HAST

The project was proposed and is led by the Agency for Civil Protection of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano. The main objective of the project is to update, validate and harmonise the data, products and analyses of quantitative hydrology available in South Tyrol and to realise a web platform dedicated to water where such information can be made accessible in a simple, organic and free way.

The project foresees the collaboration between the Agency for Civil Protection of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, the University of Padua and Eurac Research.

Eurac Research will participate by carrying out the following activities

a) Collaboration in data validation with the programming of automatic real-time and delayed validation algorithms for the recognition of spikes and other typical errors in hydrological measurements;

b) Preparation of the project brand manual to ensure consistency and recognisability and involving naming, logo, icons, graphics, maps and all aspects of web design and visual identity to establish a strong emotional connection with stakeholders;

c) Design of the user interface (UI), user experience (UX) and structure (sitemap) of the web portal for an attractive, multilingual, visually stimulating and appropriately themed graphic layout and a functional, well-organised and intuitive interface structure;

d) Development and web-design of the web portal starting with the three main sections (hydrological situation and forecasts, Hydrological Atlas with climatology 1991-2020, data exploration and download);

e) Design and implementation of the data flows to and from the portal, including their cloud storage and product generation engines, as well as the cockpit for driving the scheduled functions and monitoring the system status;

f) Collaboration on the developments of the ICHYMOD model envisaged under this agreement with the development of dedicated algorithms and the preparation of maps useful for the assimilation of satellite data into the calculation schemes being updated;

g) Definition of indices useful for the description of the current hydrological situation and the present and past hydrological trends with respect to the climatology of South Tyrol;

h) Production of project progress reports and deliverables for the above-mentioned activities.

Contact Person: alexander.jacob@eurac.edu

The project is organized in four work packages:

WP1 project management and communication

This WP is dedicated to the overall coordination for the project and the related communication activities to disseminate the obtained results.

WP2      Data storage and processing system and web portal

The work package includes the design, development and realization of the data storage and processing system hydrological data, as well as the design, development and realization of the Hydrological Atlas of South Tyrol website.

WP3      Data validation and data analysis

The validation of the data will first of all concern all hydrological data that have not yet been published (as of 01.01.1998) and will be aimed at refining the work already carried out on them in recent years but not yet completed. With regard to meteorological precipitation data, the validation

will primarily concern data after 2010. Nevertheless, the data already published will also be subject to plausibility checks again in order to to make the project products and statistics as robust as possible.

Through archive research, the project also aims to complete individual time series by extending them into the past indicatively up to the beginning of the 20th century, thus to the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The validation techniques and methods will be crystallized in procedures that will also be used in the future to ensure the consistency of the data even when the data is updated.

data even when the updating of the data and designed products will be part of the routine activities of the Hydrology and Dams Office. The data analysis will then be used to capture, define and represent the spatial and temporal characteristics of the hydrology of South Tyrol both in

average terms and in terms of its extremes.              

WP4      Hydrological annals, Product and applications

The work package is dedicated to the generation of the products resulting from the analyses carried out in WP3 and which will be an integral part of the Hydrological Atlas of South Tyrol. Among these, particular attention will be paid to the compilation and publication of the Hydrological Annals 1991-

2020 according to the already consolidated standards of the National Hydrographic Service and divided into individual sections dedicated to the various variables of the water cycle.

water cycle. However, it is also planned to create a whole series of other products in the form of tables, graphs, thematic maps and indices that represent the results of the analyses carried out according to the priorities identified in the project definition phase. The same work package also provides for the integration into the portal of the applications and forecasting products already on line, which for this purpose will be adapted and improved.

Important updates:

Activity developed in 2024

• Organization of the Kick-off meeting
• Distribution of tasks among different institutes within Eurac Research and preliminary analysis for the web design

Activities foreseen in 2025

• Design of the data storage and processing system
• Collaboration for data validation
• Collaboration for the development of the ICYMOD model