|
9/30/2008
10:16:24
WaterNet EU Demonstration Project Meetings in Ljubljana
and Wien
Drs.
Gregor Gregoric and Mark Zagar, ARSO drought management
and numerical modeling leaders met to discuss progress in the demonstration
project and specific needs for GLDAS products over the area. These products are produced by the HSB, GSFC,
NASA about 5 weeks behind real-time. Dr.
Paul Houser’s CREW team may be able to provide real-time simulations and
provide those to an anonymous FTP site where ARSO and others may retrieve the
files and process them using the GrADS analysis software. This information will be especially useful for
the DMCSEE project over SE Europe.
Dr.
Thomas Haiden, Head of the Modeling Division, ZAMG met on 26 September to
discuss WaterNet and his INCA real-time data assimilation and nowcasting
system. This very high resolution (dx=1km)
system provides valuable 15 minute QPE and QPF data over the region of the Danube, Drava, Mura, and Sava Rivers. We will explore various aspects of the GLDAS
and other remote sensing information from NASA for QPE estimation and
nowcasting that may be useful to INCA in Austria and Slovenia.
Drs. Mitja Brilly and Matjaz Mikos met to discuss future Waternet plans and the NASA DECISIONS 08 proposal at FGG on 30 September. They are quite interested in how INCA products may enhance hydrologic modeling and surface energy budgets that control erosion in heavy precipitation events.
Return to Slovenia and the EU WaterNet Demonstration Project Fall 2008
Upon return to Slovenia September 18, 2008, we began work on the EU demonstration project and coordination with additional Community of Practice experts in hydrometeorology and water management. Initial efforts included meetings at the Environmental Agency of the Republic of Slovenia (EARS-ARSO) in Ljubljana, and with ZAMG in Vienna. This project demonstration is designed to show the value of Land Surface Models and data assimilation systems in the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) developed by the Hydrologic Science Branch, GSFC, NASA.
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)
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.
24th Conference of the
Danubian Countries on Hydrologic Forecasting and Basis of Water Management in Bled, Slovenia 2-4 June
2008
We presented a paper on
WaterNet showing applications from GLDAS in the Danubian Basin including daily SWE, QPE, Runoff, and Soil Moisture;
and invited members of the Danubian research and water management
decision-making community to join our WaterNet Community of Practice and
partner in developing the European Candidate Solution Report. Over 220 representatives from 21 countries
from Germany in the headwaters to Bulgaria at the mouth of the Danube
including the UK and US participated in the meetings (CDCHFBWM). Many university students and professors,
research and management agencies presented papers on topics from climate change
impacts on the Danube to flash flood prediction, drought forecasting, and
ecological aspects of Danube flows. Many of
these topics fell into the 12 National Applications themes of NASA.
Our paper entitled “WaterNet:
the NASA water cycle solutions network – Danubian Regional Applications” by
Matthews, Brilly, Kobold, Zagar, and Houser reviewed the philosophy behind
WaterNet and NASA’s solutions networks, and then presented results from GLDAS
over the region focusing on the Alps, Carpathian Mountains and Hungarian Plain,
and the mountains of Montenagro. Results
from the Weather Research Forecasting (WRF) model simulations of the 18 September 2007 flash flood in Slovenia were compared with GLDAS and observations indicating
the need for high resolution GLDAS modeling.
The value of GLDAS soil moisture analyses for drought monitoring was
demonstrated. This 15 page paper is available
on the conference proceedings CD, from the FGG, University of Ljubljana and on line in Topic 6:
Developments in Hydrology.
New potential collaborators
for WaterNet include the Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service (DHMZ),
Zagreb; University of Natural Resources
and Applied Life Sciences(BOKU),
Vienna; Bavarian Environmental Agency (BEA),
Munich; University of Belgrade, Serbia; VITAKU Consult, Hungary; Academy of Sciences
and Arts of Vojvodina (VANU),
Serbia; Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Research Institute (HRI), Kiev; Research Institute for Fisheries, Aquaculture
and Irrigation, Hungary; University of Worcester (ASGA), UK.
Vituki Environmnetal Protection and Water Management Research Institute and Vituki Consult, Budapest
May 16, 2008
Dr. Peter Bakony, Director Scientific and International Affairs, Vituki, and Drs. Gabor Balant, Maria Szomolanyi, and Sandor Szel, Vituki Consult met with me to discuss WaterNet and their research and applications. Vituki Consult has many varied projects that range from environmental monitoring and hydraulic measurements to numerical modeling and prediction, and water and environmental management. The Vituki team expressed interest in WaterNet and becoming members of our Community of Practice. They will review our web pages and join our CoP as it evolves. Their interests include detailed soil moisture estimates and modeling forecasts, precipitation and temperature forecasts, climate variability and change studies related to water supplies of the Danube, drought monitoring and prediction, and flood prediction.
