
The European Drought Observatory (EDO) and the Global Drought Observatory (GDO) uses mainly modeled data for monitoring drought at the European and Global scale. The OEMC project will build 1km drought maps on a seasonal scale based on soil moisture, vegetation, and precipitation data obtained from the integration of satellite, modeled, and ground-based observations. Integrated satellite data will allow us to include the human component in drought assessment with improved reliability in areas impacted by human activity (ie extensively irrigated areas).
What is the challenge?
On the one hand, there is an increasing number of sources of elevation / altitude data while, on the other hand, users typically require only a single functional elevation service, preferably one that most accurately depicts hydrological relationships in a landscape.
Land relief parameterization follows the higher resolution DTM product. Higher resolution data product leads to higher and more intense computation.
Our solution
Machine learning can be used to remove canopy and buildings, although some post-processing is still needed to create hydrologically correct DTMs. We will next build such a system for the whole world (compare with FABDEM) and then also derive some key terrain variables that can be used for various projects.
Integration of WhiteBoxTool developed by a member in ISG, Prof. John Lindsay. Powered by the programme, the efficiency of connecting hydrological and parallelization improves dramatically.

Who will benefit?
Civil protection agencies, agricultural and environmental agencies, researchers, municipalities, insurance companies, water resource management organizations, as well as the International Society for Geomorphometry will all benefit from this use case.
Scope
Target Partner Organizations
OEMC Leading Partner
Get in touch!
Type of output
Drought maps (1km), soil moisture, vegetation, precipitation and ground data.
Technology readiness level
TRL3: Experimental proof of concept
Location
Worldwide
Links of interest
- Drought Soil Moisture Anomalies (SMA) at 12.5km from ASCAT sensor onboard Metop missions with active remote sensing soil moisture data over Europe v1 monthly time-series (2007-2022)
- Soil moisture products consistency for operational drought monitoring in Europe
- Drought Soil Moisture Anomalies (SMA) at 0.1deg spatial resolution derived from EUMETSAT - TU Wien ASCAT-SSM-CDR-12.5km version 7 (H120) of the ASCAT - Metop missions of active remote sensing soil moisture data over Europe v1 10day period (dekad) time-series (2007-2022)
- Jaime Gaona: Drought monitoring across scales with open soil moisture remote sensing data
- Luca Brocca: Building a Digital Twin Earth for the Water Cycle State of the Art and Challenges
- Interview with Luca Brocca