SWOT-UK: The UK contribution to validating SWOT in the Bristol Channel and River Severn, with application to coastal and river management.

The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission will provide for the first time from space two-dimensional high-resolution maps of surface water levels globally over ocean and inland waters. If SWOT meets its performance targets, it will represent a major milestone in our abiity to observe, study and understand the nature and evolution of the Earth's marine and land surface water systems, globally. The UK Space Agency invested in SWOT jointly with the US NASA, French CNES and Canadian Space Agency to enable the implementation and launch of this mission. The SWOT-UK project proposes a comprehensive programme of campaigns and multidisciplinary research centred on the Bristol Channel and River Severn region as the UK contribution to the international SWOT Science Team validation efforts. In accordance with the requirements of the NERC/UKSA SWOT CalVal call, SWOT-UK takes an open and inclusive approach, putting special emphasis on disseminating value-added SWOT validation datasets and engaging with the wider UK science and stakeholder communities to raise awareness of the SWOT capabilities.