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RESIST Kick-off

hyds participated in the kick-off meeting of the RESIST project of the European Commission’s Horizon Europe framework programme in Coimbra (Portugal).

This first meeting has served to meet all the project partners and establish the connections between the different parts of the project. Also, to plan in detail the work to be done in the coming months.

The objective of the initiative, called RESIST and framed in the Mission “Adaptation to Climate Change” of the Horizon Europe program of the EU, is to improve the detection capabilities of extreme situations such as floods, heat waves and the risk of forest fire, as well as to achieve greater preparation of society and municipalities.

You can find more information about RESIST at:

CREXDATA Kick-off

hyds participated in the kick-off meeting of the CREXDATA (Critical Action Planning over EXtreme-Scale DATA) project of the European Commission’s Horizon Europe framework programme held in Athens (Greece).

The meeting was organized by the consortium coordinator (Polytechnic University of Crete). The project partners laid the foundations for the project’s operation and established a first contact.

This consortium of five partners will work to overcome the frontiers of analysis, prediction, simulation and visualization to provide extremely precise, timely and useful results that support the volume of human decisions and automated decisions in critical situations. The final objective of the project is to develop a prediction platform as a service that allows predictive analysis and low uncertain forecasting for the proactive volume of decisions in crisis.

More information about CREXDATA

Early Warning System for floods in Gurb

During 2022, hyds participated in a “Feasibility study of advanced systems for flood forecasting” together with ABM, PRODAISA and the Catalan Water Partnership, partially funded by ACCIÓ through the call for Competitiveness Reinforcement Initiatives 2021. This study collected and evaluated data on the flood risk of the Mas Galí Industrial Estate in Gurb (Osona), located in a flood-prone area due to the presence of the Rec Romeu, a fluvial course that does not normally carry water and therefore its risk is often underestimated. Data from historical episodes in the area were collected and, using a hydraulic model, the behaviour of the course in these episodes was simulated; the installation of sensors to obtain data in real time was also evaluated. It was determined that for the monitoring of the basin it would be appropriate to have a level sensor in the course and also a moisture sensor in the basin. Soil moisture in the catchment is a key factor in estimating the effect of heavy rainfall on the industrial estate.

Already in 2023, the project partners decided to install the proposed sensors and implement the proposed SAPI to the Argos-Site platform. Discussions are currently underway with the municipalities of Gurb and Vic for the integration of this SAPI in the municipal civil protection plans.

Argos training at Met Éireann (The Irish Meteorological Service)

Last week, training sessions on the Irish implementation of Argos where held in Met Éireann premises during two days. hyds people traveled to Dublin to show Met Éireann personnel the wide range of data and products available in the platform, the different functionalities as well as configuration capabilities. Invited speakers gave online presentations about impact-based forecasts related to different hazards that were adapted to Ireland and included in Argos:

  • Marc Berenguer (CRAHI-UPC) presented Weather radar products oriented to flash flood anticipation.
  • Paolo Fiorucci and Andrea Trucchi (CIMA Fundation) explained forest fire risk estimations (RISICO) and showed a forest fire simulator (PROPAGATOR) based on wind and terrain information (topography, vegetation, land use…).
  • Seppo Pulkkinen (FMI) presented a storm identification and tracking algorithm based on radar estimations.
  • Samuel Sutanto (WUR) talked about the drought indices based on seasonal meteorological forecasts that gives indications of drought several months in advance.
  • Also Marc Berenguer explained the model used to predict the impact of snow on roads.

Attendees (both on-site and on-line) could openly interact with all speakers to deepen on some particular issues. At the end of the training, future evolutions of the Argos platform as well as the planned roadmap of the service were shared.

hyds participates in the 8th General Assembly of the H2020 RECONECT project

hyds participates in the 8th General Assembly of the H2020 RECONNECT project, held in Nijmegen (Netherlands).

At this meeting, hyds has presented the progress made in the implementation of the Argos platform as part of the “Reconect Services Platform” for monitoring and evaluation of NBS (Natural Based Solutions) in a transversal way in all aspects: water (quantity and quality), nature (habitat and biodiversity) and people (socio-economic and well-being).

The Argos-NBS prototype has been implemented in the different pilots of the project

During the meetings, one of the sites of the “Room for the River” project was visited. One of the largest flood control program in the world, with a total cost of €2.3 billion.