Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology

Eawag is a Swiss-based and internationally-linked aquatic research institute committed to an ecological, economical and socially responsible management of water – the primary source of all life. It carries out research, teaching and consulting and forms a link between science and practical application. Multidisciplinary teams of specialists in the fields of Environmental Engineering, Natural and Social Sciences jointly develop solutions to environmental problems. The acquired knowledge and know-how is transmitted nationally and internationally by publications, lectures, teaching, and consulting to the private and public sector.

400 employees are active at the locations in Dübendorf (near Zurich) and Kastanienbaum (near Lucerne). Eawag was founded in 1936 as an information centre for wastewater treatment of the ETH Zurich. It is a Swiss Federal Research Institute which is part of the ETH-Domain.

The project will essentially be implemented by:

• Dr. Hong Yang is an Economic Geographer by training and is currently a senior scientist at Eawag,, and a visiting professor of the Institute for Geographical Science and Natural Resources Research, the Chinese Academy of Science. She is the leader of the group for Water, Food and Environmental Studies in the Department of Systems Analysis, Integrated Assessment and Modeling at Eawag. Her main research interests include integrated land and water resources management, water scarcity and its impacts on food security and implications for the global food trade, environment, regional development, poverty alleviation and agricultural policies.
• Dr. Karim Abbaspour Dr. Karim Abbaspour is a soil scientist and hydrologist. He has studied at UBC in Vancouver, Canada, and ETHZ in Switzerland. He has been working at the Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology since 2000. His main specialization is in application of flow and transport models at small and large scales. He is also working on methods of model calibration, validation, and uncertainty analysis. He is the leader of WP4 in the EnviroGrid project and responsible for development of a hydrologic model of the Black Sea Basin. is in the field of hydrology and soil physics with a background in civil engineering and mathematics. He has done extensive work and published numerous articles in modelling of flow and transport in soils, groundwater, and catchments. On the mathematical side, he had developed internationally used inverse modelling techniques. He also has substantial expertise in using GIS and developing GIS-based risk analysis systems.
• Elham Rouholahnejad Elham Rouholahnejad is a PhD student in Environmental science at ETH university of Switzerland working at EAWAG, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science. She had studied Civil Engineering as her bachelor and Environmental Engineering as a master. She is continuing her study as a PhD working on WP4 of EnviroGrids project to predict a hydrological model for Blacksea catchment., PhD student

Role in the project:

Eawag is the leader of WP4 (Black Sea Hydrological Model) and will hence be responsible for the development of a catchment hydrological model. Eawag will develop a detailed watershed-scale hydrologic model of the Black Sea region. This model will allow analysis of the impact of landuse and climate change on water resources and water quality. Eawag will also be responsible for developing system analysis techniques for calibration, validation, sensitivity, and uncertainty analysis of the hydrologic model. in Work package 5.3, Eawag will be responsible for the integrated assessment of environmental impacts on agricultural production in the Black Sea catchment. Eawag will lead the work on modeling agri-environmental issues with the GIS-based EPIC model (GEPIC). In 5.7, Eawag will also be involved in the assessment of sustainability and vulnerability.

Geographic GIS&RS Consulting Center

The Geoinformation Systems and Remote Sensing Consulting Centre (GeoGraphic) was founded in 1998. GeoGraphic is devoted to create and deliver corporative and specialized software, flexible data management technologies, reliable and high quality cartographic production. GeoGraphic makes every effort to meet practical needs of its clients. It uses geographic information systems and improved data management tools to help with better decisions making.

Since 2002 GeoGraphic has been offering its customers a wide range of services in geoinformation systems formation, geodatabase management, GIS projects implementation, sectoral systems and user-oriented software development. During the short period of its activities GeoGraphic has served its clients by carrying out expert researches and evaluations, spatial modeling and improving decision-making process.

Since 2004 GeoGraphic has been expanding area of its activities offering a wide spectrum of services – from topo-geodetic survey to management systems development. GeoGraphic operates in almost all fields: environmental protection, natural resources management, urban development and architect, transport and communications, infrastructure, real estate market, education, cultural heritage, municipal management, emergency situations, defence and security, health care and social issues – these are directions where Geographic has achieved significant results demonstrating efficiency of GIS technologies application.

