Schalk Jan van Andel

• IHE Delft Institute for Water Education

Limited availability of hydrometeorological data and lack of data sharing practices have added to the challenge of hydrological modelling of large and transboundary catchments. This research evaluates the suitability of latest near real-time global precipitation measurement (GPM)-era satellite precipitation products (SPPs), IMERG-Early, IMERG-Late...

The hydrology of the catchments is primarily shaped by the intricate and dynamic interactions between surface water and groundwater. This is particularly evident in lowland catchments, where these interactions assume a complex nature. This study investigated the complex interaction between surface water and groundwater in the transboundary catchmen...

Anthropogenic climate change is leading to increased frequency, intensity, and societal impacts of hydro-meteorological hazards. ▪ To combat this Adaptation strategies are needed. ▪ Study has been carried in drought-prone Aa of Weerijs catchment. ▪ In the recent past, NBS have gained prominence as an adaptation strategy. ▪ Robustness of NBS is unde...

Poster presentation at NCR Days 2023

Anthropogenic Climate Change has caused an increase in frequency, intensity and impact of hydro-meteorological-hazards (HMHs) such as floods, droughts, wildfires, and sea level rise. Prior to the 21st century, most policies and strategies to deal with water-related climate risks were based on conventional or grey solutions without considering Natur...

Hydroinformatics was established 30 years ago as a novel discipline in which computer modelling of water was combined with developments of Informational and Computational Technologies for purposes of introducing new and different approaches to water engineering, management, and decision support. The late Professor Michael B. Abbott is widely recogn...

Developing a robust drought monitoring tool is vital to mitigate the adverse impacts of drought. A drought monitoring system that integrates multiple agrometeorological variables into a single drought indicator is lacking in areas such as Ethiopia, which is extremely susceptible to this natural hazard. The overarching goal of this study is to devel...

The Upper Blue Nile (UBN) basin is less-explored in terms of drought studies as compared to other parts of Ethiopia and lacks a basin-specific drought monitoring system. This study compares six drought indices: Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Standardized Precipitation Evaporation Index (SPEI), Evapotranspiration Deficit Index (ETDI), Soil...

Waternomics is a European Union-funded research project aspiring to develop and introduce Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as an enabling technology to manage water as a resource, increase end-user conservation awareness, affect behavioural changes and avoid water losses through leak detection. Existing leakage detection methods are g...

The lack of hydro-meteorological data for a large number of catchments around the world is a major constraint to implementing there efficient water resources management. One of the possible solutions to the scarcity of rainfall data or transboundary data issues seemed to be in making use of the variety of satellite based estimates and meteorologica...

Advances in earth observation (EO) and spatially distributed hydrological modelling provide an opportunity to improve modelling of controlled water systems. In a controlled water system human interference is high, which may lead to incorrect parameterisation in the model calibration phase. This paper analyses whether assimilation of EO actual evapo...

Advances in earth observation (EC) and spatially distributed hydrological modelling provide an opportunity to improve modelling of controlled water systems. In a controlled water system human interference is high, which may lead to incorrect parameterisation in the model calibration phase. This paper analyses whether assimilation of EO actual evapo...

The paper presents the Fault Detection and Diagnosis (FDD) approach for water networks developed within the Waternomics project. In particular, the FDD system developed is based on the hydraulic modeling of the water network (done using the EPANET software) that is used to the train a Anomaly Detection Withfast Incremental ClustEring (ADWICE) algor...

A large number of hydrological forecasting systems exist across the globe. Recent advances have pushed the limits of predictability of discharge and other hydrological variables from a few hours to several days or even months. In this chapter, we aim to give an overview of Hydrological Ensemble Prediction Systems across the globe. It provides brief...

Before using the Schaake shuffle or empirical copula coupling (ECC) to reconstruct the dependence structure for postprocessed ensemble meteorological forecasts, a necessary step is to sample discrete samples from each postprocessed continuous probability density function (pdf), which is the focus of this paper. In addition to the equidistance quant...

Probabilistic hydro-meteorological forecasts have over the last decades been used more frequently to communicate forecast uncertainty. This uncertainty is twofold, as it constitutes both an added value and a challenge for the forecaster and the user of the forecasts. Many authors have demonstrated the added (economic) value of probabilistic over de...

Waternomics is a European Union-funded research project aspiring to develop and introduce Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as an enabling technology to manage water as a resource, increase end-user conservation awareness, affect behavioural changes and avoid water losses through leak detection. Existing leakage detection methods are g...

Despite playing a critical role in the division of precipitation between runoff and infiltration, soil moisture (SM) is difficult to estimate at the catchment scale and at frequent time steps, as is required by many hydrological, erosion and flood simulation models. In this work, an integrated methodology is described to estimate SM at the root zon...

In order to communicate forecast uncertainty, there has been a gradual adoption of probabilistic hydro-meteorological forecasts. This uncertainty is twofold, as it constitutes both an added value and a challenge for the forecaster and the user of the forecasts. Many authors have demonstrated the added (economic) value of probabilistic forecasts ove...

