EUPORIAS – the next step in seasonal forecasting

Seasonal forecasts have immense potential to positively impact decision making in certain key sectors, where outcomes are dependent on climate variability. These areas include water, energy, tourism, health, transport and agricultural sectors.

Despite its potential value in informing European business and adaptation strategy, such forecast information is currently underexploited. For the EU project EUPORIAS, we are developing the next generation water management Decision Support System (DSS) for seasonal forecasting. In so doing, we are helping Europe to make significant progress in the seasonal forecasting arena.

As part of the project, we will develop tools, techniques and prototype climate services to exploit the current and future generations of model-based seasonal forecasts. We will extend the application of these forecasts to operational management tools, developing downstream decision support capabilities for decision-makers. This will be prototyped against a water sector management tool. We will do this partly because the water sector is linked to almost all other key sectors – energy, transport, agriculture, tourism.

Hydrological forecasting over a period of weeks to months can be particularly useful where future flows are strongly influenced by storages. Typically, these would include reservoir operations for hydropower, irrigation and water supply or accumulation of water as snow or ice. Other applications include:

• long-term contingency planning for floods and droughts
• water demands and allocation for irrigation or conjunctive water use
• energy forecasting
• environmental monitoring
• climate adaptation

As such, the EUPORIAS project and our contribution to it, will play a major role in driving seasonal forecasting forward.

EUPORIAS – a European FP7 project – aims to develop end-to-end climate impact prediction services. These are primarily meant for seasonal (one to 12 months) time scales, while clearly demonstrating their value in informed decision making. The project is a collaboration of 24 European and international partners. EUPORIAS will be developed as a close association of various entities as well, including more than 40 stakeholders and end users.