The MAGDA project aims at developing a toolchain for atmosphere monitoring, weather forecasting, and severe weather/irrigation/crop monitoring advisory, with GNSS (including Galileo) at its core, to provide useful information to agricultural operators. MAGDA will exploit the untapped potential of assimilating GNSS-derived, drone-derived, Copernicus EO-derived datasets, in situ weather sensors into very high-resolution, short-range (1-2 days ahead) and very short-range (less than 1 day ahead) numerical weather forecasts to provide improved prediction of severe weather events (rainfall, snow, hail, wind, heat and cold waves) as well as of weather-driven agriculture pests and diseases to the benefit of agriculture operations, also in light of ongoing effects of climate change. These targets will be achieved by setting up a database of variables of interest, and an assimilation system to feed a numerical weather prediction model, which in turn drives a hydrological model for irrigation performance and water accounting to assess water use and related productivity. In addition to already existing observational networks, new dedicated networks of sensors, including GNSS and drones, to monitor atmospheric variables at high spatial resolution will be deployed in the vicinity of large farms and cultivated areas, to provide data with high spatial and temporal resolutions for the assimilation into the weather model. The delivery of the augmented forecasts and irrigation advisories to farmers will be enabled by a dedicated dashboard and APIs to already existing Farm Management Systems. The tools developed within MAGDA will represent the technical and methodological components based on which services to support agricultural operations will be defined.

IMproving PRedictions and management of hydrological EXtremes For a better anticipation on future high impact hydrological extremes disrupting safety of citizens, agricultural production, transportation, energy production and urban water supply, and overall economic productivity, prediction and foresighting capabilities and their intake in these strategic sectors need to be improved. IMPREX will improve forecast skill of meteorological and hydrological extremes in Europe and their impacts, by applying dynamic model ensembles, process studies, new data assimilation techniques and high resolution modeling. Novel climate change impact assessment concepts will focus at increasing the realism of relevant events by specific high resolution regional downscaling, explore compounding trans-sectoral and trans-regional risks, and design new risk management paradigms. These developments are demonstrated in impact surveys for strategic economic sectors in a set of case studies in which local stakeholders, public organizations and SMEs are involved. A pan-European assessment of risk management and adaptation strategies is applied, minimizing risk transfer from one sector or region to another. As a key outreach product, a periodic hydrological risk outlook for Europe is produced, incorporating the dynamic evolution of hydro-climatic and socio-economic processes. The project outreach maximizes the legacy impact of the surveys, aimed at European public stakeholder and business networks, including user-friendly assessment summaries, and training material. The project responds to the call by targeting the quality of short-to-medium hydro-meteorological predictions, enhancing the reliability of future climate projections, apply this information to strategic sectoral and pan-European surveys at different scales, and evaluate and adapt current risk management strategies. With its integrative approach, IMPREX will link current management decisions and actions with an emergent future.

Groundwater is one of the most important freshwater resources for mankind and for ecosystems. Assessing groundwater resources and developing sustainable water management plans based on this resource is a major field of activity for science, water authorities and consultancies worldwide. Due to its fundamental role in the Earth’s water and energy cycles, groundwater has been declared as an Essential Climate Variable (ECV) by GCOS, the Global Climate Observing System. The Copernicus Services, however, do not yet deliver data on this fundamental resource, nor is there any other data source worldwide that operationally provides information on changing groundwater resources in a consistent way, observation-based, and with global coverage. This gap will be closed by G3P, the Global Gravity-based Groundwater Product. The G3P consortium combines key expertise from science and industry across Europe that optimally allows to (1) capitalize from the unique capability of GRACE and GRACE-FO satellite gravimetry as the only remote sensing technology to monitor subsurface mass variations and thus groundwater storage change for large areas, (2) incorporate and advance a wealth of products on storage compartments of the water cycle that are part of the Copernicus portfolio, and (3) disseminate unprecedented information on changing groundwater storage to the global and European user communities, including a European use case as a demonstrator for industry potential in the water sector. In combination, the G3P development is a novel and cross-cutting extension of the Copernicus portfolio towards essential information on the changing state of water resources at European and global scales. G3P is timely given the recent launch of GRACE-FO that opens up the chance for gravity-based time series with sufficient length to monitor climate-induced and human-induced processes over more than 20 years, and to boost European space technology on board these satellites.

Objectives: Provide currently unavailable geo-information on weather, water and climate for sub-Saharan Africa by enhancing satellite-based geo-data with innovative in situ sensors and developing related information services that answer needs of African stakeholders and the GEOSS community. Concept: A systematic feedback loop to reciprocally validate in situ measurements and satellite data in one integrated model. Over 500 in situ measurement stations using citizen science. State of the art advancement & Innovation potential: Building on and pushing further recent advances in sensor and communication technology to provide cheaper and more robust in situ measurements covering a wider area at a higher resolution in sub-Saharan Africa. Working with tech-hubs in Europe and Africa to feed creation and growth of European and African start-ups that develop sensors and geo-services, delivering complete value chains from sensor to customer-ready information delivery. Impact on call expectations: -Integration of in situ components into models based on GEOSS and Copernicus data -OGC compliant science-grade geo-data (atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere) delivered to GEOSS, incl. near-real time statistically characterized soil moisture data from Africa that can be used operationally (not currently available) and radar derived soil moisture measurements also available under cloudy conditions, or vegetation overgrowth -at least 20 new products for use in food, water, energy security, climate change and resilience to natural hazards validated and ready for large-scale implementation by consortium partners and external stakeholders -based on at least 10 innovative, cost efficient, robust, sensors, including fast neutron coun-ter, track¬ing of convective storms with consumer lightning sensors and accelerometer for tree-crown weighing -(Bio-degradable) sensors reduced to one tenth to one hundredth of their current price, extremely low-maintenance, use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.

Mountainous regions in Central Asia are vulnerable to consequences of climate change. Taking appropriate decisions for allocation of water over communities, the environment and key economic sectors such as agriculture and energy, is increasingly challenging due to economic and population growth as well as climate-induced changes in hydrological regimes in Central Asia’s main transboundary river basins. WE-ACT proposes to establish a climate sensitive Decision Support System for water allocation in two sub-catchments of a transboundary river basin in Central Asia, namely the Naryn and Kara Darya catchments of the Syr Darya river basin (covering parts of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan). Based on an innovative water information system that captures a thorough understanding of water availability, demand, footprint and allocation in a glacier-fed river basin, WE-ACT will enable water managers to interact with an accessible and intuitive DSS to alleviate water stress for communities, the economy and the environment on the short- and long-term. WE-ACT will enable them to adapt the allocation of water resources to the known and expected effects of climate change, while encouraging the improvement of policies to correctly set water tariffs, reduce water footprints and increase water use efficiency in agriculture and energy sectors. The backbone of the project is a reliable data supply chain based on real-time monitoring, integrated water demand-, availability- and use modelling approach, machine-learning, and data storage in a transboundary context. This will be matched with an in-depth understanding of water policies and priorities that face increasing pressures of climate change, growing demand and water dependency. End-users of the project (hydrometeorological stations, integrated models, DSS for water allocation) will be carefully mapped, invited, involved and trained to establish and use meaningful results from the outset of the project.