EU Funding 4 Copernicus Water Applications

On the first day of summer, the Water-ForCE project held a webinar on EU Funding 4 Copernicus Water Applications. At this event, participants learned was introduced to current funding sources for Copernicus water applications, as well as success stories.

ESA HYDROCOASTAL Project

The topic “Improving SAR Altimeter processing over the coastal zone and inland waters – the ESA HYDROCOASTAL project” was presented by David Cotton, a Senior Consultant and director of Satellite Oceanographic Consultants (SatOC) in the UK. David Cotton develops and promotes practical applications of satellite oceanography data. 

HYDROCOASTAL is a project funded under the ESA Science for Society Programme Element. This project aims to maximise the exploitation of SAR and SARin altimeter measurements in the coastal zone and inland waters, by evaluating and implementing new approaches to process SAR and SARin data from CryoSat-2, and SAR altimeter data from Sentinel-3A and Sentinel-3B. HYDROCOASTAL has 14 project partners such as universities, research organisations, etc.

The lineup of the project is following:

• Scientific Review and Requirements Consolidation (completed): 
  • Review the current state of the art in SAR and SARin altimeter data processing as applied to the coastal zone and to inland waters.
• Implementation and Validation (July 2020 – May 2022)
  • Implement new SAR, SARin altimeter processing algorithms to generate 2-year test data set.
  • Evaluate the performance of the candidate algorithms.
  • Selected algorithms used to generate “global” coastal zone and inland water final products
• Impact Assessment  (June – December 2022)
  • The impact of global products was assessed through a series of case studies
• Outreach and Road Map (April 2023)
  • Recommendations for further R&D and implementation in current and future SAR altimeter missions

After the speaker’s report, participants from different parts of the world asked questions about the project. You can learn more about the ESA HYDROCOASTAL project on the website, and contact its members if you have a question or idea.

Copernicus for Biodiversity and Danube Delta’s Ecosystems

A senior researcher in river morphology in the department of Informational System and Geomatics of DDNI, Cristian Trifanov presented on the topic “Copernicus data role in carrying out research for maintaining biodiversity and to protect Danube Delta’s ecosystems”.

During his presentation, Cristian Trifanov made an overview of the “Danube Delta” National Institute for Research and Development (DDNI)

The main objective of DDNI is to conduct fundamental and applied research for scientific support of the management of the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve (DDBR) and other wetland areas of national and international interest, with a particular focus on biodiversity conservation and sustainable use. 

At the European level, DDNI participates as a partner in the consortia of projects financed under the EC Framework Programmes as well as in projects financed through other programmes and funds.
Presentations from the webinar will be placed on a Water-ForCE website

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About Water-ForCE

All six Copernicus Services (Atmosphere, Marine, Land, Climate Change, Security, Energy) deliver water and hydrology related services. However, the European Commission noticed that this way it is hard to get a comprehensive understanding of the global water cycle, there are gaps in water-related products, there is duplication and it is hard for user communities to find relevant Copernicus products. Therefore, the Horizon2020 Space Programme opened a call for a Coordination and Support Action project: “Copernicus evolution: Mission exploitation concept for WATER” to find the best long-term mission concept.

Check out the Water-ForCE project website here

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