Earth observation and DSS technical support tools for operational water management: User's feedback on MyWater project

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 interface platform, which provides tailored services to the water manager, including support for irrigation activities in Nestos river plain (Greece) and early flood warning in Rijnland (The Netherlands). The platform includes tools for visualization and presentation of short-term prediction of the meteorological and hydrological conditions in maps and charts. It also allows the users to make analysis of time series of data, definition of warning alarms, and other tools useful for the water managers. MyWater's users played a key role, by defining the requirements during the development phase, and providing evaluation feedback towards the project's end. The aim of this work is to present the feedback from the users, after they had been trained on using MyWater's platform and information services. Participants were asked to reflect on the platforms' ease of use, speed performance. Secondly whether the data is easily to be retrieved and the catalogue is clear enough, and to what extend the platform could be customized. Results show that 75% of the questions concerning the Platform were answered with Good or Excellent, while 25% was marked as Average. Few participants raised their concern on the speed / performance they experienced with the platform, and indeed the internet band-width required for optimal use of the platform was not met all the time during the evaluation phase. With respect to the services offered, some participants indicated they would appreciate MyWater also to focus on water quality (e.g. salinity problems in irrigation water) and pollution. In its current version the MyWater platform focuses mainly on Water Resources Management. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.