EGU 2008 Annual Meeting, Vienna
April
14-18, 2008
We presented a paper entitled “Extreme Event Analyses from WaterNet: The NASA Water Cycle Solutions
Network” describing several examples of extreme events in Slovenia and SE
Europe designed to spark interest of EU scientists and
decision-makers to join WaterNet. Our key EU collaborators are the
Environmental Agency of the Republic of Slovenia (EARS), the Faculty for Civil and Geodetic
Engineering (FGG), University of Ljubljana, and
the Austrian Meteorological Agency (ZAMG).
The EGU meetings provided
an excellent forum to develop contacts and our water cycle WaterNet Community of Practice from over 51 sessions in the Natural
Hazards Division with over 1460 abstracts covering all aspects from floods to
droughts and earthquakes. Other Divisions included the
Atmosphere, Climate, Cryosphere, Non-linear processes, Hydrology, Oceanography
and Solar-Terrestrial Sciences. Collaborations
with the European Space Agency, Joint Research Center and many university
researchers in areas from Snow and Avalanche research to bio-fuels energy
production and water quality management, emergency management, and hydrologic
and climate modeling will be pursued during the next weeks. The European Science
Foundation and COST may provide a
means to develop workshops and exchanges among EU scientists having interests
in the water cycle and related WaterNet human and automated networking.
WaterNet California-Nevada River Forecast Center
March
24-28, 2008
In late March, Dave Matthews
and Will Pozzi met with our WaterNet collaboration team at the CNRFC, Central Valley Operations Office, USBR, and the California
Department of Water Resources to discuss progress in developing the
WaterNet “Community of Practice” and
the CNRFC WaterNet Demonstration Project.
Meetings were held with Robert Hartman, Hydrologist in Charge, CNRFC,
Art Henkel, Senior Hydrologist, and Alan Haynes, HAS Forecaster regarding
progress in the Hydrometeorological Test-bed (HMT) and integration
of emerging research into operational river forecasting. We then met with Reclamation water operations
manager Paul Fujitani and planner Michael Tansey to discuss current water
management decision support tools and needs for improved planning and
operations. Maurice Roos, CDWR Chief
Hydrologist led a meeting with other CDWR engineers and planners to review
their interests and needs for improved water supply analysis and prediction. We discussed their snow survey system and how
it is used to improve water resource management in California.
NCAR Colorado
Headwater Research Program Kickoff:
March 19, 2008
Dr. Roy Rasmussen’s Research Applications Lab
(RAL) TIIMES team hosted a kickoff
meeting for the Colorado
Headwaters Research Program. Dr. Matthews attended at the request of Dr.
Paul Houser, CREW to represent him and our
NASA sponsored WaterNet Project.
This planning meeting was designed to develop a scientific framework for
better long-term analysis and prediction of climate variability and change
impacts on the Colorado headwaters to meet the needs of local, state, and
interstate water users in this region. The meeting provided a series of
excellent presentations on the goals and objectives of CHRP and related
scientific issues and challenges that need to be addressed in order to better
understand and predict the complex linkages between atmospheric controls of
precipitation, snowpack evolution, runoff, and its impacts on water supplies in
this critical headwaters region. The
scientists discussed a cutting edge approach to very high resolution (2-4 km
grid spacing) Weather
Research Forecasting (WRF) modeling dynamically coupled to a sophisticated
Land Surface Model – Noah-D, and high resolution surface observations and the
need for improved remote sensing and in situ aircraft measurements to
understand and validate the physical processes simulated in models. While in
the initial planning stage, this CHRP holds much promise for making significant
research strides to improve long-term predictions of water supplies in the
region.
WaterNet and Slovenian – U.
S. Technology Transfer Project:
January 14- Feb 7, 2008
Professor Mitja Brilly, Chair for the Faculty of Hydrology and Hydraulics, University
of Ljubljana, Slovenia
visited American research and operational forecasting teams at CREW, NASA
Goddard Space Flight
Center, NOAA’s National
Centers for Environmental
Prediction-CPC, EMC, HPC, and Office of Hydrologic Development in Washington,
DC area.
Paul Houser and his CREW team hosted us in their facilities, then we
visited the Hydrologic Sciences
Branch, GSFC, NASA to review their work using high performance Weather
Research Forecast models coupled to the Land
Information System and land surface models.
