Water scenarios For Copernicus Exploitation

Project Information

Water-ForCE

Grant agreement ID: 101004186

DOI

10.3030/101004186

Project closed

EC signature date 29 October 2020

Start date 1 January 2021

End date 31 December 2023

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies – Space

Total cost

€ 2 999 575,00

EU contribution

€ 2 999 575,00

Coordinated by

TARTU ULIKOOL
Estonia

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - Water-ForCE (Water scenarios For Copernicus Exploitation)

Reporting period: 2022-01-01 to 2023-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

There is no life on Earth without water. Inland waters play a key role in human health and well-being as a source of drinking water, food, recreation, and tourism. Inland waters support biodiversity and ecosystems services and play an important role in the global element cycles. There is critical need for high-quality data and information about water to understand the processes that are taking place at global, regional and local scales and take relevant actions. The Copernicus Services could be a powerful tool for understanding the water related processes on Earth, supporting water management, supporting Sustainable Development Goal’s (SDG), System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), climate adaptation, and boosting European economy.
At present water related products and services are delivered through six Copernicus Services. The European Commission recognised that this is not an optimal way forward and announced a Coordination and Support Action to analyse the current situation with water related Copernicus products and services and find a way forward that would allow Copernicus Services to satisfy the user and stakeholder needs in the water domain.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The main aim of the project was to develop a Roadmap for Copernicus Water Services that contains analysis of the current state-of-the-art and proposes scenarios how Copernicus Services should evolve in order to satisfy better the user and stakeholder needs. Water-ForCE engaged more than 800 participants from around the world in its work. All this knowledge was analysed in more than 40 deliverables of the project and those results were then condensed into the Roadmap.
The analysis of the current Services revealed eight bottlenecks that are stalling progress of the Copernicus water-related elements:
1. Lack of dedicated water in situ component
2. Limited trust in Copernicus water products
3. Lack of compatibility between EO and EU directives and international monitoring activities
4. Fragmentation of existing Copernicus Services
5. Sentinel sensors are suboptimal for inland waters
6. Lack of funding mechanisms in support of Copernicus Services inland water portfolio
7. Lack of awareness within key user communities
8. Water domain insufficiently recognised within Copernicus Programme

Four different scenarios for the future of Copernicus water services were analysed:
1. Business as usual
2. Water Thematic Hub
3. Water as a Virtual Service
4. Water as a Copernicus Core Service
The first two scenarios are ongoing as the first four Thematic Hubs (Coastal, Energy, Health, and Arctic) have been officially launched in November 2023. It can be expected that the Copernicus Services will gradually improve also when there will be no major changes (Business as usual scenario). However, the progress will not be sufficient (otherwise the Commission would have not initiated the call to improve the situation) and this scenario will not allow to solve the bottlenecks.
Thematic Hubs are currently defined by the Commission as “single entry points to data and products generated by different Copernicus services on specific thematic areas”. Meaning that they will be data portals. The only issue such portals will solve is easier access to the relevant Copernicus products. Moreover, it is likely that many of the planned Hubs will include water products. Thus, the Thematic Hub concept may actually increase the confusion for certain users. And the Water Thematic Hub will not help to reach neither the expected impacts listed by the Commission nor to solve the bottlenecks identified by the consortium.
The Water as a Virtual Service scenario expects the launch of an entity that coordinates all the water related activities and will establish an in situ component that actually collects in situ data necessary for development of new products, validation of existing products and delivering the currently missing uncertainties with all the products. This scenario may have different levels of development starting from a small coordinating unit, Thematic Hub and an in situ component to almost fully fledged Copernicus Service (e.g. delivering own products). The more advanced the Virtual Service will be the more expected impacts it will allow to reach and bottlenecks to solve.
The ultimate option would be having a Water Service. This should allow the water domain to reach the level of attention it actually needs. It will be easier to influence the space domain of the Copernicus Programme to get satellites that are more suited for inland water monitoring and research. And having an Entrusted Entity will ensure coordination of all water related activities including establishing an in situ networks that collects necessary data.
Communication and dissemination of the results has been very successful. For example, the web page: www.waterforce.eu has been visited more than 35 000 times. Project documents have been downloaded more than 3400 times. The number of registered stakeholders who participated in our workshops and discussions was 890. The key stakeholder in this process was the European Commission. Therefore, we had multiple meetings with the DG DEFIS, DG ENV, Copernicus in situ Component, European Environment Agency, Joint Research Centre. We also had joint meetings with other relevant projects (like COINS, PRIMEWater, etc) and international organisations like GLEON and GEO community (e.g. GEO AquaWatch).
Water-ForCE repository with all the deliverables: https://zenodo.org/communities/waterforce_2020 and https://waterforce.eu/documents-and-deliverables.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The main deliverable of the project is a Roadmap for Copernicus water services. It includes the analysis of the state of the art in Copernicus water domain and proposes different long term scenarios and short term actions in order to improve the services. Consequently, these scenarios and recommendations are the progress beyond the state of the art.
Copernicus Services could be a more powerful tool for understanding the water related processes on Earth, supporting water management (e.g. EU directives development and implementation), supporting Sustainable Development Goal’s (SDG), System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), climate adaptation, and boosting European economy. The Roadmap was developed to give advice how to make the necessary improvements and reach the expected impacts in the most optimal way. Water is essential for all life on Earth. Inland waters play a key role in human health and well-being as a source of drinking water, food, recreation, and tourism. Inland and near-coastal waters support biodiversity and ecosystems services and play a key role in the global element cycles. Consequently, if the Roadmap will have an impact on the Copernicus Services we hope for, then the Copernicus Services will provide more and better data and information about water and the actions taken based on this information will have implications on many aspects of our life.

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