News

We are very pleased to announce that at this year’s Hydrology Day in Munich, on behalf of Dr. Thomas Einfalt (founder and managing director of hydro & meteo GmbH), we were presented with the Siegfried Dyck Award 2022 for the development of the HydroNET event database!

The award-winning event database is a web-based tool that provides radar precipitation data for North Rhine-Westphalia with a time step of 5 minutes and a grid of 1 x 1 km for the water management years 2001 to 2020. With its diverse functions, it provides the basis for innovative solutions and research in the areas of risk management, extreme value analysis and simplified data provision. With the help of the database, questions can be answered such as: How many times has my city experienced heavy rain events? Has it ever rained as much here as in the neighboring city?

The prize, awarded by the Fachgemeinschaft Hydrologische Wissenschaften (FgHW) in the DWA, recognizes outstanding work in research and teaching that demonstrably makes a special contribution to the further development or application of hydrological methods and procedures in practice.

The prize, endowed with 2,500€, was awarded on March 22 at the Hydrology Day and is to be used for the promotion of young scientists at hydro & meteo GmbH.

(Dr. Einfalt could not receive the award personally, as he is currently meeting with all project partners in Australia in connection with our EU-funded H2020 project WaterSENSE. However, he was connected live for his acceptance speech).

24.03.2022

On behalf of LAWA, hydro & meteo GmbH is working on a Germany-wide event database to document past heavy rainfall events. The aim is to store information on the events centrally and make it accessible to the public and expert users via a web platform. Furthermore, the current precipitation situation as well as information on precautionary measures and behaviour in the event of heavy rainfall will be available on the platform. The project is being realised in cooperation with Okeanos Smart Data Solutions GmbH and HydroLogic. The platform will be available to the public and will be completed by the end of October 2022.

Experiences from the NRW event database , which was developed by hydro & meteo GmbH and HydroLogic in 2018, will be incorporated into the design of the platform.

22.02.2022

Our task in the EU H2020 project WaterSENSE is to provide high quality precipitation data for various applications.
The goal is to provide the best possible precipitation data for each location worldwide. Depending on availability, this can be radar data calibrated with rain gauges or satellite-based precipitation data. As an example for the Namoi catchment (New South Wales, Australia), Dr. Einfalt presented our approach at the ICUD (25. – 28. 10. 2021 in Melbourne).

Click on the image to the right to hear and see his presentation (this link will take you to YouTube channel of hydro & meteo):

18.11.2021

On behalf of the Thai Hydro Informatics Institute (HII), hydro & meteo GmbH has built up a real-time system that processes precipitation data processed for Thailand and calculated nowcasts.

The real-time system is based on the SCOUT (hydro & meteo) software. It is updated every 6 minutes with new radar measurements and includes the steps:

• Import of radar measurement data from 9 radars
• Correction of the radar measurement data
• Composition on a common 1km x 1km grid
• Import of current rain gauge measurements from over 500 stations
• Calibration of the radar measurements with rain gauge measurement data
• Calculation of nowcasts
• Sending email warnings when rain tresholds are exceeded

The calibrated radar measurements and nowcasts are shown on the Thai website.

As part of the 3rd project phase, the existing composite of 5 radars was expanded to a composite of 9 radars, which covers all of Thailand. The Rongkwang, Banphue, Rasisalai and Pathio radars have been added. Takhli replaces the Inburi radar.

Hail detection based on dual polarization measurement data is used as a new functionality.

The new system, which is used among other things for heavy rain warnings, has been operational since the end of August 2021.

30.09.2021

On July 14, 2021, there was long lasting heavy rainfall in the federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate with precipitation amounts of up to 200 mm.

A main task of hydro & meteo is the analysis and processing of precipitation from heavy rain events on the basis of radar measured data. With this we support affected communities and associations in their endeavour to improve prevention measures.

Evaluations were carried out for several municipalities, water associations and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia for this event and partly also for the event on June 4, 2021.

26.07.2021

Scientists at the Helmholtz Center in Geesthacht have calculated climate changes more specifically. The Lübecker Nachrichten reported on July 14th how Lübecks climate is also changing. Even if the model calculations are burdened with uncertainties: the summers will be hotter, the winters wetter, and an increase in heavy rain events must be expected.
hydro & meteo have developed the comprehensive information portal i-square on heavy rain together with the climate control center of the city of Lübeck:
Use our checklists to find out about the individual risks and dangers of the location and property.
And get specific remedial measures against the various effects of heavy rain.

