A project like this, can only reach a good term with the valuable colaboration of a long list of people.
Stephen King wrote once, that the only people who read "Aknowledgments" chapters are the editor, family or very close friends and people who helped and want to know if their name is on the list... well, I don't actually have an editor, so if you are really part of one of the other two groups of people, please go on... ;-)
I would like to thank from the beginning, to my parents for always believing in my work and for all the support and encouragement, without wich, none of this could be possible.
I would also like to thank my brother, Joao Simoes, for the great help on programming (when I was doing my first steps on it) and for the availability and patience to discuss algoritms and even conception model issues.
I would also like to thank my scientific supervisor, Prof. Joao Hipolito, all the scientific support and for giving me the chance to pursuit this project.
I would also like to thank my uncle, Paulo Almeida, for helping me in understanding the mathematical background that lies behind this model and Dr. Pedro Lima, from Maths department of IST, the availability on discussing and clarifying some numerical analysis issues.
Besides this group of people, whose help was foundamental, there was also another group of people that helped me ponctually giving their critical point of view about some chapters of the report. I would like to thank Carla Paulo for the help on GIS chapter and also for the patience to discuss with me distributed model problems, Vasco Matias for the help on the theoretic physcis chapter and Ze-Carlos Ferreira for assembling for me elements about Loures River Watershed.
Concerning entities, I would like to thank INAG, C.M.Loures and the Civil Protection Services of C.M. Loures, that gave finantial support to the project "Implementing a real-time flood warning system on Trancao river", in wich this MSc is contemplated, and from wich I could obtain data and attend several programming courses. I would also like to thank IST, the teaching-support grant, that allowed me to realize this project. I would also like to thank Prof. Ana Ramos Pereira, for all the encouragement to attend this MSc, and also for the suggestions about the final report and to Eusebio Reis for helping me with his experience as student from the same course and for giving me references and usefull advices.
To Prof. Manuel Afonso Dias, from UALG, I would like to thank the possibility of dedication to my MSc, in my work, and also the encouragement and support on the final term of the project. At last, I would like to specially thank all my friends, for hanging around with me, always with lots of patience, all this time (Andre, Dora, Ricardo, Tomas, Luis, Cristina, Cristina S., Ana and all the others...) and also specially thank my family (and my grandmother in particular) for the same reasons.
I also have to thank Michael Batty, for encouraging me to do this site and for giving me the oportunity to put it online on CASA's homepage.
This project and this site are dedicated to ALL of you!