Expertise gained by GeoGraphic over the years includes: Spatial Data Processing and Spatial Analysis; Aerial Photography and Satellite Image Processing Information Technologies Development; Corporate Geoinformation Systems; Expert Systems Development; Photogrammetry and Orthophoto Production; Customized Software Development; Management Information Systems; Environmental Survey and Analysis; Geomonitoring Survey; High-End Cartographic Production; Topogeodetic and Cadastral Works; Land Use Planning; Urban Development; ESRI and Leica Geosystems Software Distribution, Training and Certification.

The project will essentially be implemented by:

• Mr. Mamuka GvilavaMamuka Gvilava is engaged by the GIS and RS Consulting Center "GeoGraphic", Georgia, as the Task Manager responsible for GeoGraphic’s contribution into the EnviroGRIDS Project. He is specialized in a wide range of environmental subjects with more than 10 years of experience gained with cooperative projects in Georgia and in the Black Sea region. Physicist with education and science degree, expanded his field of activities to environmental and social subjects, such as integrated coastal management, environmental informatics (GIS & RS, with particular experience in setting up the coastal monitoring and information systems for Georgia), environmental and social impact assessment, as well as the application of green design and development methodologies. He combines his practical hands-on experience in environmental management and research with wider scope of policy advice serving the Ministry of Environment as the National Focal Point on Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) and the Georgian Member of the ICZM Advisory Group to the Black Sea Commission. Mamuka Gvilava is based in Tbilisi, Georgia, and is employed by "GeoGraphic" to lead its EnviroGRIDS team in implementing WP2 (Task 2.4) and WP7. 
• Ms. Tamar Baburadze Tamar Bakuradze represents GIS & RS Consulting Centre "GeoGraphic", Georgia, in the EnviroGRIDS project. She is GIS & Remote Sensing Specialist with the background and experience in addressing environmental and integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) issues. She specialized during her career in analyzing spatial data for environment protection and natural resources management. Geographer with academic background, she is mastered in the application of Cartography/GIS/RS for environment & land management. She was involved in several environmental projects: designing and implementing the environmental quality monitoring and information system for Georgia’s coastal zone; generating the State of the Environment (SoE) reporting for national decision-makers and the wider public. In parallel to project work she is serving as the Secretary of the ICZM Working Group for Georgia. With the EnviroGRIDS project, she will be especially involved in WP2 (task 2.4) and WP7 as the Remote Sensing Analyst and in the capacity of the Assistant to the Task Manager. Tamar was proposed and accepted at the 1st Meeting of the Project General Assembly as the member of the EnviroGRIDS’s Gender Committee.

Role in the project:

As a part of WP2, task 2.4 – Remote Sensing Data GeoGraphic will contribute to remote sensing data collection, data integration into the Grid architecture and redistribution to all partners to provide information about the project area and continuous data on the changes driven in the area. GeoGraphic will support to remote sensing analyses, monitoring changes and trends in the Black Sea region/watershed (e.g. land use, deforestation, water quality). This will result in proposing early warning management systems, monitoring and control. GeoGraphic will apply remote sensing technologies for remote data observation and interpretation, correction of images and their registration at the UTM coordinate system, etc.
As part of WP7, task 7.2 - Organization of Workshops and Training GeoGraphic will pursue the overall aim to enhance the application and use of EnviroGRIDS system by providing assistance into the organisation of workshops in the Black Sea Region, to promote, present and discuss climate, demographic and land cover change scenarios, hydrological models, impacts on societal benefit areas, local, national and regional sustainability and vulnerability. This input will primarily be directed towards raising awareness and involvement of the target groups such as stakeholders, environmental managers, NGOs.

Institute for Water Education (UNESCO/IHE)

UNESCO-IHE is a world-leading education and research institute running Master of Science and PhD programmes. During its 50 years of history more than 13400 professional beneficiaries from more than 80 countries have been trained at IHE in water, environment and transportation. UNESCO-IHE has been involved in the following European projects: POND-LIVE, PAISA , ECOTOOLS and Fingerponds.

UNESCO-IHE is currently involved in SWITCH Sustainable Water management Improves Tomorrow’s Cities’ Health, FLOODSITE, Delft Cluster Projects (e.g. WFD-Tools, Floods) and the Nile Basin Capacity Building Network project.

UNESCO-IHE is also member of the Global Development Learning Network (GDLN) of the WorldBank, a network of training and education centres all over the world (www.gdln.org), which provides an excellent infrastructure to deliver e-learning courses and video-conference workshops (e.g. the recently hold inter-river basin workshop on water management) within Europe and globally.

