HydroSOS: Knitting local and global hydrological status and outlooks systems together for seamless water resources assessment

Many hydroclimate services exist across the world at different scales. However, these services all use different categorisation schemes, different presentation styles, and are hosted across countless different websites. The Hydrological Status and Outlook System (HydroSOS) is a World Meteorological Organization initiative uniting, or “knitting”, hydrological status and sub-seasonal to seasonal outlooks products across scales in a consistent framework, weaving seamless services for water resources assessment.

HydroSOS extends beyond uniting existing services, also building capacity where services do not currently exist. It provides essential guidance and frameworks enabling the assessment of hydrological status for different variables. Additionally, HydroSOS is reviewing methods of producing useful hydrological forecasts in data sparse regions using statistical methods, or hydrological models, with and without real-time meteorological forecast inputs. Working in collaboration with the GEOGloWS initiative, global scale services are being improved with bias correction using machine learning and local scale data.

This fiber-art poster presents the HydroSOS initiative, its progress, and calls for ideas and collaborations on how we can knit hydroclimate services together to make the best fabric for water resources management.