The Water-ForCE project aims to create an action plan for the development of the next phase of Copernicus Inland Water Services in collaboration with stakeholders in space, the scientific community, industry and politics. The action plan will be evaluated against the needs of the community, proposing services that should be provided centrally by the Copernicus program as well as innovation opportunities best suited to business and research and development. The action plan will also provide the strategy to ensure the effective utilization of water-related services by end-users, while further supporting the implementation of relevant guidelines and policies. This interdisciplinary approach will align in-situ and remote observation of the earth as this is necessary to promote the utilization of operational observation systems. At the same time, a strategy will be defined for the integration of on-site observation networks, including approaches for product validation and dealing with cases of data inconsistency. Finally, the technical requirements for future Copernicus sensors will be defined in order to meet the needs of inland water monitoring and to contribute to the future development of services.
As part of the project, ICCS is responsible for identifying stakeholders as well as the needs and requirements of end users. At the same time, it participates in the identification of techniques and methods:
i) for the analysis and observation of the quantity of water,
ii) for the integration and utilization of population data (in the context of citizen-science)
iii) based on artificial intelligence for utilization of satellite data.