Douglas Lecomte hosted us at the Climate Prediction Center and arranged
meetings with NCEP operational
forecasters and modelers in the Environmental
Modeling Center (EMC), and the Hydrometeorological
Prediction Center (HPC). We met with
Michael Smith and John Schaake at the Office
of Hydrologic Development (OHD) to discuss distributive hydrologic modeling
research and ensemble forecasting.
In Colorado, we then
met with water resource, forecasting and emergency management teams at the Bureau of Reclamation, Earth System Research Lab (ESRL) – Hyrometeorological Test Bed (HMT), Civil
Engineering Department, CSU and CU. We
also visited the Storm Peak Laboratory
(SPL) atop Mt. Werner at Steamboat Springs.
Donald Frevert, and Levi Brekke, USBR discussed current water management
work and climate studies related to water resource management in the West.
Timothy Schneider, HMT Director, led a meeting with his team of
observationalists and modelers at ESRL where we discussed progress in mesoscale modeling and hydrologic
observations to improve and validate models to support river forecasts in the
American River Basin of the high Sierra.
Dr. Boha Stankov reviewed her results from the Cold Land Process Experiment
(CLPX).
WaterNet PI Meeting Nov 19-20, 2007 CREW
Offices, Calverton, MD
WaterNet
conducted a co-investigator meeting at the CREW
offices November 19-21, 2007. The meeting was designed to bring all
investigators up to date on current work for NASA and develop plans for the
second year of the project. Paul Houser,
WaterNet, PI led the meetings with his CREW team Debbie Belvedere and Will
Pozzi, other investigators – Rick Lawford, Clair Welty, Robert Schiffer, UMD;
Adam Schlosser MIT, Bachir Imam, UCI,
and B Fekete, UNH and I presented our current project status report and lessons
learned in developing Candidate Solution Reports and demonstration
projects. I reported on our
California-Nevada River Forecast Center (CNRFC)
demonstration project working with USBR water operations managers, and the
California Department of Water Resources climatologists and water managers, and
our European candidate solutions for water managers and drought managers in
southeastern Europe.
Following the WaterNet meetings on 20 November, Will Pozzi
and I met with Experts from NASA’s Hydrologic Science Branch, GSFC to discuss
their progress in developing a distributed version of the NWSRFS modeling
system used for operational forecasting.
Their integration of NWSRFS into NASA’s Land Information System may provide
enhanced streamflow and snow pack runoff forecasts. We also discussed potential for improved snow
and soil moisture monitoring using the GLDAS
system for SE Europe at a high resolution of 1 to 5 km
grid spacing.
On 21 November, I met with John Schaake, OHD to discuss his work with Rob Hartman,
HIC, CNRFC, and our demonstration project with the CNRFC. John suggested studying the HEPEX ensemble prediction project,
and EFFS European Flood Forecasting
System, which Professor Brilly and our EU colleagues are involved in within Slovenia. I then drove to the NCEP offices in Camp
Springs, MD to meet with Douglas LeComt to discuss drought
analysis and prediction at CPC, NCEP, and he introduced me to Felix Kogan a
vegetation
remote sensing expert in the STAR
program at NCEP, and Peter Romanov, their snow and ice
expert.
WaterNet Climate Change - Cryosphere Lecture, TUG, 25 October 2007
Dr. Matthews met with Dr. Knoblauch and other staff and
students at the Technical University of Graz, Austria to share recent
information from NASA and NSF’s cryosphere research programs. These results describe the very rapid changes
in arctic and Antarctic snow and ice fields that may lead to very rapid sea level
rise if continued at the current accelerating rate. The presentation focuses on Dr. Konrad Steffen’s
Nobel Peace Prize winning team’s work on Greenland and
the Antarctic. Members of his CIRES
staff contributed to the 2007 IPPC Climate Change Report. Results from Dr. Zally Walley, NASA Cryosphere Program, and JPL's NSCAT NASA Scatterometer (Drs. Son Ngheim and Greg Neuman) measurements of winds and ice changes were reviewed. The following list of URLs provide a set of reference links to web pages and videos of rapid changes in the polar regions.
