From satellites and drones to streamflow data for water resources applications

Many impacts of climate change on society will be experienced through its impact on the water cycle, but our ability to monitor these changes and effectively use water as a resource for energy and society is challenged by a global decline in hydrological monitoring stations and limited monitoring resources.

Recent research advances in satellite and drone technology in combination with hydraulic modelling of river reaches offer new possibilities to monitor rivers cost-effectively and quickly at new locations and to reduce data uncertainty for extreme flows at existing stations.The project aims to improve sustainable water resources management by taking novel methods from research on satellite and drone-based streamflow monitoring and implementing them into operational monitoring tools.

The tools will be tested operationally through joint field work at the project partners’ streamflow monitoring stations.

Workshops will be used to capture user needs and disseminate results to a wider range of stakeholders than those directly involved in the project.

Operational staff at the project stakeholder parties will be test pilots for the developed software tools, which will then be upscaled by publishing the tools and their codes open access and disseminated to other end users monitoring river flows nationally and internationally.