The aim of MyWater project (http://mywater-fp7.eu/) is to provide reliable information on water quantity, quality and usage for appropriate water management. This was achieved by joining three scientific research areas: earth observation (EO), catchment modelling and meteorology. Data from these different sources were integrated through an interfac...

The use of probabilistic forecasts is necessary to take into account uncertainties and allow for optimal risk-based decisions in streamflow forecasting at monthly to seasonal lead times. Such probabilistic forecasts have long been used by practitioners in the operation of water reservoirs, in water allocation and management, and more recently in dr...

doi: 10.1080/02626667.2015.1032291 This study investigates the spatial and temporal variation of meteorological droughts in the Upper Blue Nile (UBN) basin in Ethiopia using longer historical records (1953–2009) of 14 meteorological stations, and 23 other stations with relatively shorter records (1975–2009). The influence of using varying record l...

WATERNOMICS focuses on the development of ICT as an enabling technology to manage water as a resource, increase end-user conservation awareness and affect behavioral changes. Unique aspects of WATERNOMICS include personalized feedback about end-user water consumption, the development of systematic and standards-based water resource management syste...

Knowledge of the spatial distribution of Leaf Area Index (LAI) is of great interest in ecology, hydrology and natural resources surveying. Besides, LAI estimation at medium resolutions is a key parameter for the understanding of watershed ecosystem processes. However, LAI is changing in time following the phenological cycle of natural vegetation an...

In order to include the water quality state in the reservoir release policy for long and short term optimization, a forecasting surrogate model was developed using M5 model trees algorithm. This data-driven model is able to recreate the state of the system while reducing the number of input variables from the original numerical model. After testing...

The management of water consumption is hindered by low general awareness and absence of precise historical and contextual information. Effective and efficiency management of water resources requires a holistic approach considering all the stages of water usage. A decision support tool for water management services requires access to a number of dif...

Recent research in ensemble and probabilistic hydro-meteorological forecasting have studied what probabilistic information is required by decision makers and how it can be most effectively visualised. This work analyses if decision making in flood early warning is also influenced by the way the decision question is posed. For this purpose, the deci...

Anticipatory water management uses weather forecasts and water system simulation models to take operational water management actions before an event occurs. In this paper a framework consisting of the different steps and challenges of developing and evaluating an anticipatory water management strategy is discussed. The framework makes use of recent...

This paper introduces some experiences with developing mobile phone demonstrator applications for water quality information management using the Google Android platform. The work presented is part of an EU research project named LENVIS (Localised ENVironmental and health Information Services for all). The applications are focused on delivery of wat...

The last decade has seen growing research in producing probabilistic hydro-meteorological forecasts and increasing their reliability. This followed the promise that, supplied with information about uncertainty, people would take better risk-based decisions. In recent years, therefore, research and operational developments have also started focusing...

21st century reality already sees 2.5 billion people without adequate access to water, whilst climate changes lead to dramatically changing water resources availability and needs. These changes will influence all citizens, and authorities will need more reliable information to adapt to the new situation. The MyWater project responds to these challe...

Do probabilistic forecasts lead to better decisions? At the EGU General Assembly 2012, we conducted a laboratory-style experiment to address this question. Several cases of flood forecasts and a choice of actions to take were presented as part of a game to participants, who acted as decision makers. Participants were prompted to make decisions when...

Monthly or seasonal streamflow forecasts are essential to improve water planning (eg., water allocation) and anticipate severe events like droughts. Additionally, multipurpose water reservoirs usually integrate hydrologic inflow forecasts to their operational management rules to optimize water allocation or its economic value, to mitigate droughts,...

Low-lying land-reclamation areas are common in deltas such us the Netherlands. With characteristics such as many ditches and canals, shallow ground water levels, and highly controlled surface water levels with pumps and weirs, these areas provide particular challenges to hydrological modelling. SIMGRO is one of the hydrological modelling systems th...

Streamflow forecasting is important for flood control measures and early warning. Application of a single hydrological model for probabilistic forecasting, based on parameter uncertainty, sometimes does not result in sufficiently reliable forecasts. This can be because a particular model may perform better in rising limp, or peak discharge, or low-...

As part of this special issue on hydrological ensemble prediction systems, this paper reports on the intercomparison experiment for post-processing techniques that has been initiated in 2011 by the International Community on Hydrologic Ensemble Predictions. The design of this intercomparison experiment and the data sets available are presented. The...

This Special Issue stems from the recent emergence of a distinct field of researchers and operational forecasters who predict river flow with hydrological ensemble prediction systems (HEPSs)...

The aim of this article is to improve the communication of the probabilistic flood forecasts generated by hydrological ensemble prediction systems (HEPS) by understanding perceptions of different methods of visualizing probabilistic forecast information. This study focuses on interexpert communication and accounts for differences in visualization r...

