AWARE - A tool for monitoring and forecasting Available WAter Resource in mountain Environment

01.03.2005 - 01.06.2008
Research funding project
The aim of the AWARE project is to provide a tool for qualitatively and quantitatively monitoring and forecasting of water resource availability, both at a regional and local scale, in mountain catchments, where snowmelt is a relevant component of the hydrological balance. A set of different snowmelt runoff models, exploiting the integrated use of Earth Observation data and locally collected hydro-geological and meteorological measurements, will be designed and applied to local basins distributed on the Alpine area and characterizing different mountain environments. Historical and present geo-referred maps of snow cover, over the whole Alpine area, will be derived from low resolution remote sensing images by using soft computing techniques which provide high accuracy in fractional land cover mapping. A set of procedures will be implemented with the aim of providing a tool for tailoring data and models to local mountain environments to users such as policy makers, hydropower companies, local authorities. A unified framework, based on open source WEB-GIS technology, will collect harmonized data and procedures to compute, archive, upgrade and distribute snow derived information; it will provide a training module and a friendly guide to help users to integrate local data and adapt to local needs the knowledge on available water resource.

People

Project leader

Project personnel

Institute

Grant funds

  • European Commission (EU) 6.FP: AEROSPACE - Aeronautics and space 6.Rahmenprogramm für Forschung European Commission - Framework Programme European Commission Call identifier FP6−2003−SPACE−1 Application number 012257

Research focus

  • Environmental Monitoring and Climate Adaptation: 50%
  • Modeling and Simulation: 50%

Keywords

GermanEnglish
MonitoringMonitoring
SchneeSnow
Wasserressourcenwater resources

External partner

  • Institut Institut Cartogràfic de Catalunia Barcelona
  • Institut Institut Cartogràfic de Catalunia
  • Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Milano
  • University of Ljubljana
  • Remote Sensing Data Engineering SRL Milano
  • Universitat Jaume I, Castelon del la Plana
  • Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Davos

Publications