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Andrea

SASSCAL Graduate Studies Programme in Integrated Water Resources Management Official Launch

The official launch of the Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Adaptative Land Management (SASSCAL) Graduate Studies Programme in Integrated Water Resources Management (SGSP-IWRM), will take place on Thursday, 07 April 2022.

The SGSP–IWRM is a three-year Doctoral programme embedded in SASSCAL’s long term objective of building regional thematic Centres of Excellence within academic institutions across its member states (Angola, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zambia). SASSCAL, sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Research and Education (BMBF), granted scholarships for 15 PhD candidates to study at NUST in programmes aligned to the water sector.

The candidates will officially be awarded the scholarships at the official launch.

Facebook live Event: https://www.facebook.com/researchatnust

Live Event on FacebookSGSP Programme (PDF)

16th International German Summer School on Hydrology (IGSH) – Groundwater and Agriculture

Bochum, 07–22 September 2022

The 16th ”International German Summer School on Hydrology (IGSH)”, supported by ICWRGC, will be held at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) from 7 – 21 September 2022. This year’s focus is on “Groundwater and Agriculture” from different perspectives and instructed by different professors from inside and outside RUB.

The aim of IGSH is to enhance the knowledge and technical capabilities of early career professionals and academics on hydrology-related environmental issues.

The International German Summer School on Hydrology focuses on training international junior scientists and early professionals from the fields of water and the environment, engineering sciences, as well as from geography, hydrology, chemistry, etc. IGSH provides an annually varying programme of hydrological training courses. The courses serve as a platform to establish scientific cooperation and social networks, and to extend the IGSH scientific community. Generally, the Summer School courses provide knowledge transfer and exchange on hydro(geo)logical processes relevant in energy production and management.

RUB Summer School 2022IGSH Registration

Bonn Water Lectures: Corruption in the water sector – how integrity management contributes to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

The Bonn Water Network (BWN) invites you to its webinar “Corruption in the water sector: how integrity management contributes to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals”

Date: Tuesday January 18, 2022, 13.00-14.30

Corruption hampers the achievement of SDG 6 for ensuring water and sanitation for all. It is estimated to be responsible for “losses” of 10%, in some countries even between 40% and 50%, of investments into the capital intensive water sector. This in turn entails higher costs for drinking water and sanitation services, degrades the quality and reliability of supply and thus endangers the health of people (SDG 3). In many countries, women and girls are responsible for managing household water supply, sanitation and health. Hence, they are disproportionally affected by corruption compared to men, and can even be victims of sextortion and other forms of exploitation (SDG 5). Strengthening water integrity requires focusing on SDG 16, which aims for accountable institutions. Water and sanitation sector organizations need to operate with integrity to prevent corruption, and enhance credibility to achieve various SDG goals. This proposed webinar will bring together experiences and knowledge from different organizations on the topic of water integrity and discuss how integrity can help in catalysing the achievement of SDGs.

ICWRGC’s Dr. Marienela Fader and Dr. Luna Bharati will be participating in the webinar, with Dr. Bharati moderating and Dr. Fader acting as a panellist.

Details and agendaWebinar Registration

CHR celebrates its 50th anniversary

The International Commission for the Hydrology of the Rhine basin celebrated its 50th anniversary in Wageningen (the Netherlands) on October 21 and 22, 2021. After a lengthy delay due to COVID-19, the live anniversary celebrations could eventually take place (in the 51st year). The event acknowledged the scientific cooperation between the 6 countries. This cooperation enabled a continuous compilation of the entire Rhine basin’s hydrology, thus providing an outstanding international example. Due to the political and societal situation, the CHR was capable of peacefully and amicably advancing system awareness of the Rhine’s runoff behaviour in a transboundary manner and on a scientifically and technically high level by means of targeted research and development projects. This provided internationally politically active groups in the Rhine basin, such as ICPR and CCNR, with important technical foundations for decision-making. The CHR’s celebrations marked the beginning of CHR’s strategy 2030, setting the course for the future. This has been confirmed by a resolution of the six countries as well as through bilateral agreements with ICPR, CCNR, WMO and UNESCO. High-ranking representatives from the countries and from international organisations were present and witnessed these procedures. All those present recognized the importance of CHR as a major transboundary scientific network, that simply must continue to provide foundations for decision-makers in the future.

