WaterSENSE
Making sense of the Water value chain in Australia
WaterSENSE provides advanced Earth Observation-based water monitoring solutions, enhancing sustainable water management through scalable and transparent data-driven insights. Originally developed under Horizon 2020, WaterSENSE has demonstrated its value in Australia and beyond. REINFORM, a Horizon Europe initiative, builds on this foundation by integrating remote sensing technologies into optimized resource management. Together, these projects enhance water productivity and sustainability, supporting decision-makers in agriculture, policy, and environmental management. The objective is to deliver actionable intelligence for improved water use efficiency, ensuring long-term resilience in the face of climate change.
The WaterSENSE EC project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (H2020-SPACE-2018-2020) under grant agreement No. 870344.
The REINFORM EC project is funded by the Horizon EUSPA-2023_SPACE Programme under grant agreement NO. 101180201.
Our services
Within WaterSENSE we have developed a toolkit of modular, operational water services. Our services integrate Copernicus RS data, ground radar, models, in-situ data, and novel research. Our services are available through a flexible web-based platform with an intuitive UI as well as a comprehensive API. We offer a flexible service subscription model for all our services.
Near real-time irrigation mapping and monitoring: where, when, how much
We offer an inexpensive, fast and scalable approach to monitor irrigation with a scientifically based method. Our information products include crop water monitoring (ETact) and water use quantification.
High-quality radar rainfall information
Under normal conditions rain gauges measure precipitation with high accuracy, but with limited spatial representativeness depending on the meteorological conditions. In contrast, radar data is ideally suited to represent spatial precipitation patterns with greater uncertainties in precipitation amounts at point scale compared to rain gauges. Our service carefully combines quality-controlled data from automatically reporting rain gauges and radar data resulting in a dataset with a high accuracy, a good temporal and spatial resolution, and a low latency, together with a good spatial coverage.
Rainfall exceedance information on-the-fly
It is vital for water managers to understand the intensity, duration, timing and locality of rainfall events to inform any decisions and actions before, during and after the events. We provide fast, reliable, and accessible rainfall and exceedance data and visualisations in near real-time for forecast, current and historical gauge and radar data, with options for flood extent mapping.
News
Projects enabling WaterSENSE
WaterSENSE EC Project
WaterSENSE is a Horizon 2020-funded project that delivers an operational, Earth Observation-based water monitoring system. It provides actionable insights on water availability and use, supporting water managers, policymakers, and agricultural stakeholders in making informed decisions. The project integrates satellite data, in-situ measurements, and advanced hydrological models to offer scalable, cost-effective solutions for sustainable water management.
WaterSENSE has been successfully applied in Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin, helping optimize water use in irrigated agriculture. By improving transparency and efficiency, WaterSENSE supports climate resilience and resource sustainability, addressing global water challenges.
WaterSENSE REINFORM EC Project
Building on the success of WaterSENSE, the REINFORM project, funded under Horizon Europe, expands the capabilities of EO-based water monitoring to optimize resource management on a broader scale. REINFORM enhances WaterSENSE’s methodologies by integrating additional remote sensing technologies, hybrid hydrological models, and stakeholder-driven decision-support tools.
A key focus of REINFORM is supporting the cotton sector’s sustainability efforts by delivering EO-based water productivity indicators that provide growers with clear insights into water use efficiency. By offering transparent and scalable reporting tools, the project helps farmers optimize irrigation strategies, reduce water stress, and enhance long-term productivity. Through REINFORM, WaterSENSE continues to evolve, empowering agricultural communities with actionable data for improved water management and sustainability.
Water auditing
WaterSENSE will deliver essential value-added services of monitoring compliance of local water use against water rights and regulations: water auditing. The first application is in the multi-climate Murray-Darling Basin in Australia, followed by validation in South Africa and the Netherlands.
Novel Research
Novel research in the project focuses on scalable information services, based on satellite water monitoring, advanced big-data processing algorithms, to determine variables such as evapotranspiration, irrigation water use, rainfall and soil moisture, as well as machine learning to allow automatic data processing and reduce uncertainty in the hydrological variables determined.
