Both public (e.g. emergency management, NOAA) and commercial (e.g. weather sensitive businesses, private-sector weather service providers) entities are involved in the distribution and use of hydrometeorological products and services. Private-sector firms often focus on "niche" applications or develop/implement technologies of interest to public-sector providers such as National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS's). The types of decision-support systems (DSS's) range from water management applications (impoundments, reservoir/hydro-power, urban runoff/drainage); to water resources applications (irrigation, potable water, water pollution mitigation, regional water supply management; to heavy precipitation and flash-flood/flood awareness and forecast services. All rely on high-quality observations as a starting-point. DSSs range in complexity from the highly-sophisticated to consumer-oriented and include products for emergency management, broadcast television and application developers (e.g. Web data services/APIs), while also covering a broad range of both space and time scales. On the other hand, consumers of such products and services seek to minimize impacts or maximize resources while looking to both commercial and government entities to provide the needed information. Thus, there is a natural overlap between the provision of hydrological products and services and consumers of those services. We invite contributions from both provider and consumer vantage points as a basis for dialogue toward the development and application of next-generation" products and services. Papers with a special focus on the integration of new observations that show promise in improving the reliability (statistical) of the DSS for its particular application area are encouraged. For more information, please contact the program organizer, John McHenry, at john.mchenry@baronweather.com.
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