GLOWASIS

Period:	01/2011-12/2012
Client:	FP7-Coordination-Space- Collaborative project (Small Medium Scale)- SPA.2010.1.1-04

assignment/short description

The main objective of the proposed project GLOWASIS is to pre-validate a GMES Global Service for Water Scarcity Information. In European and global pilots on the scale of river catchments, it will combine in-situ and satellite derived water cycle information and more government ruled statistical water demand data in order to create an information portal on water scarcity.

This portal will be made interoperable with the WISE-RTD portal. More awareness for the complexity of the water scarcity problem will be created and additional capabilities of satellite-measured water cycle parameters can be promoted, but also directly matched to user requirements. By creating the userscientist community, GLOWASIS will guide earth observation scientists to efficient innovation for
the specific purpose of water scarcity assessment and forecasting.

By linking water demand and supply in existing operational hydrological models, GLOWASIS will prove its use on a European and global scale. The project results will be pre-validated in three pilot studies with the existing system EDO (European Drought Observatory) for medium- and long-term
continental European and African forecasting and the global hydrologic model PCR-GLOBWB for global seasonal forecasting. GLOWASIS’ information can thus be used to contribute both in nearreal time reporting for emerging extreme events as well as in provision of up-to-date climate change
time series. GLOWASIS will aim for the needed streamlining of the wide variety in water scarcity information. GLOWASIS will be set up for dissemination and inclusion of innovative and integrated multi-purpose products for research & operational applications.

The service will use data from GMES Core Services LMCS Geoland2 and Marine Core Service MyOcean (e.g. land use, soil moisture, soil sealing, sea level), in-situ data from GRDC, GEWEX’ initiatives (i.e. International Soil Moisture network), agricultural and industrial water use and demand (statistical – AQUASTAT, SEEAW and modelled) and additional water-cycle information from existing global satellite services.

GLOWASIS’ information can be used for research, can play an important role for application sector users, and can be important for continental and global water resource management authorities. R&D will focus on the benefit and accuracy of in-situ and satellite data for strengthening the countermeasures of the decision maker. End users will be UN-Water, European Environmental Agency, the European Civil Protection Mechanism, and river basin commissions, such as Rhine-CHR, Elbe-IKSE/ICPE, Oder-IKSO/ICPRO and Danube-ICPDR.