Christian Kersebaum

K. Christian Kersebaum was born 1955 in Hannover/Germany. He studied Agricultural Sciences at the University of Göttingen/Germany, specialized in crop production. He graduated (Dipl.-Ing. agr.) in 1982 with a diploma thesis on soil water dynamics in Soil Science. He made his Ph.D. in horticulture (Dr. re. hort.) at the Institute of Soil Science at the University of Hannover in 1989 with a thesis on the simulation of nitrogen dynamics in arable soils.  From 1989 to 1992 he worked as scientist at the Institute of Geography and Geoecology of the Technical University Braunschweig/Germany, where he got an additional certificate as “Environmental Engineer – Water protection”. Since 1992, he worked as senior scientist at the Institute of Landscape Systems Analysis of the Leibniz-Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research in Müncheberg/Germany. In 1997, he was visiting scientist at the Department of  Soil, Crop and Atmospheric Sciences of the Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, USA. He is teaching at the University of Potsdam, where he got his habilitation for Geoecology in 2004 with a thesis on “Modelling nitrogen dynamics in agro-ecosystems - a tool for advisory and assessments of land use and management effects for agriculture and water management”.

Activities.
He works since 24 years in agricultural research with special focus on applicable integrated modelling of water and nitrogen dynamics and crop growth. His model HERMES was applied from pedon scale (precision agriculture) to river catchment and federal state scale covering fertilizer recommendations for farmers, aspects of water protection and the assessment land use effects. He was involved in several scientific projects related to agricultural management considering soil heterogeneity (Precision Agriculture) and land use and management effects on ground and surface waters. Presently he is involved in a national project on foresight and potentials in rural areas under regional climate change. He published 36 peer-reviewed journal articles, 3 books, 16 book chapters, about 30 contributions to international conferences and many other scientific papers.  
Functions:
He is actually chairman of the commission “Soil Technology” of the German Soil Science Society and was member of the former management committees of COST 711 “Operational Applications of Meteorology to agriculture, including horticulture” and COST 718 “Meteorological applications in agriculture“.
Web page: http://www.zalf.de/home_zalf/institute/lsa/lsa_e/mitarbeiter/kersebaum/general.htm


Key publications:

1. KERSEBAUM, K.C., 2007. Modelling nitrogen dynamics in soil-crop systems with HERMES. Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems, 77, 39-52.
2. KERSEBAUM, K.C., Hecker, J.-M., Mirschel, W., Wegehenkel, M. (eds), 2007. Modelling water and nutrient dynamics in soil–crop systems. Springer, Dordrecht, pp. 280.
3. KERSEBAUM, K.C., MATZDORF, B., KIESEL, J., PIORR, A., STEIDL, J., 2006. Model-based evaluation of agro-environmental measures in the federal state of Brandenburg (Germany) concerning N pollution of groundwater and surface water. J. Plant Nutr. Soil Sci., 169, 352-359.
4. HERRMANN, A., KERSEBAUM, K.C., TAUBE, F., 2005. Nitrogen fluxes in silage maize production: relationship between nitrogen content at silage maturity and nitrate concentration in soil leachate. Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems 73, 59 – 74.
5. KERSEBAUM K.C., LORENZ, K., REUTER, H.I., SCHWARZ, J., WEGEHENKEL, M., WENDROTH, O., 2005. Operational use of agro-meteorological data and GIS to derive site specific nitrogen fertilizer recommendations based on the simulation of soil and crop growth processes. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth 30, 1-3, 59 – 67.
6. NENDEL, C., REUTER, S., KERSEBAUM, K.C., KUBIAK, R., NIEDER, R., 2005. Nitrogen mineralization from mature bio-waste compost in vineyard soils. II. Test of nitrogen mineralization parameters in a long-term in-situ incubation experiment. J. Plant Nutr. Soil. Sci. 168, 219 - 227.
7. REUTER, H.I., KERSEBAUM, K.C., WENDROTH, O., 2005. Modelling of solar radiation influenced by topographic shading – evaluation and application for precision farming. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth 30, 1-3, 143 – 149.
8. NENDEL, C.,  KERSEBAUM, K.C., 2004. A simple model approach to simulate nitrogen dynamics in vineyard soils. Ecological Modelling 177, 1 - 15.
9. KERSEBAUM, K.C., STEIDL, J., BAUER, O., PIORR, H.-P., 2003. Modelling scenarios to assess the effects of different agricultural management and land use options to reduce diffuse nitrogen pollution into the river Elbe. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, 28, 12/13, 537 - 545.
10. WENDROTH, O., REUTER, H.I., KERSEBAUM, K.C., 2003. Predicting yield of barley across a landscape: a state-space modelling approach. Journal of Hydrology 272, 250 - 263.
11. KERSEBAUM, K.C., REUTER, H.I., LORENZ, K., WENDROTH, O., 2002. Modelling crop growth and nitrogen dynamics for advisory purposes regarding spatial variability. In: L. Ahuja, L. Ma & T. Howell (eds.): Agricultural system models in field research and technology transfer. Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton, 229 - 252.
12. KERSEBAUM, K.C., BEBLIK, A.J., 2001. Performance of a nitrogen dynamics model applied to evaluate agricultural management practices. In: Shaffer, M. et al. (Eds.): Modeling carbon and nitrogen dynamics for soil management. Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton, 549 - 569.
13. WENDROTH, O., JÜRSCHIK, P., KERSEBAUM, K.C., REUTER, H., VAN KESSEL, C., NIELSEN, D.R. 2001. Identifying, understanding, and describing spatial processes in agricultural landscapes - four case studies. Soil Tillage Research 58, 113 - 128.
14. KERSEBAUM, K.C., 2000. Model based evaluation of land use and management strategies in a nitrate polluted drinking water catchment in North-Germany. In: R. Lal (ed.): Integrated Watershed Management in the Global Environment. CRC Press, Boca Raton. 223 - 238.