THE BASIC INFORMATION ABOUT EUROTAS Project The EUROTAS project responded to the second call for proposals in the Environment and Climate programme of the Fourth Framework research programme of the European Commission under contract number ENV4-CT97-0535. EUROTAS was a 3-year project which commenced in January 1998. HR Wallingford was the coordinator for the project in collaboration with 13 other European organisations as contractors, associated contractors or sub-contractors. OBJECTIVES: The EUROTAS project was directed at the development and demonstration of a framework for integrated catchment modelling; for the assessment and mitigation of flood risk and at the development of appropriate modelling and management procedures. SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS Scientific advances and new developments have been made on a number of fronts in the final project year, including: enhanced algorithms and procedures for building land-use scenarios; algorithms and procedures for implementing river engineering scenarios; and implementation of an integrated modelling environment and Decision Support System for flood risk assessment. BENEFITS The EUROTAS project focused on meeting the needs of river management authorities and aimed to provide real benefit in the future mitigation of flood losses in the EU. The involvement of river authorities in the research was a crucial pathway to future implementation of the research advances. The framework is not tied to any particular modelling system but sets protocols for communication between different modelling components. The framework enables nationally or regionally preferred models to be incorporated in any future practical implementation of the system and so conform to the principle of subsidiarity. |