Click on the title opposite to read the article in the Lübecker Nachrichten

20.07.2021

Shortages of freshwater will be one of the most pressing problems in feeding the world this century. To optimize use of available water it is important to distribute it wisely across the planet. WaterSENSE provides water managers with a toolbox of reliable and actionable information on water availability and water use, anywhere in the world, in support of sustainable water management and transparency across the entire water value chain. The goal of WaterSENSE is to develop a modular, operational, water-monitoring system built on Copernicus Earth observation data.

The second newsletter gives a company portrait of hydro & meteo, which is one of the seven consortium members beneath eLEAF (Netherlands), Hydrologic Research (Netherlands), Water Technology (Australia), HIDROMOD (Portugal), The University of Sydney (Australia) and HCP International (Netherlands).

With a klick on the title right, you can read the whole content.
Please also visit our project website www.watersense.eu

23.02.2021

The team from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Bochum University invites you to the digital conference on current topics in hydrometry on February 24th.

Dr. Thomas Einfalt from hydro & meteo GmbH presents in his lecture “When can you call a trend a trend? Considerations on trends in time series” current findings on the assessment of measured values from two different research and development projects in North Rhine-Westphalia (“ExUS – extreme value statistical analysis of heavy rain precipitation in NRW” and “UnIWa – Investigations into the use of transient design approaches in water management practice”).

In these two different projects long time series of precipitation measurements have been investigated for instationarities (trends and change points). The presented results are focused around the question when an increase of precipitation can be considered a trend in the data. It is demonstrated that change points may occur in the statistics of short durations which cannot be attributed to a modification of the measurement procedures.

The lecture emerged from a collaboration between Dr. Thomas Einfalt and Benedikt Rothe and Tobias Gehrmann, employees of Hydrotec, Vera Schmimetzek, State Office for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection (NRW), Prof. Dr. Ing. Markus Quirmbach, Ruhr West University and Fabian Netzel, Bochum University, hydraulic engineering and hydromechanics emerged.

The Bochum Hydrometry Colloquium 2021 will be carried out in coordination and with the support of the Federal Institute for Hydrology (BfG), the State Office for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection North Rhine-Westphalia (LANUV) and the Expert Group on Hydrological Sciences in the DWA (FgHW).

We have provided you with the link to register for the conference (possible until February 5th) and the program flyer (in german language) here.

26.01.2021

A three-page article about our i2 project was published in the current VDE publication gis.Business 06/2020.

i2 is a municipal climate adaptation project funded by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, with a focus on precautionary measures in the event of heavy rain events and the networking of local and regional information flows.

The article primarily describes the cooperation between various actors with different objectives within the municipalities as well as the uncertainty regarding the legal situation when providing information on heavy rain and floods.

We have made the entire article available to you in a PDF file (in german language) that you can read or download by clicking on the adjacent image.

With the kind permission of the VDE publishing house.

25.11.2020

hydro & meteo has now finally completed its company flyer in english language.
Click on the picture opposite to read all of the contents, briefly describing our fields of competence.
If you have any further questions about our services or would like a paper version, please do not hesitate to contact us.
We are looking forward to your inquiry!

05.11.2020

hydro & meteo GmbH is currently working on the expansion of the Hamburg inland flood warning system. The extensions will be integrated into the inland flood warning system (www.wabiha.de) within the coming months.

There will be several innovations in the public area of the website www.wabhia.de, including:

• Current radar measurements and radar nowcasts
• Maximum precipitation forecast for Hamburg
• A three-level symbol to indicate the current warning status. This enables a quick overview of warnings due to high water levels, precipitation and precipitation forecasts.

In the internal area, a lot of additional information is made available to the employees of the LSBG, including a short-term precipitation forecast generated by hydro & meteo. This is a combination (‘blending’) of radar nowcasts and the numerical weather forecast COSMO-D2-EPS of the DWD.

The extensions were made as part of the BMBF project StucK developed and tested. The client is the State Office for Roads, Bridges and Waters (LSBG).

08.09.2020

Commitment to refrain from (short-haul) flights to destinations of less than 1,000 km distance or less than 12 hours travel time

hydro & meteo participates in the “Unter 1000 mach ich’s nicht” campaign, which scientists4future joined, too. Even if air traffic accounts for only approx. 3% of CO2 emissions worldwide, the so-called height effect was not included in this calculation, nor was the fact that, when kerosene is burnt the released aerosols and nitrogen oxides make a significant contribution to climate impact. The negative effects of flying are therefore estimated to be two to five times as high (see atmosfair and the assessment of the Federal Environment Agency based thereon).

