| projects-091 |
870349 |
CERTO |
Copernicus Evolution – Research for Transitional-water Observation |
H2020 |
H2020-SPACE-2018-2020 |
LC-SPACE-04-EO-2019 |
2020-01-01 |
2023-09-30 |
Completed |
€ 002 843 000.00 |
Water quality is a key worldwide issue relevant to food production, industry, nature and recreation. Recognising its importance, Copernicus has satellite data and services to provide water quality data and information to end-users in industry, policy, monitoring agencies and science. However, water quality data production is split across three services, Copernicus Marine, Climate Change, and Land, with different methods used, while transitional waters are not supported by any service. CERTO will address these issues by undertaking R&D necessary to produce harmonised water quality data from each Copernicus service and extend support to the large communities operating in transitional waters. CERTO will focus on: methods to classify waters, using satellite observations, together with existing and new in situ data; improvements to remove the atmospheric signal, particularly problematic in near-coastal and transitional waters; and evaluating cross-cutting optical water quality Indicators, that may be used across coasts, transitional and inland waters (monitored through WFD and MSFD). The project will contribute to DANUBIUS the developing European research infrastructure in River-Sea Systems, GEO AquaWatch and Blue Planet, the Lagoons for Life initiative as well as supporting the United National Sustainable Development Goals.The main output of the project will be a prototype that can be “plugged into” the existing services, or the Copernicus DIAS, and widely used open-source software (SNAP). CERTO will also produce the evidence needed by the “entrusted entities” that run Copernicus services as to the improvements, potential to increase the user community, possible downstream services and wider impact of the prototype.CERTO will achieve it objectives by bringing uniquely together the leaders of the water quality data elements in the three Copernicus Services, 5 SMEs Climate-KIC, 4 research intensive institutes/and leaders of end-user relevant communities. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/870349 |
Coastal waters', 'Rivers and estuaries', 'Urban water' |
| projects-092 |
730005 |
SPACE-O |
Space Assisted Water Quality Forecasting Platform for Optimized Decision Making in Water Supply Services |
H2020 |
H2020-EO-2016 |
EO-1-2016 |
2016-11-01 |
2018-12-31 |
Completed |
€ 002 469 948.75 |
Satellite remote sensing has been evolved into a powerful tool for global monitoring of surface waters. Earth Observations (EO) and remote sensing are widely used for quantifying the physical parameters of reservoirs as well as for retrieving selected water constituents concentrations.Space-O aims at the integration of state of the art (EO) and in situ monitoring with advanced hydrological, water quality models and ICT tools into a powerful decision support system (DSS) for generating real time, short to medium term forecasting water flows and quality data in reservoirs which will be used for the optimization of water treatment plants (WTPs) operations, establishing a complete service line from EO to water business sector.An operational service platform will be designed to facilitate increased interoperability among EO and modeled services. Data acquisition and integration of almost real time EO data in the hydrological and water quality models will be implemented in order to provide improved real-time, short to medium term water quantity and quality forecasting in reservoirs. A risk-based DSS will be developed in order to enable cost-effective and environmental sustainable Water Treatment Plants (WTPs) operation, based on the water quality parameters forecasts at the reservoir, the in situ monitoring data and the data collected through supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems used in WTPs for operation control. Additionally, developing Copernicus Services (C3S) will be jointly assessed with site-specific data sets generated through the satellite, modeling, in situ and citizens monitoring services, to produce continuous monitored indicators for enabling water quality Risk Assessment analysis on a catchment level. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/730005 |
Water reservoir' |
| projects-093 |
776480 |
MONOCLE |
Multiscale Observation Networks for Optical monitoring of Coastal waters, Lakes and Estuaries |
H2020 |
H2020-SC5-2016-2017 |
SC5-18-2017 |
2018-02-01 |
2022-07-31 |
Completed |
€ 004 999 862.50 |
MONOCLE innovates and develops sensor, platform, and data handling technologies to increase coverage and lower the cost of in situ sensors in inland and coastal water bodies. These ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to direct anthropogenic impacts but of high economic importance and crucial to sustainable food, energy, and clean water supply. At the same time, these water bodies represent areas of the weakest performance in present EO capability to date. The MONOCLE system will reduce uncertainties in Earth Observation (EO) by characterising atmospheric and water optical properties. MONOCLE will deploy new and improved sensors on autonomous platforms (buoys, ships, drones), and further fill information gaps by developing low-cost complementary solutions for citizen scientists. This will provide essential reference observations needed to further improve and grow EO-based water quality services. MONOCLE will be requirement-driven and implemented by sensor and platform developers, sensor-data infrastructure experts, and EO scientists. A service-oriented data storage, processing, and visualisation infrastructure based on open data standards will integrate MONOCLE seamlessly with existing platforms. This also allows MONOCLE to build sensor performance traceability into its core to support synergistic sensor use and data inspection to identify sensor drift and episodic events.MONOCLE will demonstrate the added value of EO and water quality oriented sensor network to Copernicus EO services, GEOSS data brokering and GEO capacity building initiatives through a number of validation campaigns and use cases, including data-poor regions where no similar infrastructure yet exists. It is expected that the evolution of system standards, new sensors and innovative use of observation platforms of MONOCLE will foster innovation and commercial opportunities for the EO commercial sector and its downstream users in domains ranging from public health to energy and food security. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/776480 |
