SFB 1313 collaborating with the newly established Bergen VISTA Center for Modelling of Coupled Subsurface Dynamics

The Porous Media Group of the University of Bergen received a positive response on its application for a “VISTA Center for Modelling of Coupled Subsurface Dynamics (VISTA CSD)”. Researchers of the Department of Hydromechanics and Modelling of Hydrosystems and of SFB 1313 (University of Stuttgart) supported the initiative and will closely work together with the research center in the future.

The research of VISTA CSD is strongly related to porous media. It will focus on getting a better understanding of deformation processes taking place in the natural underground (porous medium) as a result of subsurface fluid injection and extraction. This fundamental knowledge plays a major role in many application areas, such as groundwater management, hydrocarbon production or geothermal energy, energy storage in the underground, CO₂ storage, or underground disposal of waste water. The center targets critical and fundamental research questions through mathematical and numerical modeling and data analysis.

VISTA is a basic research program financed by Equinor, an international energy company, and carried out in close cooperation with the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (DNVA). From the VISTA program, the center will be funded with a sum of 5 million NOK per year, an equivalent of 500.000 Euros, for a period of five years. Inga Berre, professor at the Department of Mathematics of the University of Bergen, longstanding partner of the University of Stuttgart and member of SFB 1313’s advisory board, is the head of the research center. In collaboration with DNVA, the VISTA center was launched in Bergen on 15 October 2020. The work within the center is to start on 1 January 2021.