SICA: Integrated Climate and Water System in Chile (TA25I10030. )
Schematic summary
Context and motivation
Climate change is intensifying hydrological extremes; such as droughts, floods, and heatwaves; posing growing challenges for water resources management and risk reduction. Addressing these challenges requires reliable, spatially consistent hydrological simulations at the catchment scale, capable of linking atmospheric processes with surface water responses across diverse climatic and physiographic conditions. High-quality, integrated climate–hydrology information is therefore essential to support robust scientific analysis and evidence-based decision-making.
Project description
SICLO is a four-year research project (December 2025–November 2029) funded by the Chilean National Agency for Research and Development (ANID) under the Concurso IDeA I+D Tecnologías Avanzadas 2025 call. The project aims to develop an integrated climate service for continental Chile by coupling satellite-based observations, regional climate modeling, and distributed surface hydrological modeling.
The SICLO framework will generate physically consistent estimates of key atmospheric and hydrological variables across historical, near-real-time, and future climate scenarios, with a particular emphasis on catchment-scale processes. The resulting datasets and modeling tools are designed to support hydrological analysis, impact assessment, and the evaluation of climate-driven changes in water availability and extremes.
The project (ANID-TA25I10030: SICA – Integrated Climate and Water System in Chile) is led by the Center for Climate and Resilience Research (CR2) and brings together a multidisciplinary team of researchers and professionals, including Juan P. Boisier (Director, PI), Camila Alvarez-Garreton (Co-Director, PI), Mauricio Galleguillos, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini, Francisca Muñoz, René Garreaud, and Pilar Barría.
I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of La Frontera. I hold a PhD in Environmental Engineering from the University of Trento (Italy) and completed postdoctoral training at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. I have more than 20 years of experience in water resources research and have previously served as an Associate Researcher at the Center for Climate and Resilience Research (CR)2 and as a member of the Earth Sciences Assessment Group of the Chilean National Research and Development Agency (ANID).
My research lies at the interface of hydrology, data science, and environmental sciences, with a particular focus on the use of gridded datasets and open-source tools to investigate droughts, extreme events, and water-related impacts of global change.
I work across spatial and temporal scales to improve the understanding of catchment-scale hydrological processes and to translate this knowledge into operational modelling, forecasting, and early-warning systems that support robust environmental decision-making.
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