Summary and Recommendations From the “Hydrospace-Geoglows 2021” Workshop

Abstract

This report summarises the main results, conclusions and recommendations of the “HYDROSPACE-GEOGLOWS 2021” Workshop organised by the European Space Agency (ESA), in collaboration with the French Space Agency (CNES) and the GEO Global Water Sustainability Initiative (GEOGloWS) (Fig. 1). This Workshop is a sequel to the ones held in Toulouse (F) in 2003, in Geneva (CH) in 2007 and in Frascati (I) in 2015. Nearly 300 scientists, engineers and managers registered to this virtual event from 41 countries from all time zones worldwide, submitting 123 papers with more than 500 co-authors. The inclusion in the programme of large time slots for discussion and the advance preparation of “Seed Questions” offered the opportunity to have a community discussion focused on the future challenges of Inland Water monitoring and prediction and the future observational requirements. A “Manifesto” was drawn-up from the discussion nourished by the participants. This report presents this “Manifesto”, highlights the state of the art presented in the sessions, summarises the discussions and provides recommendations and guidance for future mission design, research activities for enhancing processing algorithms and developing new ones, calibration and validation, sustainable data exploitation, dissemination, outreach, capacity building and co-designing applications and operational services.