News – ICWRGC

The European Geosciences Union (EGU) is the largest congregation of geoscientists from all over the world in Europe. Several scientists of ICWRGC and BfG were actively involved in the EGU General Assembly meeting held between 23^rd and 28^th of April 2023 in Vienna, Austria.

ISMN

Four scientists from the International Soil Moisture Network (ISMN): Fay Boehmer, Matthias Zink, Wolfgang Korres and Tunde Olarinoye attended the EGU on site while others joined online. The ISMN team organised the first ISMN splinter meeting at any EGU event, aiming at promoting connectivity within the soil moisture community to improve data sharing, knowledge sharing and scientific collaborations. The splinter meeting was well attended by different stakeholders: soil moisture sensor manufacturers, data providers, data users and soil moisture enthusiasts. Besides the splinter meeting, Fay Boehmer presented the ISMN at a session on the role of subsurface runoff, soil moisture and surface-subsurface feedback in hydrology. In her presentation, she emphasized the role of soil moisture as an essential agriculture, meteorology and hydrology variable. She concluded by highlighting the ISMN efforts towards ensuring access to open and fair in-situ soil moisture data and encouraged a community-wide participation in the ISMN project.

Data centres and GTN-H

The international data centres: ISMN represented by Tunde Olarinoye, Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC) represented by Claudia Faerber, International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre (IGRAC) represented by Claudia Ruz Vargas and Arnaud Sterckx, Global Environment Monitoring System for Freshwater (GEMS/Water) represented by Dmytro Lisniak and Global Terrestrial Network – Hydrology (GTN-H) represented by Stephan Dietrich jointly convened a session titled “From observations to action: role of data services in hydrological research and management”. The session, co-sponsored by WMO, aimed at showcasing ideas, concepts, efforts and challenges in developing data products as well as demonstrating the benefit of setting up, maintaining networks, and sharing data to support the data acquisition ambitions of data centres. The new PICO session attracted 12 abstracts covering a wide range of hydro-meteorological data topics. Presenters gave a 2-minutes pitch talk which was followed by an extensive interactive discussion.

Stephan gave an introduction on Systematic water and climate observations through Global Water Data Centres and Networks in the GTN-H data centers session.

Tunde also co-convened the session “Large-sample hydrology: characterizing and understanding hydrological diversity and catchment organization”. It featured presentations on methods, data and advances in the understanding and modelling of hydrological diversity.

Science-practice Nexus and FRIEND-Water

In addition, Stephan co-convened the session “Elevating practice in the science-policy-practice nexus: highlights from operationalization of hydrological research and interdisciplinary collaborations” co-sponsored by WMO and UNESCO-IHP. The session highlighted contributions on interdisciplinary collaborations and existing hydrology initiatives, organizations, and networks that offer modalities and frameworks aimed at connecting typically isolated stakeholders of research and improving hydrological research-services interface on various scales and directions. Luna Bharati from ICWRGC participated in the session and presented a successful case study from her research where transdisciplinary methods were used to identify climate change risks and potential future land use scenarios. The research results including the hydrological models developed in the project were incorporated in the national irrigation master plan that was developed by the Department of Irrigation, Government of Nepal.

Stephan also co-convened the EURO-FRIEND splinter meeting on Large Scale Variations in Hydrological Characteristics. Luna and Claudia Faerber from GRDC attended this meeting in person.

Research and Networking

Luna and her PhD Student also participated in the session on extreme meteorological and hydrological events induced by severe weather and climate change. In their presentation titled Understanding the role of climate change in disaster mortality, they showed that extreme precipitation events caused by climate change has a significant impact in increasing mortality rates.

EGU presents an excellent opportunity for updating knowledge, networking, developing research ideas and establishing new collaborations.

Dr. Luna Bharati co-authored a paper that assesses the spatiotemporal trends of multiple types of climatic disasters with respect to the related mortality and vulnerability and their attribution to climatic and socioeconomic factors in a least developed country, Nepal. The impacts of climatic disasters, such as human mortality, have been rising globally, but the causes of the rise remain unclear. In this study, the authors found that the disaster frequency and mortality have increased, but the vulnerability has decreased. The findings imply that the strong increase in disaster frequency, potentially due to climate change, has overpowered the effect of reduced vulnerability and caused an increase in disaster mortality.

