The study of the response of a river basin to atmospheric forcing is of critical importance to applied hydrologists, ecologists and water resource managers and remains a major research challenge. Continued progress in our scientific understanding of hydrological and ecological processes at the catchment scale relies on making the best possible use of advanced simulation models and the large amounts of environmental data that are increasingly being made available.

In co-operation with Prof. Peter Troch, Wageningen University, Harmoni-CA WP 4 arranged a workshop on data assimilation and remote sensing. The purpose was to bring together water managers, consultants, the private sector and scientists to discuss the use and potentials of these 2 techniques to support modelling and monitoring efforts in implementing the Water Framework Directive in Europe. The ambition of the workshop was to come to a concise set of recommendations toward applications and to promote the communication and exchange of ideas and experiences among scientists, water managers etc.

Represents from both the scientific community and from consulting firms presented the principles of data assimilation techniques and the potential in getting additional data from remote sensing were presented by both the scientific community and by consultants. Tangible examples of the use of these techniques in meteorology and flood warning were presented. Besides most participants brought posters presenting their national/regional background on data situation, monitoring strategies, use of modelling tools, problems encountered in relation to the WFD. This brought good input to a discussion between scientists, consultants, water managers and policy makers why these tools are not being used broader in water management and what possibly could be done to promote the use in the future.

First of all resources were pointed out as a bottleneck. Resources both in terms of funds and skilled staff capable of both handling these rather complicated modelling tools and to understand and manage different regional situations. Thus it was recommended that the cost-effectiveness of the tools must be demonstrated in a number of pilot cases. Secondly institutional barriers were pointed out to hamper the introduction of these techniques. The monitoring society might be more or less conservative in the sense that time series is very often used and the accuracy of these highly valued. This community questions the reliability of new techniques as remote sensing - e.g. will the use of a specific satellite be guaranteed for the next decades? Again-tangible demonstrations in pilot studies can be the way forward to demonstrate robustness and co-operation with traditionally monitoring techniques.

The workshop was held in Wageningen, The Netherlands, in August 2004.
The workshop report "Remote sensing and data assimilation WS" is public available and can be found here: Report remote sensing and data assimilation WS.pdf (509.37 Kb)