The last decade has seen much research in producing and increasing the reliability of probabilistic hydro-meteorological forecasts following the promise that armed with information about uncertainty, people would take better risk-based decisions. In recent years, therefore, research and operational developments have also start putting attention to...

Localized ENVironmental and health Information Services for all (Lenvis) is a European Union FP7 research project aimed at developing an innovative collaborative decision support network for exchange of location-based environmental and health services between all stakeholders, for enhanced capacity to assess population exposure and health risks, an...

This paper presents experiences with development of mobile phone demonstrator applications in the water domain in different application areas such as water distribution, hydrological data collection, flood management and water quality information dissemination. A brief overview of technologies for developing mobile phone applications is presented,...

In hydrological modelling typically a single model accounting for all possible hydrological loads, seasons and regimes is used. We argue however, that if a model is not complex enough (and this is the case if conceptual or semi-distributed models are used), then a single model can hardly capture all facets of a complex process, and hence more flexi...

The Hydrological Ensemble Prediction Experiment, HEPEX, is an initiative bringing together researchers and practitioners who are interested in advancing hydro-meteorological ensemble predictions and their applications. The initiative began in 2004 and has continued with a growing and active community under the co-leadership of John Schaake (USA) an...

Hydrological models are run with precipitation and other meteorological data as input. With adequate spatial and temporal coverage, observed meteorological data is more reliable and more accurate for hydrological models, conventionally. However, when an early warning with several days ahead needs to be provided (for example for flood forecasts) in...

One of the most important aspects of hydrological modeling in water management is uncertainties. It covers input, model structure, parameters and state variables. Therefore, it is very important to reduce uncertainty in model development, hence the decision makers have higher confidence in taking their decision. The use of Earth Observation (EO) da...

This paper presents the main findings and lessons learned from the development and implementation of a new methodology for collaborative modelling, social learning and social acceptance of flood risk management technologies. The proposed methodology entails three main phases: (1) stakeholder analysis and engagement; (2) improvement of urban pluvial...

The current European Directive for Flood Risk Management (FRM) requires a demand-driven approach in which policy makers work together with practitioners and the general public in preparation of FRM plans and actions. In that context, the DIANE-CM project, funded by the 2nd ERANET-CRUE initiative proposes an innovative approach which brings the conv...

Export Date: 12 March 2012, Source: Scopus, doi: 10.1080/15715124.2010.512550, Language of Original Document: English, Correspondence Address: Popescu, I.; UNESCO IHE Institute for Water Education, Westvest 7, 2601 DA Delft, Netherlands; email: i.popescu@unesco-ihe.org, References: Abbott, M.B., (1991) Hydroinformatics: Information Technology and T...

The particular challenges of modeling controlled water systems are discussed. The high degree of freedom due to the control structures increases the risk of producing the right output for the wrong reasons. On the other hand, many controlled water systems are (partly) manually operated or at least supervised by an operational water manager. The dec...

Adequate provision of environmental information has become increasingly challenging tasks for environmental management organisations in recent years. This information can by nature be very diverse (air quality, soil and water quality, food- and health-related information, etc), while at the same time different stakeholders may require the same info...

This paper explores the use of flow length and travel time as a pre-processing step for incorporating spatial precipitation information into Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models used for river flow forecasting. Spatially distributed precipitation is commonly required when modelling large basins, and it is usually incorporated in distributed physi...

Three questions are central from the end user water manager perspective towards ensemble hydro-meteorological forecasts. The first question is "Why do we need hydro-meteorological forecasts for our water system at all?" This usually comes from the need to increase management horizons to enhance anticipatory management of extreme events. The second...

Day-to-day water management is challenged by meteorological extremes, causing floods and droughts. Often operational water managers are informed too late about these upcoming events to be able to respond and mitigate their effects, such as by taking flood control measures or even requiring evacuation of local inhabitants. Therefore, the use of weat...

A method is presented for testing weather forecast products for applications in anticipatory water-system control. The applicability of the ensemble prediction system (EPS) of the ECMWF is tested for flood control in a regional water system in the Netherlands. By performing long-term verification analyses, a full range of probability-threshold-base...

Flooding problems in low-lying controlled water systems are being addressed. A methodology is described in which flood-control strategies based on ensemble precipitation forecasts and hydrological models are developed using simulation and verification analysis. The methodology is applied to the Rijnland channelled storage basin in the Netherlands....

In highly populated areas scarce availability of land and growing economic constraints call for optimal use of available water systems, before large scale and expensive structural changes are made. For regional water managers here is a need to incorporate all the available information to optimise the real-time control of the water system. This pape...

This paper describes applications of modern meteorological data for water management in urbanised areas. A case study for the city of Rotterdam (NL) is presented. It is stated that integrated water management in urbanised areas should include another dimension by integrating operational water management of urban and rural areas. The use of modern p...