Michael Stockinger

Michael Stockinger is a researcher at the Institute of Soil Physics and Rural Water Management, Department of Landscape, Water and Infrastructure, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU). His work focuses on hydrology, isotope analysis, and water resource management, with particular emphasis on groundwater-surface water interactions, vadose zone dynamics, and catchment-scale hydrological processes. He leads projects such as Beech Forest Resilience Against Drought (2025–2027) and Towards Repeatable Catchment Experiments (2021–2025), funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG).

• Education: Diploma in Land and Water Management and Civil Engineering (BOKU, 2001–2009)
• PhD: Institute of Bio- and Geosciences (IBG-3), Jülich Research Center, Germany (2011–2015)

His research explores water transit time distributions, young water fractions, and stable isotope applications to study vegetation water use, groundwater recharge, and runoff generation mechanisms. He contributes to methodological frameworks for Critical Zone isotope analysis and investigates hydrological similarity across catchments using repeating runoff patterns.

Recent projects include isotopic hydrograph separation in Austria’s Hydrological Open Air Laboratory and the COST Action WATSON (Water Isotopes in the Critical Zone). He has published extensively on topics like throughfall sampling innovations, soil moisture-vapor equilibration methods, and spatiotemporal analysis of water age dynamics.

Michael Stockinger supervises students in the Institute of Soil Physics and Rural Water Management, with thesis topics ranging from throughfall collection methods to energy-water nexus studies. His work bridges field hydrology, isotopic tracing, and sustainable water management, particularly in agricultural and forested ecosystems.