Task T2.5 description from Annex I

Activity description (Annex I 6.1)

T2.5 - Establish a pan-EU data base for river run-off

Hackett Bruce (MET-NO) - AZTI-Tecnalia, BSH, MET-NO, MHI, RIKZ, SMHI

Objectives: Establish a framework for integrating and harmonising observations of river runoff to the European coastal seas and providing them to coastal and shelf seas monitoring and forecasting services.

Description: This Task will facilitate access to runoff data for use in the ECOOP observing and forecasting system. The activities are: identifying the relevant data sources and their providers (catalogue), establishing effective methods for getting data from the providers to the ECOOP users and putting into effect actual data streams for the major sources. This work is necessary for ECOOP because fresh water fluxes to the coastal seas, and the accompanying nutrient and pollutant loads, are important for accurate monitoring and forecasting the coastal zone ecosystem, pollutant fate as well as for coastal flood management. Observing systems are fragmented, even within nations, and the data are difficult to access, especially in near-real-time (NRT). Efforts towards integrating observations have been mainly focused on hydrology and river flooding, not coastal monitoring. Consequently, predictive coastal ocean models usually rely on simple approximations of river runoff, such as climatologies. Integration is necessary since fresh water effects on the coastal seas are intrinsically trans-boundary.

Given the fragmented state of the European river observing system, this task will work through the five EuroGOOS regional associations: BOOS, NOOS, IBI-ROOS, MedGOOS and Black Sea GOOS. It will be most efficient to exploit the national contact networks represented by the association memberships. The task team therefore includes a key member from each regional association plus a task leader. Each regional partner will liaise closely with their association membership in carrying out the Work. This will ensure that the resulting data provision system is properly tuned to the needs of the regional users and that it will optimally benefit those users. This approach builds on early initiatives within some of the associations, e.g., a project with similar objectives has been started in NOOS as a “best endeavours” activity. The Task will cover both archived and on-line data, volume flux, nutrient and pollutant loads, but the focus will be on implementing a NRT data access to fresh water volume flux, since this is the basic time-critical data stream.

Work Package Description (Annex I 8.5)

T2.5 - Establish a pan-EU data base for river run-off

Hackett Bruce (MET-NO) - AZTI-Tecnalia, BSH, MET-NO, MHI, RIKZ, SMHI

Evaluate the river runoff data, regional and pan-European, including volume transport and nutrient/pollutant loads.

Investigate the availability of both archived time series and data sources with near-real-time (NRT).

Use as an important source of information the Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC). Add additional information from the regional association memberships.

Catalogue the information to be available to coastal users.

Establish an optimal list of observation stations for rivers influencing the coastal and regional seas (ECOOP River Station Lists).

Define an optimal list of the initial NRT data sets for the “ECOOP Data Management System” .

Clarify data policy issues within the various regions;

Define data transfer procedures from data providers to the ECOOP DMS;

Adopt data formats and procedures defined for the ECOOP DMS;

Clarify data exchange requirements in the regional associations;

Initial tests of the data flow procedures on representative sources in each region.

Contact identified data providers, both directly and through national members of the regional EuroGOOS associations, and initiate data delivery to the EDMS under the agreed terms.

Identify a test provider able to provide NRT data early in the project period. Test the data acquisition and interfacing procedures (cf. subtask 2.5.2) on this data stream.