Monitoring and modelling surface water are the two main pillars in water resources and flood risk management.
While in situ measurement networks play a central role in the monitoring effort, remote sensing techniques are expected to be increasingly used, as they offer homogeneous and near real time observations over large areas, from local to regional scale. During the last twenty years a large number of satellites and sensors have been developed and launched. These enable the assessment and monitoring of open water extents (passive microwaves, active microwaves, optical), water levels (radar and laser altimetry) and total water storage (GRACE).
Recently research into flood inundation modelling and mapping has focused on urban environments where flood risk may be greatest and over large scales where significant modelling and data challenges remain. However, these applications share many of the same problems and methods, while continued advances in computing power are allowing numerical and remote sensing approaches previously implemented at reach scales to be applied at large to global scales.
This session will cover recent research into surface water and flood inundation simulation and monitoring across a range of scale. Abstracts are welcomed on new hydraulic modelling methods; the development of remotely sensed data sets to support modelling and monitoring; the calibration and evaluation of hydraulic models; the processing of spaceborne sensors’ observation to produce water extent, storage level and discharge; the assimilation of remotely sensed data sets with hydraulic models; and improved understanding of hydraulic processes from modelling and/or remote observation.
A number of studies have also highlighted the need for a satellite mission dedicated to the global observation of the continental water surface fluxes and storage, which, currently, does not exist. The proposed Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission, an ocean/hydrology satellite mission being jointly developed by NASA and CNES, with a launch date proposed for 2020, could fill this gap. Meanwhile, scientific applications of new generation complex technologies like SAR altimetry on CryoSat-2 and future Sentinel-3 and Sentinel-6/Jason-CS missions will also emerge, even if these altimetry missions are not specifically designed for Hydrology. We therefore also invite abstracts that attempt to unlock the full potential of data from current remote sensing platforms and future missions for monitoring water extent, level, volume change, river discharge, improving flood inundation models in hydrology and increasing our understanding of hydrological and hydrodynamic processes in both rural and urban areas.

In brief, this session will present papers on:
• Estimation of water extent, level, volume change and river discharge from remote-sensing (either directly or through data assimilation)
• Calibration and evaluation of models dealing with hydraulics
• Assimilation in models
• Development of new modelling approaches
• Improving model structures
• Large scale flood simulation and process
• Urban flood simulation and remote observation
• Uncertainty analysis: observation, model structure, and parameters

More specifically for future satellite missions (especially SWOT), papers the abstract should:
• Explore expected improvements from the use of SWOT data hydrology at global and regional scales
• Estimate water volume change and river discharge from this type of observations (either directly or through data assimilation)
• Use synthetic SWOT observations in hydrologic/hydraulic modelling (e.g. calibration)
• Investigate the sources of errors and potential solutions to mitigate their effects
• Cover any range of applications which could benefit from SWOT data