October 2015

IGRAC and TU Delft organised a workshop on 'Water Harvesting and Managed Aquifer Recharge: international state of the art and needed research in Palestine' on 26 and 27 October 2015 in Delft, the Netherlands. This workshop was organised with support of Acacia Water, UNESCO-IHE and Waternet and IGRAC's main role was to share its experience and expertise with regards to MAR. The workshop was held withing the framework of the PADUCO programme.

IGRAC and UNESCO-IHP have organised a one-week training course on ‘Advanced Groundwater Monitoring and Analysis’ for groundwater professionals from Uzbekistan. This course took place at the UNESCO-IHE office based in Delft, the Netherlands, from 19 to 23 October 2015. In addition to the programme at UNESCO-IHE, field trips were organised to the Amsterdamse Waterleidingduinen and Royal Eijkelkamp.

In a joint effort with AGW-Net, BGR, UNDP-Cap-Net, IWMI, and the former GW-MATE team (World Bank), IGRAC developed a course on 'Integration of Groundwater Management into Transboundary Basin Organizations in Africa'. This training manual formed the basis of the 'Regional Course on Groundwater Management within IWRM in River Basin Context' held from 24 - 28 August 2015 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Below a short report on the course (source: Cap-Net website).

On Tuesday 13 October 2015, IGRAC was presented to delegates of the member states of UNESCO, during the 197th UNESCO Executive Board. During the session "Groundwater: Our Hidden Treasure", the main objective was to raise awareness for the importance of groundwater as freshwater resource and to discuss how IGRAC as UNESCO Category II Centre could further assist Member States in preserving this hidden treasure. 

On Tuesday 13 October 2015, IGRAC will be presented to delegates of the member states of UNESCO, during the 197th UNESCO Executive Board. During the session "Groundwater : Our Hidden Treasure", the main objective will be to show the importance of groundwater as freshwater source and discuss how IGRAC as UNESCO Category II Centre could assist Member States.
 

Some 25 social and physical scientists from 12 participating organisations in 11 different countries met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to kick-off the new, four-year project on ‘Groundwater Futures in Sub-Saharan Africa’ (GroFutures). The GroFutures team began the workshop with a field trip to the Upper Awash basin to assess changing patterns of groundwater management and use.

IGRAC presented in the international training workshop ‘Integrated Water Resource Analytical Techniques and Remote Sensing Applications in Support of Water Resource Assessments in Central Asian Countries’. This workshop which was held in Astana, Kazakhstan, from 14 to 18 September, was organised by UNESCO, JSC, ISTC and USGS. Delegations from Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan all participated in this workshop.