1. ECMWF, GEOGlows, and support for developing countries
Christel Prudhomme / Fredrik Wetterhall / Jean-Noël Thépaut
ECMWF
Side Event: and the Harmonization of GEO Water Activities

2. Copernicus Emergency Management Service Overview
6 services use Earth Observation data to deliver …
Sentinels &
Contributing Satellite Missions
In-situ measurements
Source: ESA
… added value products

3. Copernicus Emergency Management Service Overview
Flood Awareness Systems
On-demand Mapping
Flood monitoring & forecasting
Rapid Mapping
any disaster
24/7 on-demand and fast provision of geospatial information
Risk and Recovery Mapping
On-demand GI supporting prevention, preparedness, disaster risk reduction, reconstruction, recovery
Forest Fire Information Systems
Near real-time & historical information on forest fires & forest fire regimes

4. Flood Awareness Systems
Need: lack of coherent flood information and coordination in Europe for trans-national flood events, e.g. during Elbe and Danube floods in 2002
Aim: European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) provides added value, trans-national flood early warning information to EC civil protection and national authorities.
JRC : started development in since September 2012 fully operational as part of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service
Users: European civil protection, national hydro-met authorities
Expansion to global scale is ongoing => Global Flood Awareness System (GloFAS)
An initiative to increase preparedness for riverine flood across Europe and support the decision making
At the EU level to provide a congregated picture on a larger scale
Provides flood early warning info for up to 10 days in advance, river basin wide, European scale
Flash flood specific forecasts
Bulletin and daily overview and notification
Expansion to global scale is ongoing
EO data use:
Currently not used by EFAS directly but in ECMWF models which provide input to EFAS (weather modelling) EO is used
In future, EFAS wants to investigate in EO aspects looking into
1) S1 based always on service
2) water level date von Global Land service (lakes & reservoirs, big rivers) => reference data

5. Global Flood Awareness System
Mission/Objectives and Goals
Mission
GloFAS mission is to deliver probabilistic, early flood warnings on a global scale using the best weather prediction tools available
Objectives
Deliver a 24/7 service
Support national and international organizations with forecast, data and knowledge
Goal
Serve stakeholders with useful and timely information on upcoming floods

6. Why GloFAS? Early warning for preparation of aid assistance
World-wide comparable information
Complement National/regional services
Knowledge transfer & exchange
Support international organisations
Improved data sharing

7. Global Flood Awareness System
Geographical Scope
Methodology
Ensemble hydrographs
Showing discharge and return period
Indicating severity threshold exceedance
Persistence plots
Indicate forecast “jumpiness”
Freely available after registration
Project Governance Structure
Reanalysis based model climatology to derive return period statistics
Shading indicates return period exceeded:
< 2 year (green)
> 2 year (yellow)
> 5 year (red)
> 20 year (purple)
Started as collaboration product between the JRC and ECMWF
Now integral part of COPERNICUS-EMS
Development in collaboration with several partners

8. Global Flood Awareness System
Significant achievements in
Sub-seasonal and seasonal lead-time extension
GloFAS will now be extended up to 30 days using ECMWF’s extended-range forecast
Seasonal forecast will be launched in November 2017
Fully operational
GloFAS will go fully operational in November 2017
Capacity building and collaborations
Seasonal forecasts up to 4 months
Regional training of hydrologists and meteorologists organised by RIMES and UN-ESCAP in Thailand 2016
Collaboration with ‘Forecast-based Financing’ Red Cross Pilot Projects

9. GloFAS Case Study: 2017 August floods India/Nepal/Bangladesh
Very early indication of the flood 3-4 weeks in advance
Bangladesh
Observed flood peak (16 August)
Record
Danger
Observed water level
Provided by FFWC (Hossain Sazzad)

10. Global Flood Awareness System
Plans for cross SBA linkages and SDG support
Contributions to SDGs
Good health and wellbeing – Forecasts trigger humanitarian aid
Clean water and sanitation – Seasonal forecasts of low-flow aid planning of water resources
Clean energy – Projects with water power production companies
Challenges and Issues:
Close to 2000 registered users
Get more local data from different countries
Collaboration is essential to ensure that GloFAS development is in line with user needs
Data needed for better calibration of the model

11. Thank You Ervin Zsoter Fredrik Wetterhall http://www.globalfloods.eu
Ervin Zsoter
Fredrik Wetterhall