The session intends building bridges and revealing gaps between practice and science in hydrological forecasting. It will focus on presenting hydrological methods and models which already found application in operational local, regional and national hydrological forecasting systems. Real-world case studies of system implementations - configured at local, regional and national scales - will be also presented, including trans-boundary issues.

The major topics to be covered will include:
(i) hydrological models and methods in operational forecasting systems
(ii) coupling meteorological and hydrological forecasting systems,
(iii) methodological aspects of hydrological model implementations and automatic calibration,
(iv) updating procedures in operational forecasting,
(v) open system developments,
(vi) structure of real-time forecasting systems,
(vii) assessment of performance in relation to user requirements.