OpenHi.net: A Synergistically Built, National-Scale Infrastructure for Monitoring the Surface Waters of Greece

Abstract

The large-scale surface-water monitoring infrastructure for Greece Open Hydrosystem Information Network (Openhi.net) is presented in this paper. Openhi.net provides free access to water data, incorporating existing networks that manage their own databases. In its pilot phase, Openhi.net operates three telemetric networks for monitoring the quantity and the quality of surface waters, as well as meteorological and soil variables. Aspiring members must also offer their data for public access. A web-platform was developed for on-line visualization, processing and managing telemetric data. A notification system was also designed and implemented for inspecting the current values of variables. The platform is built upon the web 2.0 technology that exploits the ever-increasing capabilities of browsers to handle dynamic data as a time series. A GIS component offers web-services relevant to geo-information for water bodies. Accessing, querying and downloading geographical data for watercourses (segment length, slope, name, stream order) and for water basins (area, mean elevation, mean slope, basin order, slope, mean CN-curve number) are provided by Web Map Services and Web Feature Services. A new method for estimating the streamflow from measurements of the surface velocity has been advanced as well to reduce hardware expenditures, a low-cost ‘prototype’ hydro-telemetry system (at about half the cost of a comparable commercial system) was designed, constructed and installed at six monitoring stations of Openhi.net.

Post-Analysis of Daniel Extreme Flood Event in Thessaly, Central Greece: Practical Lessons and the Value of State-of-the-Art Water-Monitoring Networks

“…The hydrometric monitoring stations that are exploited in the present work are located along the main course of Peneus and its major tributaries (Figure 1), and they are part of the national-scale network of the HCMR, Department of Inland Water. The first ones were installed within the development of the research infrastructure "Hellenic Integrated Marine Inland water Observing Forecasting and offshore Technology System" (HIMIOFoTS; https://www.himiofots.gr/, accessed on 27 September 2023), particularly its freshwater component (https://openhi.net/en/) [52], and the rest under the project Open ELIoT (https://www.openeliot.com/, accessed on 27 September 2023).…”

“…We argue that their integration into a single platform will facilitate the establishment of a country-wide FEWS that will support national and local authorities to mitigate flood-risk impacts effectively. This option may be offered by an extension of the Open Hydrosystem Information Network (https://openhi.net/ en/) [52,82], which is a part of the Research Infrastructure "Hellenic Integrated Marine Inland water Observing Forecasting and offshore Technology System" (HIMIOFoTS; https: //www.himiofots.gr/).…”

Water Mismanagement in Agriculture: a Case Study of Greece. Starting with “how” and "why"

“…However, the nearest station found was located in Corfu, and the data were not considered fully representative of the area under study. Therefore, data from six meteorological stations installed along and across the plain by the Department of Agriculture of the University of Ioannina were used, whose data are available online at OpenHi.net [40]. Monthly values were then converted to daily steps using the Hydrognomon4 program [41].…”

The Western Greece Soil Information System (WΕSIS)—A Soil Health Design Supported by the Internet of Things, Soil Databases, and Artificial Intelligence Technologies in Western Greece

“…This research seeks the possibility of interfacing the proposed platform with other infrastructures that could contribute to data provision. A vital paradigm of accessible data download platforms in Greece is Openhi.net https://system.openhi.net/ (accessed on 11 April 2024), which provides geographic information that complies with the Inspire Directive [28]. The system offers Web Map Services (WMS) and Web Feature Services (WFS) according to the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).…”