Mr Robert Pietrowsky spoke about “The importance of Ecohydrology and the quantification of ecosystem services within an IWRM evaluation framework”. He presented the IciWarm activities to advance science and to use contemporary tools and models for consideration of ecosystem services in decision-making.
4 4.4 Asia-Pacific Centre for Ecohydrology (APCE)
Mr Ignasius Sutapa presented on “Managing water through Ecohydrology approach: integration of local wisdom, culture and modern sciences”. He introduced the APCE, a category II centre of UNESCO. It focuses on ecological approaches to water resources management, to provide sustainable water for the people by harnessing science and technology, education and culture.
4.5 UNESCO Institute for Water Education (UNESCO-IHE)
Mr Michael McClain presented on “Seeking synergies between UNESCO IHP VIII Ecohydrology and the research and innovation Agenda of UNESCO-IHE”. He introduced the ecohydrology activities at UNESCO-IHE around the world, and suggested possible cooperation works between UNESCO-IHP, UNESCO-IHE and international educational institutions for ecohydrology.
5 COOPERATION WITH RELATED INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMMES The representatives of the international programmes involved in ecohydrology activities presented their programmes and projects highlighting the specificity of their actions and the need to coordinate with each other to avoid any duplication. The scope of the session was to seek partnerships and synergies for the implementation of projects on common interest with other organizations/partners (Ramsar, IAH, EU, IGRAC, IPBES). Moreover, efforts were made to address common issues (example natural/constructed wetlands regulation processes, etc) using ecohydrology as a transdisciplinary, scientific approach to achieve water quality improvement and biodiversity enhancement, through low cost systems that can, for example, be applied to small scale projects in developing countries for water quality improvement and crop production.
5.1 RAMSAR
Mr Tobias Salathé presented on “Disseminating ecohydrological understanding to decision-makers through the Ramsar Convention”. He introduced the Ramsar Convention, and the Ramsar tools for improving measurement and assessment for better management and integrating the value of water and wetlands into decision-making.
5.2 Joint Research Centre-European Commission (JRC)
Mr Giovanni Bidoglio spoke about “Ecohydrology for policy making”. He regarded ecohydrology as background science for the achievement of EU water policy objectives, and presented the European Commission’s blueprint “The water milestone in the 2020 Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe”. He emphasized that policy making needs to build on integrative science.
5.3 International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH)
Ms Africa de la Hera presented the “IAH Network on Groundwater Ecosystems”. She introduced the concept of Groundwater-dependent ecosystems (GDEs), which are defined as ecosystems that require access to groundwater to meet all or some of their water requirements so as to maintain the communities of plants and animals and ecological processes they support, and the ecosystem services they provide. She also spoke about the IAH network on groundwater and ecosystems.
5.4 United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and Global Environment Facility (GEF)
Mr Matthew Lagod presented on “Hydrogeological management of Mediterranean coastal wetlands-contribution from the MedPartnership project”. He introduced the MedPartnership, which is a collective effort of leading organizations (regional, international, non-governmental, etc.) and countries sharing the Mediterranean Sea towards the protection of the marine and coastal
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environment of the Mediterranean. The MedPartnership is being led by UNEP/MAP and the World Bank, implemented by UNESCO and financially supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF).
5.5 International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre (IGRAC)
Ms Nienke Ansems presented on “Ecosystem-based adaptation in groundwater management”. She introduced Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA), which is an adaptation strategy for increasing ecosystems resilience, securing the ecosystem service and improving sustainable groundwater management.
5.6 UNESCO-Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB)
Mr Philippe Pypaert presented the “IHP-MAB interactions in Ecohydrology”. He suggested new opportunities for interaction between IHP and MAB, including managing water resources in the biosphere reserves.
5.7 The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (UNESCO-IPBES)
Mr Salvatore Aricò spoke about “Side intervention on the intergovernmental science-policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services”. He introduced the function and objective of IPBES, which is providing policy relevant scientific knowledge to inform decision-making processes.
6 VIEW, PERSPECTIVES, CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR ECOHYDROLOGY IHP-VIII
This session was devoted to all international experts who gave a presentation on their activities and, in particular, their vision on the future of Ecohydrology. This session was facilitated to highlight an interdisciplinary and integrated approach to watershed and aquifer management, which incorporates the social dimension of water resources and promotes and develops international research in hydrological and fresh water sciences. To deal with all the complexity and the rapid environmental changes (population, climate change, land use change, globalization, etc.), in the context of the IHP-VIII, an overall approach integrating population, ecosystems, water, culture and economy was envisioned.
