Forecasting Systems

Component 4 selectively supports activities aimed at strengthening institutional capacity in the following areas:

• enhancing the emergency preparedness along the main rivers and their tributaries in south and west Poland by enhancing the forecasting and operational water management capacity,
• strengthening the development of methods and capacity to prepare River Basin Management Plans and investment prioritization plans that are compliant with the Water Framework Directive and the Flood Directive,
• strengthening impact monitoring,
• and enhancing the communication and data exchange capabilities.

The activities associated with strengthening the forecasting capacity and the establishment of operational centers will be carried out, in particular, at RZGW Wrocław and RZGW Kraków as well as at IMGW-PIB.

These investments include the following:

• installation of new-generation telemetric weather stations,
• modernization of the POLRAD (Polish national weather radar) network,
• expansion and upgrade of hydrological stations, including the development of better-performing flash flood simulation software,
• and improving flash flood forecasting.

The operational centers are control rooms that will collect forecasting data and simulate likely run-off scenarios in order to support early warning and decision-making processes for emergency response, while on the other hand, they will also provide operation of hydraulic structures (weirs, reservoirs, and dry polders) to manage the storage and conveyance of flood waters.