Integration of earth observation data in hydrological models

When applying hydrological models in Third World countries for water resources assessments the data basis is often limited and insuffcient for making reliable predictions. Earth Observation (EO) data may in such cases supplement the missing information or may even provide better estimates of the regional variation of certain variables than traditional point measurements. Most hydrological models are not capable of accomodating EO data and one the objectives of the project is to make such modifications to a specific model that it can utilize this information. The modified model will be tested on the Senegal River basin in West Africa. Specifically the study will investigate to what extent use of EO data improves the performance of the model as compared to using conventional data only.