In the CHR, Germany is represented by experts from the Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG), the water management of the federal state of Hesse and the International Centre for Water Resources and Global Change (ICWRGC) as well as by scientists involved on a project-related basis (e.g. University of Freiburg).

https://www.chr-khr.org/en/event/chr-51-years-jubilee-conference

CHR Newsletter | 50. KHR-Symposium (french)CHR Newsletter | 50. KHR-Symposium (english)CHR Newsletter | 50. KHR-Symposium (german)

Successful Start of Water Data Workshop Serial in West- and Central Asia

The International Center for Water Resources and Global Change (ICWRGC, Koblenz, Germany) and the Regional Center on Urban Water Management (RCUWM, Tehran, Iran), both UNESCO Category 2 Water Centres, started this data workshop serial in 2021. Its aim is to highlight the importance and production of quality-assured water data and products at the basin level as well as for water utilities for integrated Urban Water Management in West- and Central Asia. Along with the initial high-hevel panel and kick-off online workshop, held on the 23rd of June 2021 with 14 countries from the region, it was a successful start of this data workshop serial. Most of RCUWM’s Governing Board Member States including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Germany, India, Iran, Iraq, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Syria, Tajikistan and Turkey attended this interactive online workshop. WMO, UNESCO, UNEP, IWA, GWP, several global water data centres (GPCC, GRDC, GWDC) and international water experts are supporting this initiative, with their representatives actively attending and giving very interesting keynote speeches (see https://rcuwm.ir/iuwm-data/).

For the second online-workshop on 23/24 November 2021, the high-level country representatives nominated water experts from governmental institutions to deepen the scientific and technical level around water data for water management. Around 60 participants from 12 countries in the region (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Oman, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Syria, and Turkey) were present and reported about their current water and data situation. International lecturers from WMO, GWP, UNEP, IWA and GEO presented current developments in drought, flood and urban water management as well as available tools and initiatives  (see https://rcuwm.ir/iuwm-data/).

Both workshops were a very promising start for the years to come with 2 workshops per year until the end of 2024. All 80 participants from about 20 countries are very eager to learn from each other how to use available and new data as well as science and technology for integrated water management from the basin scale down to urban areas in a region which is highly challenged by global and climate change and a new freshwater distribution.

The REMODEL Project at the First German Reproducibility Day

Sustainable and high-quality research in Germany needs OpenScience. Dr. Robert Reinecke presented his project REMODEL at the first German Reproducibility Day on Tuesday 11/16/21. REMODEL is a joint project of the ICWRGC, University of Frankfurt and the University of Potsdam and deals with the topic of reproducibility in the geosciences.

The reproducibility day was followed online by 170 participants. Presentations and interactive discussions culminated in a panel discussion.

A central point of discussion was the currently limited funding apparatus available to support the development of exchange communities, infrastructures (especially with regard to the development of research software) and generally to improve the quality of research through OpenScience measures.

REMODEL - ReproduciblE MODELing in the GeosciencesProgramme of the German Reproducibility Day

CO-MICC Portal official launch

Date: December 10, 2021
Venue: Web-based seminar

During this web-based seminar, we will present the CO-MICC Knowledge and Data Portal on freshwater-related hazards of climate change. This pilot climate service was developed in the framework of the CO-MICC (CO-development of Methods to utilize uncertain multi-model-based Information on freshwater-related hazards of Climate Change) research project (2017-2021). It gives access to over 80 quantitative indicators of freshwater-related hazards of climate change, which can be visualized in the form of global maps or interactive graphs.