Mr Yohannes Zerihun Negussi (Ethiopia) presented “Harmonization of ecohydrological biotechnologies with existing water management efforts in Ethiopia”. He spoke about the results obtained from a joint Ethiopia-Poland ecohydrology project, of which ecohydrology has been considered as a tool for the design, establishment and monitoring of buffer zone of water bodies.
Mr Felix Toteu (UNESCO Office, Nairobi, Kenya) presented the “Impacts of mining activities in sub-Saharan African countries: focus on water use”. He introduced the Sida-UNESCO project on identifying the impact of mining activities on water pollution, and to promoting responsible mining industry.
Mr Marcelo Gaviño Novillo (Argentina) presented on “Challenges and opportunities for Ecohydrology VIII LAC regional programme (PRELAC)”. He introduced a regional programme of Ecohydrology for Latin America and The Caribbean, and presented the Lacar Lake demonstration project.
Mr Gilberto Fonseca Barroso (Brazil) spoke about “Hydrological flows and aquatic ecosystem health: case studies form south eastern coast of Brazil”. He presented recent water challenges in
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Brazil, and introduced two ecohydrological case studies in the Lower Doce River Valley and the Santa Maria da Vitória River Basin.
Mr Xia Jun (China) presented on “Key challenges for water security and conflicts between human and environmental water needs in China”. He introduced water problems that China is facing and emphasized the issue of how to guarantee water security related to ecological civilization construction.
Mr Demin Zhou (China) presented the “Wetland ecohydrology: a case study in the northeast China floodplain”. He introduced a case study of Sangjian Plain in China, where all the natural landscapes have been largely shrunk in the past 30 years.
Mr Yasuhiro Takemon (Japan) presented the “Japanese challenges and perspectives in Ecohydrology as a sustainability science and basis for moral philosophy”. He introduced academic, educational and practical challenges for ecohydrology in Japan, and suggested integrated basin management as a solution. He also emphasized the importance of moral philosophy, which is required for sustainable social systems to overcome conflicts among social needs.
Ms Lucilla Minelli (UNESCO-IHP) presented the “Knowledge management strategies and awareness raising tools for effective communication on water-related initiatives”. She emphasized that a good communication strategy greatly helps in achieving the programme objectives, and introduced an exemplary project IW:LEARN dedicated to knowledge and information management within the GEF International Waters portfolio.
Mr William Mitsch (USA) presented the “Ecohydrology and ecological engineering in practice:
comparing some of the world's major wetland restorations”. He introduced the concept of ecological restoration, and compared the results of six case restoration studies.
Mr Pascal Breil (France) presented on “Integrating ecohydrology within urban development strategy”. He discussed how to implement ecohydrology within urban areas in combination of emerging water technologies.
Mr Stefano Fazi (Italy) presented on “Ecohydrology of intermittent Mediterranean streams: When microbes come in”. He introduced molecular methods for microbial assessment in water. He explained that the complex hydrological dynamics strongly influence biotic communities as well as nutrient and organic matter processing in intermittent rivers.
Ms Veronica Strang (UK) presented on “Navigating interdisciplinarity in river catchment research”.
She discussed about a way to integrate social science aspects into ecohydrology.
Mr Philippe Van Cappellen (Canada) introduced “Our changing rivers”. He discussed the human pressures on river systems, which resulted in modifying absolute and relative nutrient fluxes, with far-reaching impacts, from individual ecosystems to the global biosphere.
7 DISCUSSIONS, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Mr Maciej Zalewski facilitated the discussion session concerning how and what type of priorities and actions should be developed in the Ecohydrology Programme. He suggested producing a publication out of this workshop. He emphasized the added value of “dual regulation” of hydrology and biology. He also mentioned a need of paying attention to small impacts occurring more frequently that can lead to bigger impacts at all scales.
He asked to participants to present their impressions from the workshop.
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Mr Xia Jun suggested forming several working groups which focus on different Ecohydrology dimensions. He stated that an international workshop on Ecohydrology should be organized with sufficient time. He noted that the time assigned for each presenter in this workshop was too short to discuss the topic thoroughly.
Mr Demin Zhou emphasized the establishment of methodologies in regional and national scales for more practical solutions, and pointed out that UNESCO has exemplary case studies internationally.
He also suggested that the publication should be organized on special issue annually or bi-annually.
Mr Takemon Yasuhiro mentioned that historical geo-morphological data are a good source of information that can be integrated in Ecohydrology studies. He asserted that ecohydrological solutions should be made in consideration of both scientific and moral aspects.