Chapagain, D., Bharati, L., & Borgemeister, C. (2022). Declining vulnerability but rising impacts: the trends of climatic disasters in Nepal. Regional Environmental Change, 22(2), 55.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-022-01903-5

The world is witnessing an increase in environmental conflicts (ECs) caused by the overexploitation and pollution of natural resources. In this paper, a multidisciplinary group of researchers (including dr. Luna Bharati) critically explored the role of academia in co-producing knowledge on the complexities of environmental conflicts. The publication highlights why inter- and transdisciplinary approaches to understanding multifaceted environmental conflicts are important and which day-to-day challenges academic researchers face when applying them.

Aviles, D., Mora Motta, A., Pereira, A., Bharati, L., Biber-Freundenberger, L., Ptersheim, C. Quispe-Zuniga, MR., Schmitt, CB., Youkhana, E. (2022) Integrating scientific and local knowledge to address environmental conflicts: the role of academia. Human Ecology 50(4). DOI: 10.1007/s10745-022-00344-2

Dr. Luna Bharati is co-author to a paper that discusses the factors that hinder and promote implementation of Sustainable Drainage Systems (SUDS) in Bogotá, considering the perspectives of the public sector, private sector, urban developers, and community members living in a flood-prone area. After identifying and categorizing 39 barriers, the authors found that technical barriers continue to have a significant impact on SUDS adoption. The evaluation of benefits yielded 34 results, demonstrating the broad scope of SUDS at a social, economic, and environmental level.

Ortega, A. D., Rodríguez, J. P., & Bharati, L. (2023). Building flood-resilient cities by promoting SUDS adoption: A multi-sector analysis of barriers and benefits in Bogotá, Colombia. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 88 (February), 103621.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.103621

ICWRGC researchers will be participating at the next European Geoscience Union (EGU) General Assembly between 23 and 28 April 2023 in Vienna, Austria. Our researchers will convene multiple sessions, organise splinter meetings, and give presentations on a wide-range of water and climate related topics. Check the programme below to follow our EGU 2023 activities.

Tuesday, 25 April 2023

16:15 – 18:00

Olarinoye, Faerber et al.: From observations to action: role of data services in hydrological research and management | PICO. [Pico spot 3b]
Dietrich et al.: Systematic water and climate observations through Global Water Data Centres and Networks. [PICO spot 3b]

17:00 – 18:10

Chapagain & Bharati: Understanding the role of climate change in disaster mortality: Empirical evidence from Nepal. [Room C]

Thursday, 27 April 2023

Friday, 28 April 2023

15:25 – 15:35

Boehmer et al.: The International Soil Moisture Network – a global interoperable data center for in situ soil moisture observations. [Room B]

16:15 – 18:00

Dogulu, Dietrich, et al.: Elevating practice in the science-policy-practice nexus: highlights from operationalization of hydrological research and interdisciplinary collaborations. [Pico spot 3b]

16:50 – 16:55

Bharati & Chapagain: Policy and practice relevant climate change impact assessments: Case study, Western Nepal. [PICO spot 3b]

Hydrology Day is the annual meeting of the German hydrologists community, under the auspices of the German Hydrological Society (DHG), the German Association for Water Management, Wastewater and Waste (DWA) and the Technical Community for Hydrological Sciences in the DWA (FgHW). This year‘s Hydrology Day, held from 21 to 23 March at Ruhr-Universität Bochum and Hochschule Bochum, focused on “Sustainable Water Management – Regional and Global Strategies”. Five sessions centred on the topics:

Monitoring and analysis of hydrological extremes
Water quality under global change
AI in hydrology
Future challenges in water governance
Urban hydrology

