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Andrea

IHP Danube: Publication of New Monograph on Flood Regime of Rivers in Danube River Basin

The IHP Danube has recently published a Monograph of the Flood Regime of River Danube and its catchment. Below please find a brief summary of its content.

Hochwasser in Linz (Österreich) – Flood in Linz (Austria)

It is perceived that extreme climatic and hydrological events have become more frequent in recent years. There are suggestions that this phenomenon may be caused by man-induced global warming. This perception is in some cases supported by scientific evidence, but still not widely recognised. Trends in fluvial flooding are rather difficult to detect, as changes in factors such as land use, reservoirs, drainage or flood alleviation schemes will impact on the flood regime in addition to climate-related changes.

Against this background, a new study has appeared, focusing on flood characteristics and analysing the evidence of changes in flood regimes of rivers in the Danube River basin. The authors have assessed the flood phenomena in the Danube River Basin from a long-term point of view using hydrological information from gauging stations in the whole river basin under different aspects. In addition to the documentation and investigation of historical floods, an analysis of the spatio-temporal behaviour of floods in this major catchment area has been implemented In addition, suitable evaluation procedures for the underlying extensive database have been developed, adapted and applied.

With its length of about 2826 km, River Danube is the second largest river in Europe. As many as 19 countries share its catchment area of app. 817000 km². The follow-up volume of the Danube Hydrological Monograph is a result of 10 years of collaboration of a large team of hydrologists from 11 member countries of the Danube cooperation within the scope of the International Hydrological Programme of UNESCO (IHP UNESCO).

The product can be downloaded under: https://doi.org/10.31577/2019.9788089139460

Abou Amani New Interim-Director of UNESCO-IHP Secretariat

Previously, Mr. Amani worked as Office Manager in the Chief Executive Office of Ms. Shamila Nair-Bedouelle, Assistant Director-General for Natural Sciences at UNESCO.

www.unesco.org (Shamila Nair-Bedouelle, Assistant Director-General for Natural Sciences)

The position as Chief of Section (Hydrological Systems and Water Scarcity) in the IHP-Secretariat continues to be posted in UNESCO’s international job pool.

www.careers.unesco.org (Chief of Section Hydrological Systems and Water Scarcity)

Currently, UNESCO and its member states are preparing Phase nine (2022–2029) of the Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (IHP IX). As a second step, it will submit the 2nd Order Draft of IHP IX to the member states for discussion in the IHP-Council in October 2020.

URSACHEN Project

Ursachen-project Flyer

Uncertainties of an often unknown magnitude are often inherent in data on water quality and suspended matter concentrations.,This is due to the spatiotemporal variability of the dissolved and suspended matter in combination with the representativity of the sampling process (duration, spatial distribution, measurement interval). The consequences are major uncertainties in the calculation of yearly loads, posing a considerable challenge to the monitoring of river systems. The URSACHEN project investigates the spatiotemporal variability of dissolved and suspended substances in rivers and derives methodological implications for the uncertainty determination of global substance loads.

URSACHEN Flyer

Download: PDF, 2 p., 2,4 MB

Diesen Beitrag drucken

75th anniversary of the United Nations

75 years ago, after the end of WW2, the United Nations were founded in Washington/USA in October 1945, with their charter already having been signed in June ’45. UN organisations were gradually installed, e.g. the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in October 1945, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in November ‘45, the World Health Organization WHO in 1948, the World Meteorological Organization WMO in May 1950 and the United Nations Environment Programme UNEP in June 1972. After its foundation in 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany has contributed i.a. by establishing the German Secretariat to the UNESCO (IHP) and WMO (HWRP) water programmes since 1974/1975. These activities, along with further mandates (e.g. by UNEP), have been combined under the auspices of the International Centre for Water Resources and Global Change (ICWRGC) at the Federal Institute of Hydrology in Koblenz since 2014. At present, the UN activities in the water sector are distributed among 32 institutions with a coordinated mechanism under the aegis of UN Water. UN Water was founded in 2003, but its origins date back as far as 1977, when the “UN Intersecretariat Group for Water Resources” took up its work in New York. Against this international background, ICWRGC is guided by an interministerial group (National Committee) chaired by the Foreign Office.

