Leveraging the Earth-Observation Data to Enhance Water Resource Management

Abstract:

Water is one of mankind’s most critical resources. Water impacts every aspect of our lives directly and indirectly. The hydrologic cycle is globally driven and defines how, when and where water is provided. Protecting and managing water in terms of both quantity and quality requires data, lots of data in order to understand the dynamic relationships that drive the hydrologic, atmospheric, and ocean circulation patterns. Enhanced water management requires leveraging data sets to integrate the physical components that drive watershed and river basin dynamics. Earth-Observation data is only valuable when it is transferred into knowledge and assessment tools. Traditional approaches to data collection have been limited to individual efforts often resulting in “information silos”. Emerging efforts through the Internet of Water, watershed-based basin studies, development of expanded climate and water models and the science-driven efforts in knowledge sharing all are providing opportunities for synergistic and leveraged applications. Building knowledge for water management is more than gathering more data. Knowledge development requires stimulating information sharing, building human and technological capacity and sharing learning through multiple applications. Assessing where and how the earth observation data should be prioritized and the support needed to leverage the knowledge through information and enterprise centers will be the focus on this presentation.