ICWRGC was present with a booth and two posters, well connected with the booth of the Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG), where ICWRGC is located. Dr. Tunde Olarinoye introduced the International Soil Moisture Network (ISMN), which was successfully transferred for permanent operation from TU Vienna to ICWRGC and BfG last year and went fully operational this year (https://ismn.earth/en/). On the second poster, Dr. Moritz Heinle showed results of the two previous data runs for UN SDG Indicator 6.3.2 and highlighted the third assessment, to be carried out this year and supported by the GEMS/Water Data Centre (http://portal.gemstat.org/) at ICWRGC and BfG. At the booth, attendees could learn more about the work and the services provided by ICWRGC and inspect the two global water databases, GEMStat, a global water quality database, and ISMN. In particular, this opportunity for a practical test of the databases was very well received. Together with BfG´s Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC) and the Global Precipitation and Climatology Centre (GPCC) at the German Weather Service (DWD), Germany has a leading role in operational hydrology at the UN level.

Jointly with Prof. Dr. Mariele Evers (UNESCO water chair Univ. Bonn), Harald Köthe (Director ICWRGC) presented an impulse lecture on the just started UNESCO IHP IX Programme and made the case for increasing the visibility of the multifarious international research activities of the German hydrological community in the UNESCO IHPIX programme. There, the activities and results would receive more visibility and recognition for the water-related goals of the UN Agenda 2030. ICWRGC will inform the German water chairs and call for contributions regarding the outcome of the UN2023 Water Conference held parallel to the Hydrology Day.

The world is not on track to achieve the ambitious targets of SDG 6 to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. Meeting drinking water, sanitation and hygiene targets by 2030 requires four times increase in the pace of progress. This year’s World Water Day¹ is about accelerating change to solve the water and sanitation crisis.

Today, on World Water Day, the United Nations launched the 2nd UN Water Conference², which will focus on the critical role of water in ensuring sustainable water management and addressing global water challenges. The Conference will take place at UN Headquarters in New York from 22 to 24 March and is co-hosted by Tajikistan and the Netherlands.

Water is a dealmaker for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and for the health and prosperity of people and the planet. Water is thus central to addressing the triple planetary crisis (climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution). Yet progress on water-related SDGs and targets remains alarmingly off track, putting the entire sustainable development agenda at risk.

The conference, which brings together water experts, policymakers and representatives from different sectors, aims to find inclusive, action-oriented and cross-sectoral voluntary commitments by governments and stakeholders to get back on track with regard to the SDG process and SDG6 and other water-related goals and targets, in particular with a new Water Action Agenda as a mandated outcome of the UN Water Conference in 2023.

In his invitation, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres emphasised the need for greater engagement by governments, industry and other stakeholders, calling it a crucial step towards achieving the water-related Sustainable Development Goals.

“The UN Water Conference in March 2023 must result in a bold water action agenda that gives our world’s lifeblood the commitment it deserves,” he said.

The ICWRGC will contribute to the conference as part of the German delegation and to support the activities of the UN agencies, in particular

Science-Based Global Water Assessment (UNESCO)³
Realizing Early Warning Systems for All (WMO)⁴
Acceleration for ambient water quality action – A UN Systems Approach (UNEP/WMO/UNESCO, #SDGAction49536)⁵

The core of our engagement is to highlight the importance of of in-situ water observation data for decision making and to promote evidence-based policies that address water-related issues. By operating global water data centres, the ICWRGC and the Federal Institute of Hydrology primarily aim to improve the global exchange of hydrological observations as a contribution to the SDG6 accelerator “Data and Information”.

Stephan Dietrich (Deputy Director ICWRGC) added that observations are key to decision making, but in particular the in situ water observation network is not often visible to high-level policy makers worldwide. “We cannot manage what we do not measure and understand. It would be important to connect the water agenda with the agendas on climate change and biodiversity loss, also to ensure sustainable funding of observational networks” he said. In addition, observational data have great value beyond national borders, for example to develop or improve early warning systems, so commitments to improved open exchange of observation data would be another key to achieving the SDGs.

The ICWRGC also addresses defragmentation of water observations in the complex UN system. UNEP and partners have come up with a game-changing idea to reorganise global water quality monitoring. “Bringing together the leading activities of UNEP (Global Environmental Monitoring System for Water Quality), UNESCO’s International Initiative for Water Quality, and WMO’s long-term ambition ‘Water Quality is Known’ would have great potential to accelerate the implementation of SDG6.3 on ambient water quality,” says Philipp Saile, head of the GEMS/Water Data Centre.

