Research

Following the environmental disaster on the River Oder, an Oder data platform is being set up at IGB, which will contain biological data as well as chemical and other environmentally relevant data. The sub-project "oderDATA" will update the data portal of the Freshwater Information Platform (FIP) to the latest technical standard in order to publish the collected biological data of the Oder in compliance with the FAIR data principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and thus enable, for example, the direct analysis of spatio-temporal patterns, investigations of time series and trends or appealing visualizations of biological and environmental data.

Scientific management of the research program "StartClim_2024" The climate research program StartClim was founded in 2002 by the climate research initiative AustroClim together with the Ministry of Environment. It is a flexible instrument that can quickly address current issues in the field of climate change due to its short duration and annual allocation of projects. Within the framework of StartClim projects, new topics related to climate or climate change can and should be researched in an interdisciplinary manner from a wide variety of perspectives and by a wide variety of disciplines. In the project "StartClim2024 - Scientific coordination" the scientific management for the quality assurance of the implementation of the StartClim program in the tender period 2024 is implemented.

Digital data and tools are increasingly part of agricultural practice and water management in Austria. Decision support systems can be used to control irrigation digitally and adapted to agrometeorological conditions. Apps and web-based services (e.g., ada.boku.ac.at, eo4water.com) have been developed to facilitate irrigation planning using publicly available satellite, weather, soil, and land use data (e.g., opendatacube.org, data.gv.at). Online probes (e.g., ehyd.gv.at) allow real-time display of groundwater levels or surface water discharges. Water withdrawals for irrigation purposes are recorded with different information density via water information systems (e.g. online water books of the federal states). Some digital tools are already in use, various research projects deal with partial aspects of this topic, data bases are available in different forms at a number of institutions. However, there is a lack of an overview of the current state of research, the available data bases and digital tools, as well as the developments and challenges in this topic area, which would enable targeted further developments and synergetic uses of existing data. Therefore, the current state of research, available data bases and digital tools, as well as current developments and challenges are to be compiled and presented in the form of web-compatible factsheets with the intensive involvement of the relevant stakeholders (agriculture, water management, research). For this purpose, in a first step, the relevant topic areas will be defined in communication with the stakeholders, the research sources will be determined, the criteria for the consideration and evaluation of information will be established, and a standardized form of presentation will be designed. The existing data bases and tools are evaluated for their concrete feasibility, synergy potential, and availability/accessibility for different stakeholders. Complementary to this, identified gaps are presented.