Attendees will be given a live demonstration of this newly developed tool, and then have the opportunity to follow a panel discussion on its added value of for decision making in response to future climate change risks.

Contact:

Luna Bharati – new contact person for the PhD programme SASSCAL at the ICWRGC

Dr. Luna Bharati has over 15 years of post-PhD. experience as a senior scientist and research program manager with extensive international expertise in North America, Europe, South Asia, South-East Asia and West Africa. The key areas of her interests and expertise are in integrated water resources assessment and management. She has also worked extensively in assessing climate change risks and impacts in large river basins to small mountain watersheds and farming systems. Prior to joining the International Center for Water Resources and Global Change (ICWRGC), she was a principal researcher of hydrology and water resources at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) under CGIAR. Before IWMI, she worked for the Center for Development Research (ZEF) in Bonn, Germany on the Global Change and Hydrological Cycle (GLOWA) project in the Volta Basin, Africa.

Dr. Bharati has a multidisciplinary background with a bachelor’s majoring in Environmental Sciences-Biology and a minor in Economics from Luther College, USA and a Master’s in water resources from Iowa State University, USA. She conducted her doctoral research at the Department of Computational Hydrosystems at the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research – UFZ in Germany focusing on catchment modeling of surface hydrology, erosion, and nonpoint source (NPS) pollution from agriculture.

She has authored over 100 publications including editing a book and 46 articles in peer reviewed scientific journals.

Dr. Bharati has been involved in capacity building programs all throughout her career e.g. organizing training programs and curriculum development for universities. She completed her Habilitation from the University of Bonn and is involved in teaching Masters and Doctoral courses at ZEF and the Agriculture Sciences and Resource Management in the Tropics and Sub-tropics (ARTS) program at the University of Bonn. She is currently supervising two doctoral students and one Masters student from the University of Bonn.

Dr. Bharati will be the focal point for ICWRGC for the PhD programme to Advance Water Science in Southern Africa under the SASSCAL programme.

Announcing Call for PhD Scholarships

ICWRGC, in partnership with the Southern Africa Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management (SASSCAL) and the Namibian University for Science and Technology (NUST), is excited to announce the call for 15 fully funded PhD scholarships. The SASSCAL Graduate Studies Programme in Integrated Water Resources Management (SGSP – IWRM) is a collaborative effort to address the capacity needs of the regional water sector for highly qualified professionals in Southern Africa. The SGSP-IWRM is fully funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

More information about the program’s focus, eligibility, and how to apply can be found here:

SGSP-IWRM Call for PhD Scholarships 2021 (PDF, 2 MB)
Diesen Beitrag drucken

SASSCAL

ICWRGC Collaborating on New PhD Programme to Advance Water Science in Southern Africa

ICWRGC is part of the team working to build the foundation of the new PhD programme in Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), along with the Southern Africa Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management (SASSCAL) and the Namibian University of Science and Technology (NUST). The overarching objective of the SASSCAL Graduate Studies Programme in Integrated Water Resources Management (SGSP-IWRM) is the development of innovative, excellent and collaborative education and research at PhD degree level, complemented by selected tailor-made training programmes for decision-makers and industry.

Fifteen scholarships have been provided to students from Angola, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Zambia to enroll in a three-year programme.

The key themes of the research program include:

  • Hydrology and Hydrogeology
  • Climate Change, Water Security, and the Environment
  • Water for Sustainable Agriculture and Health Systems
  • Governance, Economics, and Rights in the Water Sector

The thesis projects that the students will complete have been identified by the Academic and Scientific Advisory Committee (ASAC) because of their relevance in advancing the scientific agenda of the southern African region. Student research will be supervised by faculty at NUST, as well as by an international team of German and southern African experts. To prepare the students to carry out the research, the students will engage in common blocks of coursework to deepen their familiarity with IWRM concepts and advanced technical tools. The course of study will also include a research period in Germany hosted by a German institution.

Dr. Luna Bharati is a member of the ASAC, while ICWRGC Director Harald Köthe provides key implementation support and leadership.