In this role, the ICWRGC also strongly supports the #OpenWaterData campaign for governments and organizations led by our partner centre IGRAC, which also has the support of WMO and UNESCO. Join the commitment that IGRAC will submit to the Water Action Agenda (by 31 March). Read the pledge here⁶ and join by filling out this form.⁷

The UN Water Conference 2023 comes at a critical time as the world faces increasing challenges of water scarcity and pollution. The conference aims to provide a platform for sharing knowledge and best practices, and accelerate change towards a more sustainable water future.

¹https://www.worldwaterday.org/

²https://sdgs.un.org/conferences/water2023

³https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/unesco-proposing-global-assessment-could-be-game-changer-reaching-worlds-water-goals

⁴https://public.wmo.int/en/earlywarningsforall

⁵https://sdgs.un.org/partnerships/acceleration-ambient-water-quality-action-un-systems-approach

⁶https://un-igrac.org/news/join-openwaterdata-commitment-and-campaign

⁷https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe7rfnbXUKULHLcZaCPmOdf2YGHRfShFqn_u5HOQi5TKS1vyQ/viewform

For a second time, Dr. Bastien Dieppois, Assistant Professor in Water and Climate Change at Coventry University, Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, and Coordinator of UNESCO EURO FRIEND-Water Project-3 on Large Scale Variations in Hydrological Characteristics, has announced a EURO-FRIEND workshop/training series to be held between March and December 2023.

Once a month, either a seminar or training course on the use of new datasets, methodologies, or new results in the field will be organized. These seminars/training workshops will be open to everyone and free of charge.

This initiative is intended to encourage more early-career scientists to join the EURO-FRIEND initiative and enhance collaboration between the FRIEND-water community across the world.

More information on the workshop series and registration is available here:

www.researchgate.net

The sessions will be available at the EURO-FRIEND YouTube channel:

YouTube

ICWRGC, together with Mittweida University of Applied Sciences, and the African Climate Competence Centres SASSCAL and WASCAL, is co-organizing a conference titled “Science for Sustainable Livelihoods”. It is going to be held at Mittweida University of Applied Sciences, Germany, from 12 to 16 June 2023. The conference constitutes an interdisciplinary forum on research-based approaches for climate resilience. ICWRGC’s Dr Luna Bharati is in the organizing committee and will coordinate input on behalf of the Centre.

Please submit your abstract before 31 March, 2023. Any further information on the conference, calls for abstracts etc., can be found on the University’s website.

HS Mittweida - Climate Forum 2023

After a successful and active year 2022, ICWRGC is preparing for 2023. This year promises to be very busy as well, as a number of important events are scheduled.

ICWRGC aims at finalizing its strategy 2030 in 2023, sharpening its profile and being well positioned to manage its resources in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 6 on improving water quality and sanitation and the UN Agenda 2030.

The UN 2023 Water Conference¹ in New York, scheduled for 22-24 March, will certainly be this year’s highlight in the water sector. It is the 2^nd UN assembly for water in the history of the UN and will bring politicians from the highest level and different stakeholders together. The main purpose of the conference is to assess the current status of the UN Decade for Action on Water and Sanitation (2018-2028), analyze the previous accomplishments and plan the future strategy to better accelerate implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 6 “clean water and sanitation for all”. As ICWRGC is advising the German government on foreign policy related to water topics, we are already in deep discussion with different ministries regarding Germany’s position on water related global initiatives and decisions. Two staff members of ICWRGC will also attend the conference as a part of the German delegation.

In connection with the conference, the GEMS/Water Data Centre (GWDC) at ICWRGC, together with its partners from the Global Programme Coordination Unit in Kenya and the GEMS/Water Capacity Development Centre in Ireland, have been coordinating the efforts associated with the UN Sustainable Development Goal 6, target 6.3, since 2014. After development of the 6.3.2 Indicator to assess the proportion of a country’s water bodies with good ambient water quality, two global data runs were carried out in 2017 and 2020². 2023 will now see the third implementation. The GWDC and its partners are already working heavily on the preparations, the official kick-off for the exercise being planned for April.

