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The EuroGOOS Coastal working group examines the entire coastal value chain from coastal observations to services for coastal users. The main objective of the working group is to review the status quo, identify gaps and future steps needed to secure and improve the sustainability of the European coastal service provision. Within this framework, our white paper defines a EuroGOOS roadmap for sustained “community coastal downstream service” provision, provided by a broad EuroGOOS community with focus on the national and local scale services. After defining the coastal services in this context, we describe the main components of coastal service provision and explore community benefits and requirements through sectoral examples (aquaculture, coastal tourism, renewable energy, port, cross-sectoral) together with the main challenges and barriers to user uptake. Technology integration challenges are outlined with respect to multiparameter observations, multi-platform observations, the land-coast-ocean continuum, and multidisciplinary data integration. Finally, the technological, financial, and institutional sustainability of coastal observing and coastal service provision are discussed. The paper gives special attention to the delineation of upstream and downstream services, public-private partnerships and the important role of Copernicus in better covering the coastal zone. Therefore, our white paper is a policy and practice review providing a comprehensive overview, in-depth discussion and actionable recommendations (according to key short-term or medium-term priorities) on the envisaged elements of a roadmap for sustained coastal service provision. EuroGOOS, as an entity that unites European national operational oceanography centres, research institutes and scientists across various domains within the broader field of operational oceanography, offers to be the engine and intermediary for the knowledge transfer and communication of experiences, best practices and information, not only amongst its members, but also amongst the different (research) infrastructures, institutes and agencies that have interests in coastal oceanography in Europe.

Compagnie Nationale du Rhône (CNR) has operated the Rhône River since 1934 according to three core missions – hydropower generation, inland navigation and irrigation – using 19 run of-river multi-purpose hydropower schemes. To ensure hydraulic safety and optimise hydro power production and commercialisation, CNR developed a range of hydrometeorological forecasting tools, currently run every day in real time by CNR forecasters. The first is an hourly deterministic tool, giving forecasts up to the next 4 days. This tool does not allow quantification of uncertainties, which is a key issue to improve forecasts and take better operational decisions. At the same time, national meteorological centres provide ensemble meteorological forecasts, and thus information about uncertainty. Therefore, CNR is developing a chain of ensemble forecasting tools based on ensemble meteorological forecasts and various post-processing methods. These tools provide hourly/daily hydrological forecasts up to the next 4/12 days. The operational use of such a probabilistic forecasting chain is intended to facilitate decision-making processes. All these tools have been designed to leave large room for human expertise. This paper presents the tools described above, but also their interaction with human forecasters as well as the first attempts to link them together to add consistency between the different forecast types.