Freshwater Competence Centre was well presented in the European Geosciences Union 2023 General Assembly

The EGU23 European Geosciences Union General Assembly had more than 15000 participants from 107 countries gathered in Vienna in the end of April 2023. There was no lack of interesting content for geoscientists: with almost 1000 sessions and 16 357 presentations this event really gathered the current knowledge in geosciences in Austria all at the same time.

57% of the abstracts in the event were identified as contributions from Early Career Scientists. Freshwater Competence Centre was also represented at the event with several of our early-career scientists. Linnea Bl?field talked about how the climate emergency driven changes in hydroclimatic conditions will affect bank erosion, sediment transport and meander migration. Finland is an excellent place to study such matters because our research organisations have been compiling long-term time series that range over decades - In the case of this study a 50-year time series was available for making the study. The poster presentation of Karoliina Lintunen about "Hydrological variability of Finnish free-flowing rivers" was using Finnish time series ranging even further, up to 100 years.

Another topic presented by University of Turku scientists at the conference was the changes caused by climate change to the Arctic Coastline, to provide local communities and environmental managers better opportunities to adapt to further coastal changes. Also this study shows and is leaning on the benefits of long-term data collection: The study presented by Tua Nylén was built on a 40-year time-series of open Landsat and Sentinel multispectral satellite images, taken during the Arctic summer in Scandinavian Northern shoreline.

Long time series of hydrological and various types of spatial data are valuable for building of a Digital Twin. "Digital twins are part of ongoing digital transformation to test, monitor, and maintain physical environments virtually", explain our scientists from University of Oulu, who participated in the conference with a study about a Blueprint for a digital twin of a river basin, presented by Debasish Pal. What is needed for building a digital twin? "The collaboration of smart measurement sensors, advanced communication networks, cloud data storage capacity, and cutting-edge computing techniques."

This brings us to the importance of algorithms: The third presentation from University of Turku, by Mike Calle Navarro, explored river morphological diversity in the Tana River, the biggest catchment in Fennoscandia draining to the Barents Sea.?They were testing a machine learning algorithm to identify and classify river morphological features, and validating the results with field visits and aerial images - Better understanding of the processes that shape river diversity in the present and in the past is important for predicting future consequences of climate warming.

Actual measurements with latest sensors are the basis for valid results when bringing machine learning algorithms, digital twins and other new methods into river research. Scientists Eliisa Lotsari, Tuure Takala and Juha-Matti V?lim?ki from Aalto University were presenting interesting new insights into river flow and freezing and thawing processes effects on sediment movement: bedload transport as well as river banks - and how to measure these processes accurately using latest sensors and models.

Hope you enjoyed this summary of our research topics presented at the EGU2023!