CSR Proposal to NSPIRES

Summer CSR Proposal to NSPIRES Call, CoP Development and AGU Paper for Fall 2008 Assembly

The summer in Colorado passed quickly as we concluded year 2 of our 3-year WaterNet project. WE completed our annual report to WaterNet and submitted a multi-author collaborative proposal to NASA entitled:

Enhanced Water Resources and Disaster Management Decision Support Systems in Europe

By

Improved Analysis and Forecasting of Snowpack, Avalanches, Runoff, Floods, Debris Flows and Drought using High Resolution Multi-Sensor Data Assimilation, Atmospheric and Land Surface Models in the Alps of Europe and Region of Southeastern Europe

 

Investigators:Mitja Brilly2, Gregor Gregoric3, Janez Polajnar3, Mira Kobold3, Mark Zagar3, 

Helmut Knoblauch4, Michael Staudinger5, Susanne Mecklenburg7, Michael Lehning9, Juerg Schweizer9, 

Gabor Balint10 , Ivan Cacic11, George Huffman, Paul Houser1, Debbie Belvedere1, and Dave Matthews6

 

Proposal Summary

 

European hydrometeorological services and research centers are faced with increasing challenges from extremes of weather and climate that require significant investments in new technology and better utilization of existing human and natural resources to provide improved forecasts.Major advances in remote sensing, observation networks, data assimilation, numerical modeling, and communications continue to improve our ability to disseminate information to decision-makers and stake holders. This proposal addresses the Water Management and Disaster Management applications areas and identifies: 1) NASA Earth Science Results (ESRs) that will be used to fill gaps in current technologies, and 2) key research and decision-maker teams; and then develops a set of solutions through focused applied research and integration of ESRs into decision support tools (DSTs).These DSTs have many years of baseline data that quantify their accuracy and reliability.The end-user water and emergency management entities also have extensive records of their decisions and impacts.

 

Our approach to meeting the DECISIONS objective of demonstrating value added to decision-making is to engage the responsible agencies and stake holders at the initiation of the project.Our relationship with these agencies was established in NASA’s WaterNet – NASA Water Cycle Solutions Network Community of Practice in Europe, which has evolved over the past 2 years. One leading partner is the Environmental Agency of the Republic of Slovenia (EARS[MM1]) which has the responsibility of issuing flood alerts, along with issuing seasonal water supply forecasts and snowmelt runoff forecasts.Other agencies like Central Austrian Meteorological Agancy (ZAMG), Croatian Meteorological Agency DHMZ, Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Vituki Consult, and other European forecast centers provide similar services. EARS coordinates the Drought Management Center for Southeastern Europe (DMCSEE).DMCSEE is a cooperative World Meteorological Organization effort of 11 southeastern European countries from Slovenia to Turkey that is developing drought management capabilities for the region.The primary NASA ESRs used here are products from the Hydrologic Sciences Branch, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA, Land Information System’s (LIS) Land Surface Models (LSM), the SPoRT,CREW , and European Space Agency (ESA) results will drive decision support tools (DSTs) and systems. Remote sensing data from MODIS, SMOS, SMAP and related WRF-LIS data assimilation and land surface modeling outputs of soil moisture, snow water equivalent, temperature and rates of temperature change, snow melting and resulting runoff will be used as inputs for the avalanche and debris flow models including ALPINE-3D.They will be integrated into the European Commission’s Joint Research Center’s (JRC) natural hazards DSTs, and Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research’s (SLF) public warning systems for avalanches and debris flows and alpine floods.These ESRs will be used in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Commission sponsored water management projects to provide solutions for improved prediction of water supplies and stream flow, and droughts and floods, and snow avalanches in the major river basins serviced by EARS, ZAMG, SLF, Vituki Consult, and other Danubian Basin forecast centers. Results from this project will be of mutual benefit to European and American decision-makers and scientists.This proposal stems from Candidate Solution Report (CSR) entitled “Improved Analysis and Forecasting of Snowpack, Avalanches, Runoff, Floods, Debris Flows and Drought using High Resolution Multi-Sensor Data Assimilation, Atmospheric and Land Surface Models in the Alps of Europe and Region of Southeastern Europe” that evolved through the WaterNet – NASA Water Cycle Solutions Network Community of Practice in Europe.