The project will essentially be implemented by:

• Dr. Ann van Griensven, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Hydroinformatics, is involved in the modelling related activities of WP2 and WP4. She will supervise a PhD research on SWAT applications for water quality modelling
• Dr. Andreja Jonoskiworks at UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education as a Senior Lecturer, is involved in the activities of WP6 and WP7. His teaching responsibilities and research expertise are in the areas of catchment and groundwater modelling, and integration of models in decision support environments.
• Dr. Wim Douven will work in WP7 on the e-learning and video-conferencing developments and has 20 years of experience in integrated assessment and evaluation approaches, bringing together system and policy analysis, in environmental and water management projects at different scales in EU and Asian regions.
• Dr. Ioana Popescu is a Senior Lecturer in hydroinformatics at UNESCO-IHE, Delft, The Netherlands. She is specialized in river and catchment modelling and decision support systems for flood risk management and will be involved in WP4 and WP6.

Role in the project:

The expertise of the UNESCO-IHE research team is in river basin modelling for management and in integration of hydrological and hydraulic models and data in decision support systems distributed over electronic networks. Particular focus is on distributed catchment modelling with SWAT, model integration using OpenMI, and development of web- and mobile phone–based decision support and impact assessment applications.

The team also has expertise in development of e-learning content in the above mentioned fields. The main role of UNESCO-IHE in this project will be in WP4 –development of catchment hydrological models, WP2 – gridification of applications, WP6 – development of prototypes of Black Sea Observation Systems for citizens and WP7 – dissemination and training, particularly through development of content for the virtual training center.

University of Barcelona/European Topic Centre Land Use and Spatial Information supported by the European Environment Agency (EEA)

The UAB ETC/SIA is an international consortium contracted by and assisting the European Environment Agency (EEA) in delivering information on the state and trends of the environment through the provision of timely, targeted, relevant and reliable information to policy-making agents and the public. The consortium is leaded by the Universidad de Málaga since January 2011.
In order to achieve these aims, the UAB ETC/SIA works closely with the EEA Member States (EIONET) in establishing regular harmonized data flows to support current and upcoming environmental reporting obligations. The UAB ETC-LUSI Core Team is a group of 12 international experts holding university degrees in geography, geology, biology and IT and experience in regional, national and European projects in several fields of the GIS/SDI and manage the Terrestrial Information System (TERRIS) – a reference database for environmental spatial information in Europe especially oriented to facilitate spatial analysis and the development of environmental indicators.
The work agenda of the UAB ETC/SIA Core Team is driven by the main policy needs regarding environment, sectoral integration and planning in Europe. Through the analysis and understanding of spatial change, the core team and its wider network is closely interrelated with other EEA priority areas, such as biodiversity loss, climate change, human health & quality of life.

Main international research activities

• Coordination of the European Corine Land Cover 2000 and 2006
• Development of a harmonized European methodology for the identification of risk areas for soil contamination.
• Development of the spatial dimension agro-environmental indicators for IRENA
• Leading the DG Environment Working Group on Indicator and Data to develop a set of indicators to monitor progress in Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) since 2002
• Spatial modelling and analysis in support of integrated environmental assessments and development of indicators for assessing the European State of the coast
• Support in developing the Shared European Integrated Spatial Information Service through integration of new basic reference data into TERRIS (e.g. data set on urban morphological zones to analyze spatial changes in and around urban areas and their interaction with the surrounding land – access to recreational areas)
• Developing the method on “Land and Ecosystem Accounting” (LEAC) together with the EEA – a method to measure land cover changes based on different inventories of the CLC (or other) database
• Through LEAC methodology, a number of indicators have been calculated (eg. fragmentation of land and ecosystems, land take by urban sprawl and transport networks, pressures on protected areas, etc.)

Besides that, UAB ETC/SIA is partners in several European projects under the framework of FP6 and FP7. Colleagues are also involved and members of several national working groups like Spanish SDI or UNSDI (United Nations SDI).

The project will essentially be implemented by:

• Mr. Jaume Fons PhD in Biology, environmental analyst. He holds a PhD on biology (1995). His research focused on plant and soil relationships and related applications to forest management, reforestation of degraded areas and the impact of land abandonment on the Mediterranean. He has been involved in several international projects (Europe and Canada) and has been working for the ETC since 2001, where he has coordinated the soil related projects. In particular he has focused on the impact of the most dynamic land process like those derived from the Common Agricultural Policy or urban sprawl.

Role in the project:

UAB is involved in WP3 on scenarios of change.