Water is defined the “blue gold” of 21st century because of its importance for human activities and the increasing conflicts on water access. Yet, despite the great technological advances, still one question remains open: “how much water is there and when will it become available”?
Solving this question is particularly difficult for many reasons. 1. water flows on the ground and is subject to complex and non-linear paths, like snow accumulation, evapo-transpiration and infiltration, and so cannot be simplistic answered by weather forecast. 2. Climate change has changed the historical hydrological patterns, making water availability inconstant and subject to increased periods of drought and flood. Simplified approaches based on historical data, generally used by water managers, are therefore totally obsolete and unable to provide reliable water predictions.
Waterjade is a new technology that allows to monitor water resources at large scale and predict water discharge in rivers. It is built upon a mix of artificial intelligence and physically-based models, capable of exploiting all sources of data, from in-situ measurements to satellite images and numerical weather predictions. Each source of data is properly processed to account for snow and runoff contributions, taking into account local morphologyto calibrate the residence times of water in the basin. Compared with state-of-the-art technology, the advantages are: 1) it accounts for complex morphology of mountain terrain; 2) it follows the physical processes, allowing a transparent interpretation of the results; 3) it is accurate during all water regimes (low and high flows).
Waterjade allows to predict water flows in big rivers and small streams for the next days and months, allowing to anticipate flood and drought conditions, facilitate the solution of water conflicts and adapt to climate change.