In December 2022, the technical transfer of the International Soil Moisture Network (ISMN) from the University of Vienna to ICWRGC/BfG was completed, the database launched and data served from Koblenz since 12.12.2022³. It is planned to organize an official kick-off event with high-level representatives later this year to highlight this milestone. Meanwhile, the ISMN team is working on strengthening the system, acquiring and integrating new data (at least four additional networks will be integrated).

To further promote international data activities, ICWRGC will co-organize a workshop for the Western- and Central Asian region in Oman mid-May. The event is part of the workshop series on “Essential Quality-Assured Data and Information for Integrated Urban Water Management” in cooperation with the Regional UNESCO Centre on Urban Water Management (RCUWM). In order to discuss the entire value chain from necessary observation to forecasting and warning systems, the Oman workshop will be linked to the new OUTLAST-project⁴, in which ICWRGC is a partner. The project aims to develop an operational, seasonal, multisectoral, global drought hazard forecasting system as a component of the Global Hydrological Status and Outlook System (HydroSOS) of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Also in May, the Federal Institute for Hydrology (BfG), together with ICWRGC, will be evaluated by the German Science and Humanities Council. This is a voluntary process to promote quality assurance and development of Public Research and Development Institutions in Germany. BfG was previously evaluated through the council in 2008⁵, ICWRGC through UNESCO in 2019⁶.

The beginning of June will see the 9^th International FRIEND-Water Conference in Dakar, Senegal⁷. FRIEND-Water is an international network of experts working in the UNESCO Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme, aiming at converting scientific findings into practical applications towards global water security. ICWRGC is the chair of the regional group EURO-FRIEND and also part of the scientific committee preparing the conference.

Later on, in September or October (date still to be finalized), a Panel Meeting of the Global Terrestrial Network for Hydrology (GTN-H)⁸ will take place. GTN-H is a joint programme of the World Meteorological Organization and the Global Climate Observing System. It constitutes a network of databases related to the global hydrological cycle. ICWRGC has been hosting GTN-H since 2017, while the two databases (GEMStat and ISMN) hosted at the Centre are part of the network.

Towards the end of the year, on November 9 and 10, the International Conference on Mountain Hydrology and Cryosphere⁹ will be held in Kathmandu, Nepal. The conference is organized by the Nepal committee for the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS), with ICWRGC being part of the scientific and the advisory committee.

In addition to these events with a fixed timeframe, there are a number of projects that will keep us busy throughout the year.

In collaboration with the Namibian University of Science and Technology, ICWRGC is managing the SASSCAL Graduate Studies Programme on Integrated Water Resources Management¹⁰. 13 Students from Southern Africa were awarded a scholarship last year, ICWRGC has been involved in developing the curriculum as well as the science plan for the programme. ICWRGC also identified German professors and academic institutions to co-supervise and host these PhD students during their stay in Germany. The mobility plan for their 3-month visit is currently being finalized and could be implemented in the second half of this year.

Other topics that ICWRGC is focusing on include water security in Africa (WASA¹¹), estimating spatiotemporal uncertainties in river substance loads (URSACHEN¹²), the pilot operation of a climate service with multi-model-based estimation of climate change effects on freshwater systems (CO-MICC¹³) and supporting activities of the World Water Quality Alliance¹⁴.

Supporting links

¹ https://sdgs.un.org/conferences/water2023

² https://communities.unep.org/display/sdg632/SDG+6.3.2+Home

³https://ismn.earth/

⁴ https://bmbf-grow.de/en/outlast

⁵ https://www.bafg.de/DE/07_Nachrichten/Archiv/2009/wr_evaluation_2008.html

⁶ https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000374479?posInSet=2&queryId=4bc6489a-034c-45af-8314-46f27e14391c

⁷ https://en.unesco-montpellier.org/9th-friend-water-global-conference-1

⁸ https://www.gtn-h.info/

⁹ https://www.iahs-nepal.org/icmhc-2023

¹⁰ https://www.sasscal.org/mission/

¹¹ https://www.fona.de/en/measures/funding-measures/water-security-in-africa-wasa.php