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Abstract

Business as usual is no longer an option in view of seriously engaging in the sustainable development agenda and robust climate action. The call from the UN Secretary General for providing early warnings for all within 5 years is a further incentive to act. These undertakings all require reliable, available and accessible hydrological data. To meet this need, many current hydromet monitoring systems need optimization of their efficiency and cost. Here, existing emerging technologies and approaches, including Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things and Citizen Sciences offer new opportunities. Their operational uptake by National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) is however currently low, for various reasons including lack of trust and insufficient dialogue between innovators, hydromet services and their user communities. In view of this, the WMO HydroHub offers a mechanism to support the operational uptake of existing and emerging technologies and approaches in a sustainable way, through partnerships, and by providing actors with capacity, innovation and engagement possibilities. This Keynote will highlight some concrete examples of innovation-related activities the WMO HydroHub is taking forward. These include Innovation Calls, which identify and operationalize innovative solutions to hydrometric challenges, as well as Innovation Workshops, which bring together NMHSs, academia, private sector and others in view of better tailoring solutions to operational realities and directing research towards more pertinent topics. Other activities showcasing how the WMO HydroHub leverages multistakeholder dialogue platforms to generate ideas and synergies to tackle challenges will also be highlighted. Innovative ways to strengthen the sustainability of solutions will also be discussed.