Since 2011, 193 countries, and thus almost all states of the world, are members of the United Nations.

www.un.org (United Nations 75th anniversary)www.unwater.orgwww.unesco.org (UNESCO-IHP)www.wmo.int (WMO-HWRP)www.unenvironment.org (GEMS/Water Programme of UNEP)

ISI – Training Workshop “River Basin Sediment Monitoring and Management”

Date: September 7 – 11 September 2020
Venue: Federal Institute of Hydrology, Koblenz, Germany

The workshop under the umbrella of UNESCO’s International Sediment Initiative (ISI) aims at providing knowledge on:

  • sediment measurement and monitoring
  • transferring measurement and monitoring results to management solutions
  • improving current sediment management strategies to find sustainable solutions
  • evolving from local river management to integrated landscape management.

Although its focus will be on suspended sediments in inland waters, the course also intends to highlight possible impacts on downstream areas, including estuaries and coastal zones. The workshop’s emphasis is on training and capacity development. It is co-organized by BfG, ICWRGC and the International Research and Training Centre for Erosion and Sedimentation (IRTCES, Beijing, China).

Contact: Renee van Dongen, ICWRGC; Dr. Thomas Hoffmann, BfG

European water-quality monitoring data in GEMStat database undergoes major update

In the Europe-wide database Waterbase, the European Environment Agency (EEA) regularly collects data on nutrients, organic matter, hazardous substances and other chemical substances in surface water and groundwater from 32 EEA member countries and 6 cooperating countries. Following the principle of “report once, use many times”, parts of the existing Waterbase data are now integrated into the GEMStat database. Important criteria for the integration were i.a. that the data represents individual sample analysis results and that relevant metadata was available. Furthermore, taken into account were only monitoring locations having 3 or more years of data with an average of at least 4 samples per year. In total, more than 3 million water quality samples from 1550 stations, distributed over 24 European countries, covering 242 parameters and 49 years have been integrated. The water quality data is available via the GEMStat data portal and can be used for status evaluation, policy-making and research purposes, or within the scope of education and training initiatives. The data significantly contributes to the understanding of the condition of European water bodies and trends at global, regional and local levels.

For a full list of stations and parameters, visit: http://gemstat.org/

ICWRGC to present at “EGU2020 – Sharing Geoscience Online

Due to the COVID19 crisis, the European Geosciences Union (EGU) has chosen a new format for their General Assembly: the largest-ever Geoscience Virtual Meeting: https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2020/meetingprogramme.

Two scientists of ICWRGC will share their presentations at the online general assembly of the EGU, to present and discuss their scientific advances in the field of hydrology.

Renee van Dongen will present her work on “El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) controls on mean streamflow and streamflow variability in Central Chile” in the session Understanding the links between hydrological variability and internal/natural climate variability (https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2020/session/35542 on 07 May, 10:45–12:30). Understanding hydrological extremes is becoming increasingly important for future adaptation strategies to global warming. Her presentation shows the effect of ENSO on the mean values of precipitation, temperature and stream flow as well as on streamflow variability in Chile. Large-scale climatic phenomena like ENSO affect catchment hydrology through anomalies in precipitation and temperature.

Renee will also co-convene the session Novel Approaches in Geochronology: Quantifying Geomorphological Processes and Landscape Dynamics (https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2020/session/37492 on 08 May, 08:30–10:15).

Robert Reinecke will speak about “Changes of groundwater recharge at different global warming levels: A global-scale multi-model ensemble approach” in the session How to assess climate change impacts on groundwater? (https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2020/session/35618 on 07 May, 08:30–10:15). Billions of people rely on groundwater as an accessible source for drinking water and irrigation, especially in times of drought. Robert will showcase the results of a multi-model ensemble approach incorporating eight global hydrological models and four global circulation models to show the impact of global warming on global groundwater recharge. Also, he is co-author in the presentation “The global freshwater availability and water use model WaterGAP 2.2d” (https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2020/EGU2020-11434.html on 07 May, 16:15–18:00) by Hannes Müller Schmied et al..

The United Nations’ World Water Day 2020 emphasizes the importance of the topic of “Water and Climate change”

The changing climate is impacting the world,  its societies and ecosystems, mainly through water. This means the climate crisis is basically a water crisis.

Today, on the World Water Day 2020, the UN World Water Development Report 2020 will be presented. The report concludes that climate change leads to reduced fresh water availability and deteriorated water quality. Climate change may result in more severe droughts. The rising temperatures increase the melt end evaporation of important fresh water resources such as snow and ice bodies, soil and groundwater as well as lakes and reservoirs.

Because it is the World Water Day 2020 and the UN Water Action Decade, we want to highlight the importance of sustainable water management to reduce the effect of climate change on the global population, food security and ecosystems via mitigation and adaption measures. Globally, future sustainable water challenges are seen in the development of climate neutral agriculture and the enhanced used of waste water for crop irrigation.