Mr William Mitsch suggested to select and to work altogether on selected sites as exemplary case studies. He mentioned that results from the study can be discussed during the next workshop to develop practical methodologies.
Mr Pascal Breil emphasized the importance of understanding human science, and the integration of temporal dimension into regional dimension when we communicate with people.
Mr Stefano Fazi emphasized the importance of studying water mass, organic matter and microbial dynamics in the interface between freshwater and brackish water in order to assess how anthropogenic impacts could affect environmental processes in respect to carbon cycle. He agreed with the idea of working together on specific demonstration sites as case studies.
Ms Veronica Strang emphasised the need for researchers in the Ecohydrology programme to work directly with social scientists and to undertake a genuinely interdisciplinary exchange of knowledges. She suggested that the inclusion of their expertise on the social and cultural dimensions of human relationships with water would greatly enhance the efficacy of the programme.
Mr Philippe Van Cappellen mentioned that Ecohydrology studies have been done in different scales from microbial to global and also dealt with socio-ecological systems. He called attention to ecological indicators that are used to assess ecosystem activities, as well as critical ecohydrological interfaces such as groundwater/surface water, land/ocean, and urban/peri-urban zones. He emphasized the role of Ecohydrology programme as a leading group which should identify the most recent technologies that can be applied to ecohydrology from various fields, and which should also generate recommendations and suggestions.
Mr Salvatore D’Angelo stated that human beings are the most challenging part of biota in integrating process of ecohydrology regulation, since they represent an element that can make a choice in consideration of governance between institution and process. He emphasized the integration of human science into Ecohydrology.
Mr Yohannes Zerihun Negussi explained the situation of water management in Ethiopia. It was not possible to improve the water quality and to manage the water quantity due to the lack of scientific knowledge in the past. With the financial support by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Poland, the Ministry of Water Management, Ethiopia, formulated the 5-year-Ecohydrology project and the ecohydrology methods were applied to manage water resources. He also remarked the endorsement for the establishment of African regional centre of Ecohydrology in Addis Ababa.
Mr Gilberto Fonseca Barroso emphasized the identification of socio-economic impact on ecosystem and environmental changes. He suggested making a DVD introducing the Ecohydrology and showing why we need it and how we can achieve it, including exemplary case studies.
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Mr Macelo Gaviño Novillo made three remarks during the workshop discussions, specifically on research, education and implementation. He noted that the dual regulation method needs to be implemented into practice by regional hydrologists, as well as demonstrated at the demonstration sites. He endorsed the idea of working on exemplary case studies, and suggested sharing the results for decision makers through the use of publications for their reference.
Mr Felix Toteu appreciated the work performed at the demonstration sites, where research methods can be applied to investigate how mining activities pollute the environment in Africa. He noted the lack of Ecohydrology research on the impact of mineral mining on water resources. He expected new partnerships to study this topic.
Mr Jose Gaona Currea agreed with the idea of transferring knowledge to decision makers through publications. He also stated that a low budget strategy is necessary for countries which do not have ample financial resources.
Ms Louise Groenvold stated that biosphere reserves of UNESCO MAB programme can be good sites for implementing ecohydrology practices. She also emphasized an interdisciplinary approach for ecohydrology problem-solving.
Ms Yeowon Kim emphasized the importance of case studies to implement ecohydrology practices and to look at the social science aspects.
Ms Africa De La Hera pointed out the role of ecohydrology in groundwater systems. She requested participants to clarify the users of the proposed publication.
Mr Giovanni Bidoglio stated that we need to look at the future concept of ecohydrology, since there is already a flood of scientific journals. He noted that it had been focused more on ecosystem aspect than hydrological aspect in the workshop. Since policy makers want to see benefits when they make decisions, the practices should be applied and benefits demonstrated at the level of the watershed or at larger scales (regional, national and global).
Mr Tobias Salathé remarked that implementing scientific researches into practices were well developed at local and national scales. He stated the need of more global and wider level approaches at UNESCO. He mentioned some example cases of the Ramsar.
Mr Ignasius Sutapa agreed that the human aspect on ecohydrology is important. He announced a conference that will be held in November 2014 by the Asia Pacific Regional Centre of Ecohydrology and called for participation.
Mr Giuseppe Arduino informed the participant about UNESCO’s Hydrology Environment Life and Policy (HELP) programme which considers approaches and projects at the watershed scale.
Ecohydrology should and must be part of watershed scale projects as an important component of integrated water resource management, which implies all aspects including the social and stakeholders approach. He stated that the IHP should comply with the Member States’ interests. He thanked all of the participants for their contributions.
