PCP-WISE

Description:

PCP-WISE aims to customize and pre-operationalize water management innovations from space for European climate resilience via pre-commercial procurement (PCP). The project addresses water-related crises (floods, fires, and infrastructure impacts) using space and Earth Observation data. Objectives include standard operational information products, interoperability mechanisms, and an active user network. With climate change impacting water availability and distribution, PCP-WISE seeks to enhance EO-based information for better regional water management, promoting resilience across EU borders. It focuses on local dynamics in water availability and aims to anticipate extreme climate conditions through an integrated water intelligence system. The project’s significance lies in its potential to mitigate water-related crises, driven by a unified water taxonomy and Earth observation-based modelling. Through comprehensive research and development solutions, PCP-WISE aims to boost adaptation across the EU, targeting stakeholders in water management, the environment, first responders, cities, and agriculture. The project’s objectives are designed to address business, technical, economic, and policy goals. Key results include capacity-building efforts, climate-related inputs, stakeholder engagement, and the dissemination of innovative solutions to advance water resilience both locally and globally. The project’s consortium brings together 26 local authorities, water authorities, and research institutions from 9 European countries. The project envisions several use cases across different European countries to help shape the project’s goals and refine the functional requirements of the solutions that will be developed.

Within the project, i2CAT participates in Work Package WP1 – Project Management and Coordination. Specifically, the Catalan research centre will contribute to Task 1.5 – Information Security and Critical Information Infrastructure Management, in which researchers will set out the data management requirements (data collection, data storage, data security and privacy, data backup and recovery, etc.) as well as the project’s ethics or legal requirements.

i2CAT is also involved in Work Package WP3 – PCP Preparation, which main objective is to define a list of the project’s use cases and functional requirements by verifying the state of the art, as well as understanding the physical factors and related criteria and technical requirements.

Finally, i2CAT participates in Work Package WP4 – PCP implementation, focused on the use cases implementation, leading to a design, internal testing and demonstration/validation (onsite or living labs with stakeholders/buyers).

Estimated impact:

The expected impacts of PCP-WISE are:

• Scientific: Soil-water balance insights based on space information used for long-term events and forecasts for the future of water and crisis management.
• Economic: Based on accurate data prepare, respond and mitigate risks, saving operations costs and preventing losses due to damages resulting from crises.
• Societal: Better preparedness for future climate change using water intelligence based on accurate space information in combination with other sources and technologies. Developing digital and data-based solutions will support communities, society, and economic sectors to achieve sustainability and climate objectives. R&I activities will add value to the knowledge and cost-effectiveness of innovative technologies in and across primary production sectors, food systems, bioeconomy, ocean and biodiversity.

“Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.”