Rivers and estuaries', 'Coastal waters', 'Lake' |
| projects-094 |
776348 |
CoastObs |
Commercial service platform for user-relevant coastal water monitoring services based on Earth observation |
H2020 |
H2020-EO-2017 |
EO-1-2017 |
2017-11-01 |
2021-04-30 |
Completed |
€ 002 306 911.25 |
Coastal zones are very productive areas, offering many valuable habitats and ecosystems services and attracting human settlements and activities. The intensive concentration of population and excessive exploitation of natural resources puts high pressure on coastal ecosystems leading to biodiversity loss, habitat destruction, pollution as well as conflicts between potential uses and space competition. Several European directives aim at sustainable management of coastal waters, retaining or restoring a high ecological status and safeguarding ecosystem services. Increasing pressure and stricter regulations increase the need for efficient monitoring solutions. Where traditional in situ sampling is insufficient to characterise the highly dynamic coastal environments, Earth Observation (EO) provides a synoptic view and frequent coverage. With the launch of the Copernicus Sentinel satellites, operational water quality services become a business opportunity.CoastObs will develop a service platform for coastal water monitoring with validated products derived from EO. In dialogue with users from various sectors, CoastObs will develop innovative EO-based products: monitoring of seagrass and macro-algae, phytoplankton size classes, primary production, and harmful algae as well as higher level products such as indicators and integration with predictive models. CoastObs will establish sustainable supply chains that can be directly integrated into the users’ systems. The CoastObs consortium has the knowledge and ambition to develop services that are commercially viable, grow in capacity and thus create new jobs. The business case is to define user groups with common requirements, so tailored products can be developed at highly reduced costs per user. Setup of efficient data structures (array database) for smart (re)processing of data is part of this ambition. The commitment of 13 users to CoastObs demonstrates the need for such user-friendly and affordable coastal water services |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/776348 |
Coastal waters' |
| projects-095 |
101004186 |
Water-ForCE |
Water scenarios For Copernicus Exploitation |
H2020 |
H2020-SPACE-2018-2020 |
LC-SPACE-24-EO-2020 |
2021-01-01 |
2023-12-31 |
Completed |
€ 002 999 575.00 |
Unprecedented availability of free-to-access satellite data from the Copernicus programme has started to transform approaches to the assessment, monitoring and sustainable management of our aquatic environments. However, whilst the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service delivers the first generation of inland water quantity and quality products, other directly related products are fragmented across other services (e.g. EMS, C3S, CMEMS, CAMS, CIS). R&D capabilities have rapidly expanded through H2020 and ESA projects working on inland water challenges, but lack of coordination has led to a fragmented approach to evolving the service components and some confusion in a potentially broad user community. Thus, this expansion has not been matched by uptake of these products by decision makers, monitoring agencies, industry or the wider public. Water-ForCE will co-create a Roadmap for the development of the next phase of Copernicus Inland Water Services with the space sector, research community, policy, industry and third sector. The Roadmap will be benchmarked against community requirements, recommending services that should be delivered centrally by Copernicus and innovation opportunities that are better suited for business and research development. The Roadmap will also provide the strategy to ensure effective uptake of water-related services by end users, further support the implementation of relevant directives and policies and evidence policy development. This cross-disciplinary approach will align in situ and remote observation as this is essential to furthering the exploitation of operational observation platforms. A strategy to integrate in situ networks will be defined, integrating approaches to product validation and filling observation gaps and thus strengthen user confidence. Technical requirements for the future Copernicus sensors will also be specified for optimal inland water monitoring needs and future service development. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101004186 |
Rivers and estuaries', 'Water reservoir', 'Lake', 'Groundwater', 'Wetlands', 'Urban water', 'Coastal waters' |
| projects-096 |
101063373 |
SnowMagnet |
Low capillary number flow in phase change porous media: permeability and liquid water capacity of snow. |
HORIZON |
HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01 |
HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01-01 |
2022-11-01 |
2025-10-31 |
On going |
No data |
The effective hydraulic conductivity of snow is highly impacted by its microstructure, introducing a variability of at least three orders of magnitude, impacting seasonal flooding and glacier hydrology. Yet, the mechanisms of unsaturated flow and the impact of local phase transitions have never been investigated at the pore scale. This inhibits improving on the constitutive laws for larger scale models of snow hydrology using upscaling methods. Micro computer tomography is a very effective method for dry snow metamorphism but fails for wet snow because the transient flow and the accelerated change in microstructure cannot be resolved. We propose nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) methods in combination with Lattice-Boltzmann simulations and Pore-Network models to characterize water flow in snow. Applying these methods on unsaturated flow in snow, we can resolve local saturation, liquid water displacement probabilities and diffusion measures, quantitatively measuring mechanisms of water transport. These are essential for gauging modelling approaches of transport phenomena. Whilst NMR methods have been used extensively on saturated flow, it has found limited application in unsaturated media and is poised for significant advances. To target melt and percolation phenomena in snow, we start with 3D printed porous media (single pores and fully resolved snow geometries) to refine the experimental setup and provide novel data for unsaturated flow in porous media. Assisted by Lattice-Boltzmann simulations we can link pore-scale mechanisms to the NMR data. The action will produce unique data sets on unsaturated flow as a function of capillary number in model porous media and snow. This data will be used to calibrate dynamic pore network models aiming at quantifying the transient flow in snow. This leads to a parameterization of effective hydraulic conductivity for a wide range of snow microstructures providing a new standard for models resolving water transport in snow. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101063373 |
Snow and ice' |
| projects-097 |
101108674 |
SDA-For |
Exploring the potential of snow data assimilation in forest areas |
HORIZON |
HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01 |
HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01-01 |
2023-10-01 |
2025-09-30 |
On going |
No data |
Despite its importance, snow water equivalent (SWE) monitoring remains an unresolved issue in modern hydrology. This is a consequence of the limitations of orbital sensors, the large spatial variability of the snowpack and the combined errors of meteorological forcings and numerical models. Snow data assimilation (SDA) of remotely sensed data into numerical models is one way to advance the estimation of SWE distribution in remote regions. However, implement SDA initiatives in forested areas is challenging, limiting the development of SDA initiatives in more than 20% of the Northern Hemisphere. The aim of this project is to train the candidate in sophisticated radiative transfer modelling and AI, to implement snow-forest interactions in data assimilation pipelines for a better understanding of snow freshwater resources. This main objective will be developed through the creation of an international network of experts, to train the researcher in different related topics. This includes Dr Jessica Lundquis (Outgoing phase host) from the University of Washington, an authority on forest-snow interactions, and Dr Simon Gascoin (returning phase host) from CESBIO (Toulouse, France), with long experience in multidisciplinary snow remote sensing. The results will be used to enhance the current capabilities of the MuSA tool, an open source and highly scalable data assimilation system developed by the researcher. The project will be the first effort to infer SWE in forest through SDA of spacial imagery, and therefore is of great interest for many stakeholders and scientists. The project is designed with an obvious focus on training the researcher in new techniques but also in soft skills thanks to the mentoring programs of both the University of Washington and CESBIO. The ultimate goal of the project is to improve the career prospects of the researcher, making him an authority in snow science and providing the scientific community with a new and sophisticated SDA tool. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101108674 |
Snow and ice' |
| projects-098 |
101091915 |
MEloDIZER |
SUSTAINABLE MEMBRANE DISTILLATION FOR INDUSTRIAL WATER REUSE AND DECENTRALISED DESALINATION APPROACHING ZERO WASTE |
HORIZON |
HORIZON-CL4-2022-RESILIENCE-01 |
HORIZON-CL4-2022-RESILIENCE-01-14 |
2022-12-01 |
2026-11-30 |
On going |
€ 008 290 517.48 |
MEloDIZER implements high-performance membranes and modules in strategic applications of membrane distillation (MD), hence providing the decisive step for the success of MD. These core components are fabricated with a focus on feasible wide uptake and on sustainability, substituting harmful materials and protocols with >80% of benign solvents and relying on green chemistry principles. Both flat-sheets and innovative hollow-fibres are produced, striking the optimum between productivity and energy efficiency, as well as minimising fouling/wetting phenomena, also by applying novel sacrificial coatings while membranes are in situ. Optimised modules are developed with a focus on hydrodynamics and energy recovery improvements. These activities are strongly supported by sustained modelling tasks, conducted at different scales to (i) control the relationship between membrane properties and performance, (ii) customise module geometry, and (iii) increase system efficiency and automation. The