On January 1st, 2021 the H2020 Coordination and Support Action Water-ForCE had its official start. The overarching objective of the Water-ForCE project is to develop a Roadmap for the water component for the future Copernicus services, addressing the current disconnects between remote sensing and in situ observation research, and to deliver clarity in terms of the needs and expectations of the public and private sectors of the core Copernicus Program and the wider research and business innovation opportunities.
Water-ForCE will bring together experts on water quality and quantity, in policy, research, engineering and service sectors. This will include operating Copernicus Services (Land, Atmosphere, Marine, Climate Change, Security, Emergency) and Networks (Copernicus Academy and Copernicus Relays), ESA, H2020 projects and international organisations as well as public and private research organisations.
By working with these communities Water-ForCE will deliver:
- A Roadmap for the water component of future Copernicus services defining which is the most optimal way forward taking into account that at present water products are split between several Copernicus Services.
- Technical requirements for future Copernicus missions to fulfil better inland and coastal water related needs (e.g. optical configuration of Sentinel-2E and onward, CHIME hyperspectral sensor and onward).
- Enlarged service portfolio, containing higher level biogeochemical products, and improved performance of the current products.
- Closer cooperation between remote sensing, in situ and modelling communities in order to build an optimal network that provides necessary information about inland and coastal waters to policy makers, managers, researchers and general public.
A 3-day Kick-Off meeting took place from January 26th to 28th, 2021 where the 20 consortium project partners discussed the 3-year project goals and expectations of the various stakeholders.
3edata, led by Dr. Carmen Cillero, who is in charge of coordination and technical tasks, is one of the 20 partners of the Water-ForCE project consortium, entities from 11 European Union countries, both public and private, specialists in different fields related to inland waters and remote sensing.
In the preparation of this initiative, in which 3edata took an active part, we had the support of different European entities, including in Spain the Xunta de Galicia through Augas de Galicia and Agencia Gallega de Innovación (GAIN); Empresa Municipal de Aguas de A Coruña (Emalcsa) and Government of Spain through Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA) and Instituto Geográfico Nacional (IGN).
The project is also supported by the Gleon Network (Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network), the largest international network for observing lakes and reservoirs, of which 3edata is a member.
Water-ForCE is a Coordination and Support Action (CSA) from H2020-SPACE-2020 Call (grant agreement number: 101004186) that has received €2,999,575.00 EU Contribution.
Official Water-ForCE project fact sheet: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101004186
Water-ForCE twitter: @H2020WaterForCE
