Institute for Earth Observation - Projects - HiResAlp

HiResAlp

An innovative framework for the Integration of multi-source data to determine soil moisture and evapotranspiration at high resolution in Alpine regions

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Project duration: January 2013 - December 2015
Project status: finished
Funding:
Provincial P.-L.P. 14. Research projects (Province BZ funding /Project)
Institutes: Institute for Earth Observation, Institute for Alpine Environment

The HiResAlp project addresses the important problem of improving the spatio-temporal knowledge of water budget variables in a strongly managed Alpine environment at local and regional scales.
The attention is focused on two strategic hydrological parameters, namely the Soil Moisture Content (SMC) and the Evapo-Transpiration (ET). They quantify two important aspects of the water cycle, i.e. the status of the soil and the exchange of water with the atmosphere, thus they have a direct and fundamental implication on many climatic and hydrological applications as well as agriculture, forestry and other economic activities. In the Alps, spatial and temporal scales reduce and all climatic and hydrologic dynamics enhance significantly.
Accurate, reliable and frequent mapping of SMC and ET in this challenging environment becomes thus imperative for a clear understanding of the trends for the next years as well as for early response in case of emergency.
In order to address this challenging problem, the project aims at developing a novel integrated approach that exploits the fusion of different advanced estimation approaches based on: the retrieval from Earth Observation (EO) satellite imagery, the simulation according to hydrological theoretical modeling and in-situ measurement strategies. The term "integration" represents the core of this project.
The project will activate regional and international collaborations with the Institute for Alpine Environment at EURAC, the University of Trento (Italy), the University of Innsbruck and the Technische Universität of Wien (Austria), the United States Department of Agriculture - USDA (USA), and the Hydrographic Office of the Province of Bolzano.

Project Atlas (Advanced Tools for Low-carbon, high-value development of historic architecture in the Alpine Space), aims at paving the way for sustainable development of historic structures. This will include capitalizing and optimizing existing best practice solutions for building refurbishment and regional development. Stakeholders of the whole value chain and decision-makers are included in a network to ensure sustainability from social, ecological and cultural points of view. ATLAS will establish instruments for Low Carbon development of historic buildings and sites and will promote historic buildings retrofit as a task not only for single building owners but for the whole civil society. The project also fosters the exchange of best practice experiences and high-level knowledge from all Alpine regions on energy retrofit and sustainable regional development in order to remove uncertainties, quantify co-benefits and socio-economic value, and provide the ground for the integration of historic buildings and sites in low-carbon policies and regional development strategies.

The project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the Interreg Alpine Space Programme.

For more information: kathrin.renner@eurac.edu

Specific objectives

* Raise awareness on the necessity and benefits of sustainable development of traditional Alpine architecture.

Promote technical and methodological instruments to foster the retrofitting of historic buildings.
Bridge the gap between research and practice with existing examples of best practice solutions for implementation in a transnational context.