ALBERT

Description: The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) operates the Norwegian Snow Avalanche, Lake Ice, Landslide, and Flood Warning Services and has been using Copernicus satellite data since 2014 to improve these services, enhance safety management, and support research. The NVE Copernicus Services project, launched in 2022, aims to provide operational monitoring of snow avalanches, snow cover, lake ice, glaciers, floods, and other potential hazards using Sentinel data. In addition, the services make a baseline for future studies quantifying the climatic effects on snow avalanches, snow, and glaciers.New neural network-based detection algorithms have been implemented to improve monitoring of snow avalanches and snow cover. In addition, the project seeks to enhance monitoring of glacier lake outburst floods, snow and firn lines on glaciers, lake ice phenology, and flooded areas among others. The project also explores new applications for the Copernicus data, such as mapping and monitoring landslides and slushflows and using soil moisture data for hydrological models. Furthermore, the project investigates the potential use of Sentinel data for energy purposes. To ensure the efficient and safe delivery of these services, the project focuses on upgrading the IT infrastructure at NVE. The project not only generates new products from satellite data but also combines satellite data with modelled data and will use in situ data from the "Varsom" mobile app for validation. Visualization of products derived from optical and radar satellite images will be published in NVEs warning and preparedness tools xGeo and seNorge, among others.