Presented at NZ Hydrological Society Technical Workshop 17-20 March 2020
Abstract
Effective water information systems enable organisations to quantify, analyse and manage water resources within their jurisdiction. Those systems integrate scalar and raster observations from the domains meteorology and hydrology with analytics, forecasting and decision support components as well as reporting and dissemination features. In this context, state-of-the-art software solutions are crucial to deal efficiently with manifold challenges such as climate change, water scarcity, flooding and pollution. Although the rapid development of modern information technologies offers many chances, its introduction requires a careful integration with well-established business procedures of the hydro-meteorological community to safeguard existing knowledge and secure the consistency of long-term observations. Nevertheless, a digitalization of the end-to-end process starting with sensors for meteorology, water quantity and quality and ending with decision support components is without alternative in order to handle rapidly growing amounts of data in combination with new data feeds from remote sensing via radar or satellite and novel analytics capabilities. In this paper, we provide an overview and discussion of several use cases from around the world, which we consider noteworthy. This includes the application of new conceptual approaches, state-of-the-art IT technology as well as the introduction of cloud solutions and digital business models.
Presenter bio
Klaus Kisters received an MSc degree in civil engineering with specialization hydraulic engineering and water management from RWTH Aachen University, Germany, in 1986.
After his graduation, he became a partner in the engineering office KISTERS, which at the time was a planning office for municipal civil engineering and hydrology. This covered first ICT-related developments such as the digitalization of water level observations. From 1987, with the first order of WISKI (Water Management Information System KISTERS), the engineering office expanded to a software provider for water management information systems resulting in the transformation of the engineering office KISTERS to the KISTERS AG in 1999/2000.
In his position as CEO of the KISTERS AG, Klaus diversified the portfolio covering ICT solutions in industries of the environmental and energy domains on a global scale with brands such as WISKI, Hydstra, datapshere and Aquisnet. Recent expansions cover the creation of a new business unit Monitoring which incorporates HyQuest solutions along with sensor equipment and logger/communication devices from 2015.
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