Improving Resilience and Reducing Risk of Extreme Hydrological Events

Service Area
Weather & Climate Resilience
Hub/Region
Amazonia
Geographic Coverage
Brazil
Colombia
Ecuador
Peru
Co-Developers

CIAT/SERVIR Amazonia; Brigham Young University (BYU) - Environmental Modeling Laboratory (EMRL) - USA

Satellite Data and Products Used
ECMWF
Landsat 8
Sentinel-1
Sentinel-2
SRTM
Period of Performance

In development

screenshot of South America from the GEOGloWS ECMWF Streamflow tool

The Improving Resilience and Reducing Risk of Extreme Hydrological Events service provides stakeholders in the Amazon Basin region with improved historical water information and a flood forecasting ability, including more accurate information about timing, magnitude, and impact, to increase their understanding of historical streamflow and to support greater resiliency to flood disasters. The service allows stakeholders to investigate forecast-based financing methods, which increases their ability to prepare and respond to flood disasters. Furthermore, the hydroinformatics tools can train stakeholders to understand past water availability and river flooding patterns, including how the hydrological basin is integrated beyond political borders. This service introduces these innovative tools and forecasting methodologies to academic, technical, and governmental users in the region.

Rationale

In recent years extreme hydrologic events such as floods and droughts have intensified and wreaked havoc on the communities and environments of the world’s largest river basin. This puts a greater demand and urgency on national hydrometeorological services and other agencies to develop warning systems and provide resilient measures that reduce the risk to life and property. To this end, these agencies need better data and more powerful information systems that deliver better water intelligence to decision-makers so that, together, they can deal with the complex issues of water access or flood risk reduction confronting the Amazon Basin.