Since the number of flights within Germany continues to increase year by year and the railroad network of the German railway company Deutsche Bahn is to be significantly expanded by 2030 and already offers a mobile substitute for short-distance air travel, a contribution toward climate neutrality can be made by dispensing with domestic flights within Germany.

Let us reflect and modify our everyday mobility decisions towards more mobility on foot, by bike, bus and train: we already did!

#unter1000

21.01.2020

The newspaper “Lübecker Nachrichten” again reports on the dangers and risks of increasing heavy rainfall events as a result of climate change. Even if Lübeck has so far been affected by extreme weather events less frequently than other regions, “(…) the rise in temperature in Schleswig-Holstein (…) is more pronounced than the global average” (LN quotes  Dr. Thomas Einfalt from hydro & meteo GmbH).

hydro & meteo GmbH has already been working for several years in various projects with the Hanseatic City of Lübeck on municipal climate adaptation: The RainAhead (“Rain in Sight”) project has created planning and warning tools for heavy rain in urban areas. The follow-up project i-quadrat, funded by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety as a “municipal lighthouse project for adaptation to climate change” for the years 2018-2020, focuses primarily on the issue of precautionary measures with regard to heavy rainfall events. Further goals are the development of local and regional cooperation as well as the intensification of communication with citizens and other target groups.

Newspaper articles, workshops and brochures on the dangers of heavy rain and how to protect oneself against them are increasingly raising awareness of this topic among the population.

Read the article (in German) by clicking on the adjacent title:

10.12.2019

Extreme precipitation events have become more prevalent in recent decades, according to the results of the study “Extreme Value Analysis of Heavy Rainfall in North Rhine-Westphalia (ExUS) 2010”.

As a continuation of the ExUS 2010 project, hydro & meteo GmbH is once again working on the ExUS2020 study in a cooperation agreement with the State Office for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection of North Rhine-Westphalia (LANUV), dr. papadakis GmbH, aqua_plan GmbH and Dr. med. Markus Quirmbach (Head of the Department of Hydrology, Urban Water Management and Hydraulic Engineering at the Ruhr West University of Applied Sciences (HRW), in which measurement data taken during ten additional years will be examined and used for evaluation.

Questions arising from the consequences of climate change have become more and more complex. In particular, the development of shorter duration heavy rainfall, changes in air temperature and dry periods as well as findings from spatially high-resolution radar precipitation data have not only rendered a new edition necessary, but also an expansion of the scope of research of the new ExUS 2020 study.

Read more about the individual work packages of the study by clicking on the picture on the right (in German)

or get more information about the project here: LANUV

10.12.2019

In the new issue of the German hydrological journal WasserWirtschaft, Dr. Thomas Einfalt / hydro & meteo GmbH and Dipl.-Ing. Marc Scheibel / Wupperverband published an article on the topic: “Precipitation: Data quality and processing for practical applications in hydrology”. The article explores which criteria can meet the requirements for high-quality precipitation data for urban areas. The heavy rainfall event of 29 May 2018 in Wuppertal serves as a case study and illustrates the approach.

Read the article by clicking on the adjacent title:

08.08.2019

To get an impression of the event database with access to the radar climatology of the German Weather Service, we have created a video tutorial. Here we give you an overview of the functions of the event database and their operation.

26.03.2019

This year’s Day of Geodata Infrastructure Schleswig-Holstein (GDI-SH) will take place on 28.2.2019 in the Audimax of the Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel. Hydro & meteo will be represented there in the context of its project i-quadrat with a stand on the topic “heavy rain – damage minimization with the help of INSPIRE compliant data”. The project i-quadrat is funded by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety for the years 2018-2020. It deals primarily with the topic of prevention for heavy rain events and takes up the results of the project RainAhead (2013 – 2016) in order to communicate with citizens and other target groups.

The event, titled “GDI-SH – A Sea of ​​Data”, focuses on the importance of geodata for the work of state and local government, as well as for business, science and the public, and their benefits in dealing with social challenges.

The program flyer can be found here!

Date: 27.02.2019

On August 22, 2018, the closing event of the joint project StucK(“Ensuring the drainage of coastal, urban areas considering the climate change”) took place in the conference center at the Department of Environment and Energy in Hamburg.

At the event, the most important project results and their possible applications were presented and discussed with the participants. In our work package we have produced combined ensemble predictions from radar nowcasts and numerical weather forecasts (COSMO-D2-EPS). Furthermore, we have created an operational test warning platform as an extension of the existing warning system “Binnenhochwasser Hamburg” (www.wabiha.de). In addition to the water level measurements, the measured water levels of the respective catchment areas and the improved precipitation forecasts now also flow into the warning status of the individual water levels. Also we have integrated additional radar products into the system to analyze the current precipitation event. The high-resolution precipitation forecasts are passed on to the Technical University of Hamburg for modeling, which calculates effluent ensembles.

