1 Users of reanalyses data for environmental assessments - EEA perspective Markus Erhard European Environment Agency (EEA) Copenhagen, Denmark

2 The EEA Mandate The EEA aims to support sustainable development and to help achieve significant and measurable improvement in Europe's environment through the provision of timely, targeted, relevant and reliable information to policy making agents and the public.

3 EEA Geographical Coverage

4 EEA main tasks Networking - Development of a European Environmental Information and Observation Network (EIONET) Reporting on the state and trends of Europes environment Providing access to environmental information 32 Member Countries ~300 National agencies ~900 Experts

5 EEA functions EEA as user of environmental data input for assessments and reporting EEA/EIONET as provider of environmental data reporting obligations (e.g. emissions, air quality, biodiversity) and volunteering actions (e.g. land-cover, ozone-web) EEA as facilitator e.g. (discuss user requirements with ACRE)

6 Ecosystem Services (examples) Courtesy Metzger & Schröter Runoff quantity Runoff seasonality Water quality Water supply (drinking, irrigation, hydropower) Drought & flood pre- vention Water Species richness and turnover (plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibian) Shifts in suitable habitats Phenology Beauty Life support processes (e.g. pollination) human health Biodiversity Snow (elevation of snow line) Glacier mass balance Tourism (e.g. winter sports) Recreation Water tower Mountains Carbon storage in vegetation Carbon storage in soil Climate protectionCarbon storage Tree productivity: growing stock & increment Wood productionForestry Agricultural land area (Farmer livelihood) Suitability of crops Biomass energy yield Food & fibre production Bioenergy production Agriculture IndicatorsServicesSectors

7 Emissions data Emissions data User EEA information services EEA information services EIONET Data from other Directives Data from other Directives Basic Reference data Basic Reference data Internat. Conventions Internat. Conventions National Data centres National Data centres Internet (Inspire) Internet (Inspire) Sub-national Data centres Sub-national Data centres GMES Example WISE Water Information System for Europe

8 SEIS concept SEIS is a collaborative initiative of European and National bodies to establish an integrated and sustained information system for sharing environmental data. A system where the public authorities are the providers but also the main end-users and beneficiaries A contribution to the Commissions commitment to better regulation and simplification (Go4, 2007) From individual data bases towards Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS)

9 EEA Priorities and Tools EEA Priorities and Tools Climate Change Air Land use Nature and Biodiversity Water EIONET system connections Reportnet data flow tools Spatial data infrastructure Services and analytical tools SEIS elements data centres

10 The shifting baseline – temp (time) Source CRU 2002

11 The shifting baseline precipitation (time & space) Source CRU 2002

12 Availability of Climate and Weather Data Type of data Temporal resolution Spatial resolution Trend analysis Extreme events Station datadailyirregularlocal trends over time local trends; temporal resolution often too low Interpolated climate monthlyrelatively highaverage smoothed trends not feasible Weather data hoursvery lownot feasible for environ- mental assessments feasible for large areas, but no local events

13 The Meteo Data Gap for Environmental Assessments Temporal resolution Spatial resolution 0km 50km 100km 150km hours days months climate data station data reanalyses data environmental impact assessments Gap in meteorological data extreme events

14 Scaling up and down

15 Scaling issues (I) Long term meteorological data (several decades): - station data irregular - climate data > 25km x 25km - weather data > 50km x 50km Average size of watersheds/catchments (CCM2 scale 1: ) ~ 5 km 2 (complex terrain) 40-50% EU27 Territory ~100 km 2 (flat terrain) (ca. 2.5km x 2.5km to 10km x 10km) (European catchment database CCM2) System inherent temporal and spatial dimension of assessments (eigentime of systems) Assessments in higher resolution than output Use of variables derived from standard weather data

16 Scaling issues (II) High resolution data (space and time) and extreme events - Flood risk: high resolution precipitation - Air quality: high resolution temperatures, precipitation, humidity, etc. - Human health: heat waves - Wind energy potential for Europe: high resolution wind data - Storm and storm surges (marine)

17 Scaling issues (III) Monthly climatologies - Water accounting 10km x 10km resolution (temperature precipitation and derived parameters e.g. evapotranspiration) - Species distribution and migration temperature and precipitation data - Downscaling climate change scenarios - Marine systems - Carbon accounting, forest growth Marine – land transition (coastal management)

18 Data specification - Key Issues Seamless (transboundary and land – marine) pan-European weather data available for environmental assessments and web based services (data services, reporting obligations, GMES, GEOSS) Long-term time series for detecting trends in climate and weather (including extreme events e.g. storms, heat waves) Appropriate spatial resolution for regional assessments of climate change impacts (IPCC -WGI) and adaptation strategies Precipitation - from trends to quantities Access to data in an European Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS) Towards Near Real Time from environmental hind-casting (x-2y) towards now-casting (and forecasting)

19... its not only the met data but with insufficent met data its even worse... Precipitation Simulated flow Measured flow

20 EEA activities Networking EEA contributes to GEOSS and coordinates GMES in-situ component (user requirements and data policies) Access EEA facilitates data access (institutional barriers, data policies) Architecture EEA fosters SEIS and contributes to OGC and INSPIRE (architecture) Projects EEA facilitates EURRA (high resolution re-analysis for Europe) National expert for project outline (ECMWF-EUMETNET)

21 Thanks for your attention!