The International Centre for Water Resources and Global Change contributes to these global water challenges in its daily work. Proper water quality is required for the use of human sanitation, irrigation and ecosystems. The ICWRGC contributes to the Sustainable Development Goal 6 “Clean water and Sanitation for all”. Here, the GEMS/Water Data Centre with its global freshwater quality database GEMStat, which is located at the ICWRGC, provides global data on water quality, facilitating studies on water quality worldwide and contributing to SDG 6 monitoring and reporting.

On a regional basis, the ICWRGC strengthens initiatives on transboundary cooperation between countries that depend on the same river basin. We work closely together with the German Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG) on projects on large European transboundary rivers like the Rhine and the Danube and transfer the knowledge into our UN network.

On a global perspective, the ICWRGC coordinates the Global Terrestrial Network – Hydrology (GTN-H) under the auspices of the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) and the WMO. Here, we collaborate with the leading water data centres to provide information about the global water cycle, available water resources and how these are impacted by climate change.

The impact of climate change  on the global fresh water reservoirs is inevitable. We should act now, and we should act together. According to the World Water Day 2020 slogans: We cannot afford to wait! & Everyone has a role to play!

PS: Did you know? Just one day after the World Water Day, the World Meteorological Day takes place every year on  March 23rd and commemorates the coming into force of the Convention establishing the World Meteorological Organization on March 23rd 1950. This year the major topic is “Count Every Drop – Every Drop counts”. We cannot manage what we do not measure. Therefore, the work of the ICWRGC also directly supports the objectives of the WMO and contributes to the collection and exchange of water data to support global hydrological monitoring and forecasting of water resources and early warning services for floods and droughts.

www.unesco.org (WWDR)www.bmu.de (UN Wasserdekade)www.worldwaterday.org (World Water Day 2020)www.worldmetday.wmo.int (World Met day)www.unesco.de (Deutsche UNESCO Kommission)www.bafg.de (BfG)

Newly appointed Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) takes up work

Presided by Prof. Dr. Mariele Evers, the new SAB of the IHP/HWRP National Committee and ICWRGC realigned its activities in Koblenz at the end of January 2020. Mr. Achim Schkade, Head of the Division for Climate and Environmental Foreign Policy at the Federal Foreign Office (AA) and new Chairman of the German National Committee, introduced himself to the SAB and outlined the demand for water foreign policy consulting from AA’s perspective in relation to ICWRGC. The Director of the ICWRGC, Harald Köthe, explained ICWRGC’s alignment until 2030, based on the results of the recent evaluation in 2019.

There was general consensus on the strong diversification of the water sector at national and international levels. Moreover, one agreed on the fact that there is huge potential for improved cooperation and communication among the players in politics and science. Here, ICWRGC takes centre stage. Specific recommendations have been prepared for the National Committee.

ICWRGC presents recent scientific advance at EGU meeting

Date: 3 – 8 May 2020
Venue: Vienna, Austria


Two scientists of the ICWRGC will attend the general assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) in Vienna, to present and discuss their scientific advances in the field of hydrology.

Renee van Dongen will give a lecture on “El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) controls on mean streamflow and streamflow variability in Central Chile” in the session Understanding the links between hydrological variability and internal/natural climate variability (https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2020/session/35542). Understanding hydrological extremes is becoming increasingly important for future adaptation strategies to global warming. Her presentation shows the effect of ENSO on the mean values of precipitation, temperature and stream flow as well as on streamflow variability in Chile. Large-scale climatic phenomena like ENSO affect catchment hydrology through anomalies in precipitation and temperature.

Renee will also co-convene the session Novel Approaches in Geochronology: Quantifying Geomorphological Processes and Landscape Dynamics (https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2020/session/37492) and organize the short course Crowd-solving problems in Earth Sciences (https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2020/session/36416)

Robert Reinecke will present “Changes of groundwater recharge at different global warming levels: A global-scale multi-model ensemble approach” in the session How to assess climate change impacts on groundwater? (https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2020/session/35618). Billions of people rely on groundwater as an accessible source for drinking water and irrigation, especially in times of drought. Robert will showcase the results of a multi-model ensemble approach incorporating eight global hydrological models and four global circulation models to show the impact of global warming on global groundwater recharge. Also, he is co-author in the presentation “The global freshwater availability and water use model WaterGAP 2.2d” by Hannes Müller Schmied et al.

The exact time and place of the presentations will be updated as soon as the final EGU programme has been released.