In order to continue the successful work, the funding of the StucK project has been extended for another year until 30.09.2019.

The extension phase is about putting the results of the project into practice. In particular, an action plan and management plan for the implementation of dry and temporarily wet flood retention basins shall be developed. These have proven to be beneficial in the StucK project, both in terms of their contribution to flood protection and from an ecological point of view.

Date: 19.09.2018

On September 13th, the second edition of the HydroNET LIVE event took place in Amersfoort, the Netherlands. The topic of this biennial event was called “Smart water management without borders”. During the event many interesting smart water management case studies were presented and it was an excellent opportunity to meet other water managers from the HydroNET community.

Two masterclasses where specially organised for the international HydroNET community: Showcases of Dutch and international HydroNET implementations to support smart water management. Over 3000 water professionals in 12 countries use HydroNET as decision support tool for the analysis and sustainable management of water resources. In this masterclass more than twelve users and partners from the Netherlands, Australia, South Africa and Germany demonstrated why and how they use HydroNET in their daily practice. They explained how HydroNET helps them to make well-informed and transparent smart water management decisions and why and how they share information with internal and external stakeholders and which boundaries are broken.

Thomas Einfalt and Alexander Strehz from hydro & meteo presented two applications from German HydroNET users. Thomas demonstrated solutions for the quality assurance of precipitation data developed for the State Office for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Areas Schleswig-Holstein (LLUR). In addition, at an information desk Alexander informed about the application “Event Database”. This combines a large high quality data pool in high spatial and temporal resolution with easy access to the data via HydroNET. It hus enables, among other things, the simple use of the data for the dimensioning of water management structures.

Date 15.09.2018

On 14.6.2018, 35 persons took part in the workshop organized by hydro & meteo on heavy rainfall preparedness and Open Data of the German Weather Service (DWD).

The participants were representatives of municipalities, water boards and the state environment administration of Schleswig-Holstein, North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony and Berlin.

In addition to lectures on use of the Open Data Portal of the DWD and information on precipitation measurement and forecasts, the workshop also provided a space for a constructive and lively exchange on questions of responsibilities, possibilities and challenges of different actors with the context of heavy rainfall.

Many thanks to the workshop participants and the constructive exchange!

If you are interested in further workshops please contact us.

Date 16.06.2018

On May 16, 2018 Sebastian Luers from hydro & meteo has been certified as a Certified expert flood label to issue the flood label of the HochwasserKompetenzCentrum (HKC) for real estate.

The flood pass is an innovative and useful document for the location analysis and evaluation of existing or planned private and commercial real estate in flood prone areas.

For more information about the flood label, email us “contact at hydrometeo” or visit www.hochwasser-pass.com.

Date 25.05.2018

Hydro & meteo in cooperation with scientists of the University of Hamburg participated in a publication about the: Kurzfristige Niederschlagsvorhersagen für die Starkregen- und Hochwasserwarnung veröffentlicht. This contribution presents the results of the project StucK (Long term drainage management of tide-influenced coastal 38 urban areas with consideration of climate change stuck-hh.de), supported by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung.

The article Ensembles of radar nowcasts and COSMO-DE-EPS for urban flood management was published in the journal of Water Science and Technology.

Authors: Alrun Jasper-Tönnies, Sandra Hellmers, Thomas Einfalt, Alexander Strehz,                 Peter Fröhle

DOI: 10.2166/wst.2018.079

Date 20.04.2018

From 10 – 15 September 2017, the 14.IWA / IAHR International Conference on Urban Drainage (ICUD) took place in Prague. On the 14th of September Dr. Thomas Einfalt held a presentation about the project StucK concerning heavy rainfall forecast and warning: Short-term precipitation forecasts for the Flood Warning Service Hamburg. This presentation has been filmed and is available here.

Link to the film.

Date 14.09.2017

Hydro & meteo in cooperation with scientists of the University of Innsbruck participated in a publication about the: future heavy rainfall and adjustment to climate change. This contribution presents the results of the project DynAlp (Dynamic Adaption of Urban Water Infrastructure of Sustainable City Development in an Alpine Environment) supported by the Austrian climate- and energy fund. The article Decision Support for Adaptation Planning of Urban Drainage Systems was published in the journal of water resources planning and management.

Free access to DWD – geodata

The German weather service (DWD) started with its free of charge open data service in August 2017.

Link.

Date 25.07.2017