Elga Salvadore

Current Scientific Activity

My current research focuses of bridging the gap between Remote Sensing technology and policy making. Water related data is scarce and the declining of in-situ measuring stations is spread worldwide. I believe open access Remote Sensing data can fill this gap especially in economically disadvantaged regions. Data alone is however not sufficient to tackle our growing water resources challenges. An important step is to move from data to information. My current research therefore focuses on extracting meaningful information for policy makers using open access remote sensing data. Water Accounting is an interesting tool that could facilitate this process. My role is to develop further an easy to use, scalable and reliable framework to report on water resources conditions (www.wateraccounting.org). The system is mainly based on open access global (RS) datasets and is developed using opens source software.

In the past years, I have been involved in several projects in Asia (mainly India and Cambodia) where I have been training technical staff from various Ministries but also staff and students from universities and research centers in the fields of remote sensing, hydrology, GIS and computer programming.

Summary of Professional Achievments 

I obtained by MSc degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Genoa (Italy) focusing on flood protection systems design and optimization. I then continued my career obtaining a PhD in Engineering from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in the filed of urban hydrology. Since then I continued working at VUB as a post-doc and now as guest professor, at the same time I was appointed as lecturer in water accounting at IHE-Delft Institute for Water Education. My main passion is teaching and learning from my students. I feel privileged as I have the opportunity to work in a multi-cultural environment where I can develop my teaching skills and adapt them to the student’s needs. In the academic year 2019/2020 I will be teaching three graduate courses at VUB and be involved in several Modules at IHE-Delft.

Mobility across Thematic Areas

Hydrology – Water Accounting – Remote Sensing – Computer Programming – GIS – Water Management – data analysis and spatial modelization – Cloud Computing – Big Data.

Geographic Mobility

Europe (Belgium, Netherlands, Italy) – Africa (Egypt, Ethiopia, Tanzania) – Asia (Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia) – South America (Bolivia, Brazil, French Guinea) – Arctic (Svalbard).