GIS-Based Climate Services for Water-Related Sectors

Dear Colleagues,

The topic of water runs across multiple sectors and systems, such as food security, energy, infrastructure, industry, domestic supply, human health, and ecosystem functions. Water, both in terms of quality and quantity, is either a “resource” contended by sectors and systems or a “driver” with modifications in the hydrological cycle potentially leading to hazards (droughts, floods, erosion, pollution) but also creating new opportunities (investments, infrastructure design, etc.).

Under a climate change perspective, proper water resource management and planning become crucial on the short- to long-term future horizons. To strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity under new climate average conditions, variability, extreme events, and impacts, and to accelerate sectoral innovation, climate services are gaining importance in delivering timely, scientifically robust and end-user-tailored climate information, so as to ensure its effective adoption and exploitation.

In this context, on one hand, last-generation and updated datasets of high spatiotemporal resolution and quality are key to support decision making through climate services. On the other hand, to promote easier and faster data visualization and analysis, climate services are increasingly made interoperable or combined with geospatial technologies and GIS-based platforms and applications. Thanks to GIS, a huge amount of data and indicators directly overlap and are processed through spatial analysis tools and spatially explicit models, as well as explored thanks to functionalities customized to users’ preferences.

The aim of this Special Issue is to gather contributions on recent developments leading to progressive integration of GIS resources with climate services concerning water, in its qualitative and qualitative aspects, hydrological cycle components, demand and supply side, and other multifaceted aspects. Submitted papers can include but are not limited to:

• GIS-based tools, models, and algorithms to represent water-related physical or human systems, both as single and interacting components;
• GIS-assisted participatory approaches and/or GIS-based tools for users’ involvement in climate service development and testing;
• Design, development, and management of GIS databases to support climate services;
• Exploitation of existing water-related data portals and infrastructures—like those from Copernicus—through GIS resources.

Dr. Monia Santini
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• GIS
• climate services
• users
• data portals
• water cycle
• indicators
• models