membranes and modules are thus rationally installed as core components of four MD prototypes spanning three orders of magnitude of productivity. Two prototypes (2-5 m3/day, 0.5-2 m3/day) are demonstrated in industrial facilities (textile, beverage, chemical industries) to reuse wastewater (70-90%), thus reducing water footprint and approaching zero waste, as well as to recovery valuable nutrients as secondary raw materials from aquaculture wastewater. Two prototypes (50-100 L/day, 10-20 L/day) are demonstrated as low-cost, ready-to-use, passive, autonomous, decentralised units, delivering drinking water from saline and challenging sources at community and family level. All prototypes are run with 90-100% sustainable energy from waste heat and/or solar energy, with careful designs that maximise membrane and system performance. Quantitative, robust evaluations of market entry and environmental benefits act as input data for each innovation activity in MEloDIZER and to promote exploitation. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101091915 |
Urban water', 'Coastal waters' |
| projects-099 |
101154855 |
RECHARGE |
Recharge and Evapotranspiration Characterizations through Holistic Assessment for Responsible Groundwater managEment |
HORIZON |
HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01 |
HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01-01 |
2025-02-17 |
2027-02-16 |
On going |
No data |
Mediterranean “analogue” environments across the world have seen increased frequencies of droughts, with repercussions such as reduced availability of soil water for the vegetation. This situation forces plants to shift from soil water to groundwater for photosynthesis. Climatic adaptation plans have shown that sustainable management of groundwater resources cannot ignore areas with vegetation groundwater uptake and needs to account for the quantification of recharge to the groundwater and evapotranspiration, which are linked through processes happening in the critical zone.Dr Simone Gelsinari was inspired by the approach adopted for managing water resources by Australian regulatory agencies and formulated the project “Recharge and Evapotranspiration Characterizations through Holistic Assessment for Responsible Groundwater manaEment – RECHARGE”, with a core field observational part to be performed at the University of Florence and a secondment at the CNR for the modeling component and the possibility to interact with policymakers. RECHARGE will promote the recognition of vegetation adaptation characteristics to non-stationary climates and the need for regulators to account for these characteristics in climate adaptation plans.RECHARGE will be the continuation of the Fellow’s interdisciplinary background given the mixed experience in modelling and field data instrumentation and collection that he maturated in the last 6 years spent in a semi-arid Mediterranean environment since both PhD and Postdoc were based in Mediterranean-like climatic areas in Australia. RECHARGE will be the opportunity to bring back and apply to the EU his experience developed through extensive exposure to Australian climate adaptation approaches. The Fellow’s goal is to be positioned at the interface of the field and modelling communities, within the broad area of hydrology and climate sciences, and he maximizes both experiences at the host and secondment institutions to reach this goal. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101154855 |
Groundwater' |
| projects-100 |
101039181 |
SEDAHEAD |
Dynamic river catchments in a Global Change context: assessing the present, preparing for the future |
HORIZON |
ERC-2021-STG |
ERC-2021-STG |
2022-11-01 |
2027-10-31 |
On going |
€ 001 498 846.00 |
In a Global Changing world sediment regime has emerged as a dominant actor in the modification of river catchments. The sediment regime refers to the sediment budget (amount, type and timing of sediment inputs, outputs and storage) of a river system as well as the way water and sediment interact to drive river conditions. Studies of sediment regime assessing the impact of Global Change are scarce and traditionally relies on deterministic approaches. However, at any given river catchment section, a complex imprint in the spatial-temporal distribution of sediment regime is observed. This imprint is caused by the temporal and spatial uneven production, storage activation and transport of sediments. Pure deterministic (and thus partial) solutions are not accounting for the natural variability of sediment regime and the inherent uncertainty due to Global Change. This means we are potentially missing half the story and that our attempts to forecast the current and future evolution of rivers areas, at both catchment- and reach-scale, may be more wrong than right. The tenet of this proposal is to describe and determine the Global Change impacts on sediment fluxes at all scales relevant for river catchment management by means of a modelling approach that can account for natural stochasticity and Global Change uncertainty. Three main and novel research questions have been identified and need to be addressed: (i) how (and how strongly) the headwaters control the main features of sediment regime; (ii) how to model sediment fluxes by means of a forecasting model capable to reproduce fluctuating (and thus realistic) sediment regime characteristics; and (iii) how to identify and incorporate the Global Change impacts on sediment regime modelling to assist in fostering a more robust river catchment management. This proposal contributes to the 13th UN Global Goal “Climate Change” and to the Horizon Europe mission: “Adaptation to Climate Change including Societal Transformation”. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101039181 |
Rivers and estuaries' |
