2009 • In Hrebiceck, Jiri (Ed.) Proceedings of the European conference TOWARDS eENVIRONMENT, Opportunities of SEIS and SIZE: Integrating Environmental Knowledge in Europe
Jiří Hřebíček (chief editor), Jiří Hradec, Emil Pelikán, Ondřej Mírovský, Werner Pillmann, Ivan Holoubek, Thomas Bandholtz (Eds.)
Proceedings of the European conference of the Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU TOWARDS eENVIRONMENT. Opportunities of SEIS and SISE: Integrating Environmental Knowledge in Europe. Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic, March 2009.
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[en] The Aquapôle of the University of Liège has been involved in environment modelling for more than 20 years. Its R&D unit focused on the domain of surface water, targeted to water quality. One of its environmental models, called PEGASE (Planification Et Gestion de l’ASsainissement des Eaux), French acronym for ―Planning and management of water purification‖ is devoted to the characterization of the environmental state of surface water, at the scale of a whole watershed, basin and district. The software has been used operationally in several countries like France and Benelux, but several calculations have also been performed at international level for the international commissions in charge of the Scheldt and the Meuse. PEGASE model requires as input, at least data like digital terrain models, water flow, water level and other hydrodynamic measurements in some geo-localized points, diffuse loads properties, ecological model data (to characterize bacteria, phytoplankton, zooplankton, macrophytes, shells, etc…), chemical discharges (from industry and cities) and treatment plant effect. The output of the software consists in tables, graphs and maps, showing the state of various calculated parameters of quality (DO, BOD, COD, N, P, Chla,… + indices) either at a specified time, along the river, or the temporal evolution at a given point. It provides printed maps or animations of the evolution of the results on the basin. The software is able to simulate non stationary scenarios from a local scale, up to a global scale i.e. a few km² to hundreds of thousands km² and handles the entire river tree (hundreds to thousands of water bodies). Some results of the model are already used to populate the SoE-Wise databases. On another hand, the model is a tool to validate and check consistency of SoE-Wise data at district (and thus international) level. The flexibility of the model enables to choose the time (daily to yearly periods) and spatial (watershed, water body, district, region, country …) scales of the expected results. PEGASE is also a full-scale operational tool for WFD implementation and WISE databases. This means that our partners handle a software (also known as the model) directly usable – and of direct help – in the implementation of the WFD and other water related directives. The model allows the member states to compare efficiently the collected international WISE data and populate database with relevant model results. We propose not only to read the data directly from the database to avoid manipulation mistakes, but also we propose to generate output data in a format directly exploitable by WISE databases administration.
Research center :
Aquapôle - AQUAPOLE FOCUS - Freshwater and OCeanic science Unit of reSearch - ULiège PeGIRE - Planification et Gestion Intégrée des Ressources en Eaux