Mr Maciej Zalewski announced Mr Michael McClain as one of the editors for the publication. He noted that the publication will cover general information but will also be distinct from current scientific papers.
Mr Michael McClain suggested making the publication about “Ecohydrology for Sustainable Development” to present the UNESCO’s vision in Ecohydrology for the Sustainable Development Goals. He stated that we need to identify particular themes in order to develop focus in the publication, and also drew attention to the need for dissemination processes such as workshops and symposiums. He presented the drafted themes of the publication.
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Mr Maciej Zalewski announced that the publication work needs to be finalized in one year.
The strategy chart for the Ecohydrology programme and the discussed focal areas of the publication are included as Annex 3.
8 ECOHYDROLOGY STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING
The Ecohydrology Steering Committee was held in the afternoon of Wednesday 21 May 2014 in UNESCO Paris.
The draft agenda and list of participants are included as Annex 4.
Mr Maciej Zalewski opened the session with a question about how we can adopt the new paradigm of integrating science with social science. He emphasized the important role of scientists who understand the basic theory and the processes of ecohydrology. He drew attention to the role of the Steering Committee and presented two aspects of its activities, namely its work to raise awareness about ecohydrology through the dissemination of publications or videos, and also through communicating results from the application of ecohydrology principles at demonstration sites. He proposed to organize several sessions on ecohydrology in various symposiums, for example the 7th World Water Forum in 2015.
Mr Robert Pietrowsky stated that many problems and large projects are related to the political decisions and affected by external influences.
Mr Michael McClain suggested discussing the role and purpose of the Steering Committee.
Mr Giuseppe Arduino mentioned demonstration sites, international meetings, training courses, workshops and funding resources, which should be discussed in the meeting.
Mr Michael McClain clarified and defined the terms of references of the Steering Committee as summarized as follows:
- Advice on long term strategy - Advice on biennial plans
- Identify fund raising opportunities
- Participate in and represent the programme.
Mr Giuseppe Arduino proposed to discuss the composition of the Steering Committee.
Mr Robert Pietrowsky suggested inviting the Ecohydrology-interested Member States to the steering committee meeting.
The committee members shared the information about upcoming meetings, which can increase the visibility of the Ecohydrology and the Steering Committee, as follows:
- World Lake Conference, Perugia, September 2014 - World Water Week, Stockholm, September 2014 - Steering Committee meeting, Faro, September 2014
- International Conference on Ecohydrology (ICE), Jogjakarta, November 2014 - The 7th World Water Forum, Daegu, April 2015
- Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), Karlsruhe, November 2015 - The Conference of the Contracting Parties (COP), Ramsar, Punta del Este, 2015 - EcoSummit Montpellier, Aug – Sep 2016
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Mr Philippe Pypaert stated that we need to encourage the Member States to consider ecohydrology in their countries, since not many IHP council members are focusing on Ecohydrology.
Mr Xia Jun noted the need to increase capacity by organizing or cooperating with international conferences.
Mr Michael McClain proposed the following framework for the Steering Committee:
- Research/Action agenda – Ecohydrology for Sustainable Development - Thematic working groups
- Deepen understanding/Synthesis
- Adaptation to developing world application - Scientific publications
- Demonstration/Implementation sites - Training courses and capacity building
- Dissemination to decision makers, water authorities, basin organizations, etc.
The Committee Members agreed upon the focal areas of Ecohydrology, which the Steering Committee will work on:
- Ecohydrological technology/dual Regulation/green infrastructure - Ecohydrological metrics (e.g. ecosystem services/indicators) - Local to basin to global scale ecohydrological dynamics - Environmental flow regime science and management - Governance, morality and traditional knowledge - Hazards function and adaptation
Regarding the demonstration sites, the Committee Members agreed to contact again the existing demonstration sites and reorganize the demonstration site network. For nominating new demonstration sites, it was proposed to solicit nominations from the IHP National Committees.
Mr Ignasius Sutapa promised to provide the website of APCE as an example of dissemination tool.
The session was closed by Mr Maciej Zalewski with gratitude for all members’ participation.
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ANNEX 1 AGENDA, ECOHYDROLOGY WORKSHOP
Agenda
Ecohydrology Workshop and Steering Committee
UNESCO Headquarters20- 21 May 2014 Bonvin, Room XV
First Day - 20/5/2014
9.00-9.05
Welcome by UNESCO-
Blanca Jiménez-Cisneros9.00-9.05