During this STSM, Athanasios collaborated closely with experts at SMHI to enhance the operationalization of the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES). The focus of the work was on updating and refining the hydrological model configuration to incorporate the latest meteorological data from the ERA5 dataset, adhering to ISIMIP protocols. The main objective was to enhance the model’s configuration by integrating up-to-date ERA5 meteorological data, following ISIMIP protocols. This effort aimed to build a solid framework for producing reliable discharge simulations, which is planned to contribute to the next global water resource assessments by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

The main objectives of the STSM were to develop a framework for producing up-to date hydrological simulations and to evaluate these simulations against observational river flow data. The processed data were used to generate global-scale hydrological simulations, enhancing the model’s ability to simulate water resources for recent years. The simulated data were visualized and analyzed, primarily for assessing model performance. Additionally, the JULES model outputs were compared against SMHI's global hydrology model, World-wide HYPE, providing deeper insights into the strengths and differences between the two models.

A big thanks to the EU COST Association and the COST Action CA19139 PROCLIAS for supporting this STSM.