Background
In the coming decades increasing population will drastically rise the demand for freshwater. Today, more than 600 million people lack access to safe drinking water and estimates show that with current practices, the world will face a 40% shortfall between forecast demand and available supply of water by 2030. Needs to increase agricultural production will significantly impact water withdrawals and will increase stress on people living in regions already suffering from water scarcity. The shortfall will be further exacerbated by the expected environmental changes associated to global warming and hydro-climatic extremes impacting people and ecosystems especially in most vulnerable regions.
Recent advances in Earth observation (EO) by satellites have improved global observations of several key variables of the global water cycle. This capacity will significantly expand in the coming years with the advent of novel mission and sensors (e.g., new Sentinel missions, novel Earth Explorers, new generation of meteorological satellites, new National and international missions, commercial and new-space satellites and constellations) offering a unique and unprecedented opportunity to advance our knowledge of the Earth system, its dynamics and interactions with human activities.
This Conference aims at reviewing the latest advances in the use of EO technology for scientific questions related to the water cycle and its applications, exploring the potential offered by the coming EO as well as the main challenges and opportunities for the coming decade.
The ultimate target of the event is to contribute to define a scientific agenda that may drive future scientific activities of ESA and other space agencies and partners in the coming few years. The Conference is open to EO scientists, water researchers and students, modellers, Earth system and climate scientists, industry, operational agencies, policy makers, representatives of local communities and other stakeholders interested in sharing their knowledge and experience and in contributing to drive the scientific agenda for advancing EO water research and applications.
Objectives
- Reviewing the latest advances and results in the use of EO technology to monitor and characterise the different components of the water cycle.
- Reviewing the progress and latest results in water cycle research with major focus on EO- advances in the domain of water and energy cycle, water cycle in climate, hydrology, hydro-climatic extremes and water resources and climate adaptation, water-energy-food nexus.
- Exploring the latest advances in novel EO technologies, mission concepts, new mission ideas and future EO missions under preparation by space agencies and industry
- Identifying the major scientific challenges, observation gaps and research needs for the coming years
- Identifying the coming opportunities offered by the increasing international EO capacity from space in synergy with in-situ observations, citizen science, advance modelling, new technologies and interdisciplinary research
- Exploring effective mechanisms to promote networking and collaborative research in global water sciences, bringing together different expertise, data and resources in a synergistic manner ensuring that the final result may be bigger than the sum of the parts
- Advancing towards the definition of major scientific priorities in water cycle research that may drive scientific activities of ESA and other partners in the coming years
Topics
- Major challenges in the next decade
- Future EO missions and coming observing capabilities of the water and energy cycle
- Advances in EO geophysical retrievals, algorithms and products over land, ocean and atmosphere, fluxes and transports
- Advances in water cycle sciences, process understanding and water climate research
- Hydro-climate extremes characterisation and prediction
- Water management: the user perspective
- Major advances, challenges and opportunities in EO for hydrology
- Water-energy-food nexus and water for the food baskets of the world
- Regional water cycle and hydro-climatic regional initiatives
- Water resources and climate adaptation and mitigation
- Water research and novel technologies. (e.g., AI, data intensive science, citizen science, big data,…)
- Operational / forecasting and data assimilation
- Capacity building
- SMOS 10years+ in orbit
Registration
Registered participants will have full access to all session contents, interactions and networking. As a registered participant, you will be able to:
- Attend all the sessions
- Participate in the Q&A and polls
- Participate in the discussion sessions
- View the e-Posters and discuss live with the authors
- Network with the speakers and with other registered participants using an AI-powered networking tool.
- No participation fees will be charged.
- After your registration is confirmed, you will receive an email with the details to access and follow the virtual event on Brella, which is the official event platform for the EO for Water Cycle Science 2020.
Key Dates
- Abstract submission closure: Closed
- Notification of acceptance: 30 October 2020
- Issue of Preliminary Programme: 30 October 2020
- Issue of Final Programme: at the virtual Conference
- Virtual Event: 16-19 November 2020
Conference Replays
All sessions from the conference can be replayed via this link
