network of precipitation and groundwater monitoring stations, contributing to better predictions and sustainable groundwater management. The partners are also developing scenarios and strategies, evaluating drought risks, and assessing the effectiveness of the measures taken. Furthermore, anti-drought measures are being implemented through area pilot projects. The knowledge gained from these measures will ultimately be compiled into a digital guide for stakeholders in the border regions.

Thirsty Cities: Action-perspectives for a climate-proof, drought-resilient, and water-sensitive built environment.

Recurring droughts severely impacted the Dutch built Environment, causing financial, environmental, and social effects. Climate change and urban developments are expected to aggravate this. Although municipalities recognize drought as critical risk, few have prepared for it. This is due to a lack of understanding of the urban water balance under drought and the vulnerability of urban water use(r)s, ambiguity in role and responsibility, and missing action-perspectives. Thirsty Cities aims to address this by developing, collecting, connecting and delivering in a transdisciplinary approach the needed knowledge, insights, tooling, principles, designs, infrastructures and action-perspectives for a climate-proof, drought-resilient, and water-sensitive built environment.

Finished projects

Regional Energy Transition as Systemic Integration (RETSI)

In the RETSI project, UT researchers cooperate with regional partners to: (1) identify factors influencing energy transition integration potential in rural and urban contexts and their interface; and (2) design new action perspectives for private and public actors for exploiting synergies of energy transition integration in different contexts. This NWO-funded project (MARET call) is implemented in collaboration between 3 UT Faculties (ET, BMS and ITC).

MEDICINES UNWANTED IN WATER (MEDUWA) – VECHT(E)

GREY WATER FOOTPRINT FOR SELECTED PHARMACEUTICALS IN THE VECHT RIVER CATCHMENT

Good water quality is essential for maintaining healthy ecosystems as well as for the supply of clean drinking water. Pharmaceuticals and multi-resistant bacteria are frequently found in the aquatic environment and therefore endanger the water quality status. The 27 members of the MEDUWA project, including universities, private companies, hospitals, governmental and non-governmental organizations from Germany and the Netherlands, address this problem with several different approaches along the entire medicine chain. These include: measurements, visualization and communication of the problem, simulating action, and mitigation and prevention. The University of Twente contributes to the MEDUWA project by modelling the Grey Water Footprint (GWF) for different pharmaceutical substances in the Vecht river catchment. The GWF is an indicator of the volume of water pollution and will be estimated for a selected number of pharmaceuticals and spatially mapped, distinguishing between GWFs related to wastewater from households and hospitals and to various types of livestock farming. GWFs will thereby also be expressed as polluted water volumes per unit of household, per patient, and per unit of animal product, like meat, milk or eggs. Furthermore, scenarios with possible measures to reduce pharmaceutical emissions will be developed. Their effectiveness will be evaluated by using the GWF model. A visualization of all results is shown in an App that is going to be developed by GeoplexGIS GmbH. MEDUWA – Vecht(e) is an INTERREG project between Germany and the Netherlands focusing on the transboundary river catchment of the Vecht.

Address

University of Twente

Horst Complex (building no. 20), room W206
De Horst 2
7522 LW Enschede
Netherlands

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Organisations