The project eartH2Observe brings together the findings from European Framework Programme (FP) projects DEWFORA, GLOWASIS, WATCH, GEOWOW and others. It has integrated available global earth observations (EO), in situ datasets and models and constructed a global water resources re-analysis dataset of significant length (several decades). The resulting data enabled improved insights on the full extent of available water and existing pressures on global water resources in all parts of the water cycle.

The project supported efficient and globally consistent water management and decision making by providing comprehensive multi-scale (regional, continental and global) water resources observations. It has also tested new EO data sources, extended existing processing algorithms and combined data from multiple satellite missions in order to improve the overall resolution and reliability of EO data included in the re-analysis dataset. The usability and operational value of the developed data was verified and demonstrated in a number of case-studies across the world, which aimed to improve the efficiency of regional water distribution. The case-studies were conducted together with local end-users and stakeholders. Regions of interest cover multiple continents, a variety of hydrological, climatological and governance conditions and differ in the degree of data richness (e.g. the Mediterranean and Baltic region, Ethiopia, Colombia, Australia, New Zealand and Bangladesh).

The data was disseminated through an open data Water Cycle Integrator portal to ensure an increased availability of global water resources information on both regional and global scale. The data portal was the European contributor to the existing GEOSS water cycle platforms and communities. Project results were actively disseminated using a combination of traditional methods (workshops, papers, website and conferences) and novel methods such as E-learning courses and webinars that promote the use of the developed dataset.