Reference URLs:
Greenland: Dr. Konrad Steffen: http://cires.colorado.edu/steffen/
Arctic melt 2007: http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/imagesAnim/ArcticSeaIceAnim.cfm
Big Thaw: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/videos/earth/earth20071001/
West Antarctica Melt: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-058
NASA Cryosphere: http://ice.nasa.gov/
University
of Colorado: CIRES, Boulder,
CO
May 2005
The NASA-funded research of the Steffen Group is the subject of three BBC News
reports:
May 19, 2005 mp4, 63 MB May 20, 2005 mp4, 52 MB May 20, 2005 mp3, 8 MB
Latest Picture from NOAA — Pacific
Marine Environmental Laboratory's
North Pole WebCam
South Pole Web Camera:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/obop/spo/livecamera.html
USACE Cold Regions Research Lab: http://www.crrel.usace.army.mil/
NOAA Arctic Change:
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/
NOAA Arctic Change:
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/
GEOSummit
International collaborations: http://www.geosummit.org/
FGG
Hydrology II Lectures Fall 2007
Dr. Matthews began his series of 3 lectures working with Professor
Brilly at the FGG University of Ljubljana. The lectures provide an
overview of American approaches to various hydro-meteorological aspects of the
water cycle that are relevant to water managers including: the water cycle
storage and fluxes, land surface models and their interaction with atmospheric
models, data assimilation, stream flow analysis and prediction, NWSRFS and AHPS applications at the CNRFC. Lecture 2 examines
precipitation physics, and hydrologic predictions including research programs
at the ESRL PSD and CDC which are reviewed from the perspective
of the HMT and climate change and the NASA WaterNet project. Recent
advances in climate change research, snow and ice melting, extreme
weather forecasting and weather
modification principles are reviewed in the final lecture on 5 November.
Slovenia Flood Damage Survey 2 October 2007
On 18 September 2007 an extreme local flood event caused more than 260 Million Euros in damage to parts of central Slovenia from Cerkno to Smartno. Drs. Mitja Brilly and Dave Matthews toured the area on the Selscica, Davca, and Sava Bohinjka Rivers taking photos of the damage and initial repairs to roads and bridges. Much work is continuing to repair the immediate damage to infrastructure and restore power, communications and road access. See photos in the Media Gallery on right column of web page.
Recent WaterNet Meetings
Slovenia: University of Ljubljana and Environmental Agency of the Republic of Slovenia October 2007
Meetings at the University and EARS are scheduled to review progress and develop Candidate Solution Reports for water supply and flood forecasting, and drought management applications in Slovenia and Austria. Work is progressing on developing the CSRs.
Candidate Solution Reports:
CNRFC Demonstration Project - Submitted to NASA HQ September 2007
TVA Water Management Applications - Under development
Montana Area Office, USBR Water Operations Applications - under development
Hydromet Testbed - WRF enhanced forecasts using SPoRT inputs for California's American River Basin - under development
NOAA Physical Science Division, ESRL, Boulder, CO August 2007
Review of plans for the California-Nevada River Forecast Center Demonstration Project with Dr. Timothy Schmidt and the Hydromet Testbed (HMT) team for the winter of 2007-08.
Silverthorne Town Manager, Silverthorne, CO August 22, 2007
Mr. Kevin Batchelder, Town Manager, discussed local mountain community needs for improved water cycle related information for long term planning and management of community issues. Issues ranged from wildfire protection to maintenance of Gold Medal Trout Fishery and improved water supply and quality in the Blue River. Many of the town needs are addressed in NASA's 12 National Priority Areas that WaterNet is focusing on. Specific details are reported on in HydrometDSS's annual report to WaterNet, see draft under Documents, HydrometDSS Progress Report 2 on this web page.
Colorado River Water Conservancy District, Glenwood Springs, CO August 28, 2007
Colorado River Water Conservation District, Chief Engineer, Dave Merritt discussed current needs and interests of this northwestern Colorado water management organization. Future work with CDWR will focus on their interaction with emerging NASA NWR research products of value to water resource decision-makers. See link under "Water" on the top menu of this web page.
………….
EGU Annual Meeting, Vienna April 15 -20, 2007:
EGU Annual Meeting, Vienna April 15 -20, 2007:
Presentation of WaterNet to EGU Scientists, contacts for networking were made, with invitations to join our network of end-users and researchers
Technical University of Graz (TUG) Civil Engineering and JOANNE Research, Graz, Austria May 22, 2007:
Review of WaterNet Status and presentation to new Director of the Institute of Hydraulics Engineering and Water Resources Management, Dr. Gerald Zenz, Dr. Helmut Knoblauch, and Dr. Till Harum. Discussion of networking needs for meta data on end-user DSTs and funding of EU scientists and engineers involved in WaterNet.
Faculty of Hydraulics and Hydrology, University of Ljubljana, April 13, 26, May 11, 24, June various times:
Review of WaterNet and SLOvenian components for networking, development of conference paper for EU Climate and Water Conference, Finland, Sept 3-6, 2007.
|
Today I met with Janez Polajnar, EARS chief of hydrologic forecasting to discuss the ARSO data collection and display systems used for analysis and forecasting in Slovenia. This led to the ideas regarding the need for international data sharing and information exchange of benefit to ARSO and Austria in the Drava River basin. In response, I prepared a