Playing the Water Cycle Game: data from space for flood risk mitigation and better-managing water resources - Dr. Luca Brocca - Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection, Perugia (Italy)
Dr. Luca Brocca, Director of Research at Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection, National Research Council of Italy, Perugia, Italy
Climate change is profoundly affecting the global water, energy and carbon cycles and increasing the likelihood and severity of extreme events. Better decision support systems are essential to accurately predict and monitor environmental disasters and to optimally manage water and environmental resources. A Digital Twin Component (DTC) on Hydrology and Hydro-Hazards would provide breakthrough solutions for monitoring and simulation, but requires high-resolution (1 km, 1 hour/day) satellite Earth Observation (EO) data, fully integrated with advanced and spatially distributed modelling systems.
Within the Digital Twin Earth Hydrology (Evolution) and the Open Earth Monitor Cyberinfrastructure projects, we have demonstrated the potential to progress towards an end-to-end reconstruction of the hydrological cycle at high spatial and temporal resolution through an effective combination of state-of-the-art EO data, in-situ observations, advanced hydrological and hydraulic modelling, AI and advanced digital platform capabilities. In these projects we have also developed advanced interactive tools for building what-if scenarios for flood risk assessment, drought monitoring and water resources management.
The newly funded Digital Twin Earth (DTE) Hydrology Next project will extend the successful implementation of previous projects. In particular, the DTE Hydrology Next project will provide further advances in this regard by implementing use cases for flood and landslide forecasting, drought monitoring and water resources management across Europe and targeted regions in Africa and Central America. The project will also further develop a cloud-based infrastructure for visualisation and full interaction with the simulations and results of the use cases.