WISE-PREP

The project is part of the international LIAISE program, "Land surface Interactions with the Atmosphere over the Iberian Semi-arid Environment", which aims to characterize evapotranspiration and other key processes involved in the water cycle in semi-arid environments.

An experimental campaign is planned for the summer of 2021 in a very active and diverse agricultural area where dry and irrigated crops are grown. Specifically, the WISE-PreP project is designed to study precipitation processes and characterize possible differences induced by surface contrasts. To achieve this objective, three sites will be equipped during the LIAISE-2021 campaign with a microwave radar (MRR, vertical doppler observation technique) and a laser disdrometer (PARSIVEL). Observations will be obtained in an irrigated zone, a non-irrigated zone and a transition zone.

The vertical precipitation profiles make it possible to characterize the distribution of the droplet sizes and the microphysical processes involved, and to relate this to variables such as precipitation intensity or convective vs. stratiform precipitation patterns. This data, for the selected case studies, will be complemented with data from the rain gauge network, the operational radar network, satellite images and numerical weather prediction models.

The WISE-Prep project started in 2020, is led by the Universitat de Barcelona and funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (Espanya) (WISE-PreP, RTI2018-098693-B-C32).