Hydro-Meteorology Research (HMR) is an area of critical scientific importance and of high societal relevance. It plays a key role in guiding predictions relevant to the safety and prosperity of humans and ecosystems from highly urbanized areas, to coastal zones, and to agricultural landscapes. Of special interest and urgency within HMR is the problem of understanding and predicting the impacts of severe hydro-meteorological events, such as flash-floods and landslides in complex orography areas, on humans and the environment, under the incoming climate change effects.

Thus, building on existing but regional projects such as DRIHM (Distributed Research Infrastructure for Hydro-Meteorology, EU) and CESM (Community Earth System Model, USA), DRIHM2US project will help in understanding the utilization of e-Infrastructures for advancing scientific collaboration on both sides of the Atlantic towards improving the predictive ability of severe storms and utilization of these predictions for hazard prediction and control under climate change effects.  As such, HMR serves as a key example for the utilization of e-Infrastructures in Advancing Science of Service to Society and can be a lighthouse for broader directions within HMR and for other scientific disciplines.

Along these lines DRIHM2US will promote international cooperation between Europe and the USA for the development of a joint/common e-Infrastructure using HMR as an example, to ensure persistent availability and effective sharing of data and models across scientific disciplines, institutions, and national boundaries, specifically across the Atlantic.

The goal will be achieved by creating a forum of collaboration, based on a sequence of networking activities with EU and USA participants.

The DRIHM2US project has concluded with excellency, and the partners of DRIHM2US are now investigating future possibilities for collaboration in the area of using distributed research infrastructures for hydro-metorology and extreme events. The DRIHM and the DRIHM2US projects have been considered success stories by the European Commission; read more on the EC DRIHM page.