An cross-border glacier monitoring system for the South Tyrol region
The proposed project offers an innovative concept for an operational and supraregional monitoring of glaciers. Special attention will be paid to the needs of stakeholders from the areas of hydrology, natural hazards, water and energy supply, agriculture and tourism. To implement this, existing programmes for the monitoring glaciers in the region will be coordinated and continued as consistant as possible. Those programmes with detailed measurements on indivicual glaciers will be complemented with innovative remote sensing data for all glaciers within the study area,  which will deliver detailed information on recent glacier changes. Through the integration of satellite data with high repeat times, an operational near-time monitoring system will be developed, which will continuously deliver data for decision-makers and stakeholders in the affected areas. The project will enhance the existing time-series of glacier measurements through the additionally collected data, while the development of new methods and procedures for operational glacier monitoring will also be of scientific value. The proposed project will not only be a large contribution to the expansion of core-competencies of the project partners but will also enable a new, supraregional cooperation between the involved institutions as well as the incorporation of relevant stakeholders.