Sunday 29 Jan 2012
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WISDOM - Latest News.

Integrated Watershed Management plays a crucial role for the sustainable use, the preservation and the analyses of water resoures. It is the goal of the WISDOM project to jointly (Vietnamese and German partners) design and implement an Information System for the Mekong Delta, containing information from the fields of hydrology, sociology, information technology and earth observation. The integration of such data will enable the end-user of the system to perform analyses on very specific questions; and thus will supply the end-user with a tool supporting regional planning activities.

Workshop on the WISDOM Information System in Can Tho

SIWRR coordinated in close cooperation with the German WISDOM Partners a workshop on the WISDOM Information System in Can Tho on the 10th of January 2012. About 35 directors of the DONREs, DARDs and DOSTs of the 13 Mekong Delta Provinces were invited and participated. Purpose of this workshop was to review current functionalities, data content and performance of the WISDOM Information System and to discuss required priorities for the further technical development in order in increase the attractiveness of the Information System for daily routine usage in the provinces.

DLR finalized a remote sensing product validation field campaign in the central Mekong Delta

Between November 13th and November 23rd the DLR undertook a ground truthing campaign in the central Mekong Delta, covering the provinces of Can Tho, Kien Giang, An Giang, Dong Thap, Vinh Long, Soc Trang and Hau Giang. While the northern and central parts are under extensive mixed fruit tree farming (longan, banana, mango, pomelo, mandarin, custard apple) and vegetable plantations (salads, spring onion, pumpkin, cabbage, beans, etc.), the southern part and the western part are characterized by partially inundated plains for rice farmin and rice-duck cropping systems.

ZEF, CIDS and SISD embark on joint research initiative on livelihoods, small-scale enterprises and water resources management in the Mekong Delta

With a joint workshop held in Can Tho City from October 26th to 28th 2012, the Center for Development Research (ZEF), the Institute for Socio-economic Development Studies of Can Tho City (CIDS) and the Southern Institute for Sustainable Development (SISD) started a new collaborative research initiative that aims at exploring the interrelationship between small-scale enterprise (SSE) development, changing livelihoods and natural resources, in particular water in the project region.

United Nations University and Can Tho University organized and hosted the WISDOM Expert Meeting on Vulnerability and Adaptation Scenarios for Can Tho and Tra Vinh

On 07 October 2011 the United Nations University, Institute for Environment and Human Security in collaboration with Can Tho University organized and hosted the WISDOM Expert Meeting on Vulnerability and Adaptation Scenarios for Can Tho and Tra Vinh. The meeting had three main objectives:

Wisdom scientists discussed Ecosystem Services Concepts with experts at the “Ecosystem Services: Integrating Science and Practice” conference

From 4-7 October 2011, Mr. Vo Quoc Tuan, a researcher from WISDOM project participated in the Ecosystem Services: integrating Science and Practice conference hosted by Wageningen University in Wageningen, the Netherlands. The main aim of the conference was to provide a forum for researchers, practitioners and policy-makers to exchange information and ideas about new developments and pressing issues on the Science and Practice of Ecosystem Services (ES). At the conference, Mr. Tuan has discussed the topic of valuation of mangrove ecosystem services with Dr.

Two WISDOM PhDs from GFZ completed

At Friday, September 16th, both Nguyen Viet Dung and Nguyen Nghia Hung successfully defended their dissertations at the University of Stuttgart within the International Doctoral Program Environment Water (ENWAT). Their work was performed in and supervised by the section 5.4 Hydrology of the GFZ, the German Research Centre for Geoscience. The dissertation of Nguyen Viet Dung deals with the development and testing of a framework for automatic calibration of hydrodynamic models taking a large scale model of the whole Mekong Delta as an example.

1st Mekong Delta Capacity Building Tour on the WISDOM Information System successfully completed

During the week from the 19th of September till the 23rd of September a Mekong Delta Capacity Building Tour took place to present the current state of the WISDOM Information System.  A joint German-Vietnamese team from three different partners organized and conducted the workshops in five different provinces in the Mekong Delta.

Training of Trainer at VNU in Ho Chi Minh City

In preparation of the Mekong Delta Capacity Building Tour and as an update on the current development of the WISDOM IS, DLR conducted together with lat/lon the second workshop in series on the administration of the WISDOM Information System from the 13th till the 14th of September 2011 in Ho Chi Minh City / Vietnam in cooperation with the Vietnam National University and the Southern Institute for Water Resources Research. The concept of virtualisation, applying Debian 6 in an virtual environment, server installation and other technical aspects were subject of the workshop.

Joint metadata expert meeting between WISDOM and MRC/IKMP in Phnom Penh - 7.-8. September

In Semptember 2011 Verena Klinger (DLR) and Martin Seiler (lat/lon GmbH) represented the WISDOM project in a metadata expert meeting which was held jointly with the MRC/IKMP in Phnom Penh.  The meeting was planned as a follow-up activity of the 'Workshop on Mekong Delta Coordination and Geo Data Standardization in the Water Sector' which was held in April 2011 on Phu Quoc. Discussions during that workshop showed a high potential for cooperation in the field of metadata exchange and the need for further strategic and technical discussions.

All ZEF PhDs within WISDOM completed!

On the 17th of June, Nadine Reis graduated summa cum laude at the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Bonn. Nadine was the first out of 14 PhD students of the WISDOM project, who submitted her thesis as early as December 2010. Nadine Reis’ dissertation deals with rural water supply in the Mekong Delta and, most importantly, contributes to the understanding of policy-making processes in Vietnam. The full thesis will soon be published in the ZEF Development Studies Series, Lit Verlag, Germany.

Singapore International Water Week 2011
   

About 1,200 experts participated at the Singapore International Water Week from the 4th till the 8th of July 2011, which was themed "Sustainable Water Solutions for a Changing Urban Environment". About 350 oral and poster presentations were given on the impact on water by global population growth, increasing urbanisation and rising emerging economies. The focus at Singapore International Water Week 2011 went beyond urban water solutions and included climate change and management of watersheds and river basins.

The next generation of ZEF junior researchers started field work

In Mid-May 2011, Huynh Thi Phuong Linh, Panagiota Kotsila and Siwei Tan arrived in Can Tho for their 10-month-long field research. All scientists are junior researchers at the Center for Development Studies (ZEF), Bonn and members of the ZEF/WISDOM team. They are hosted by the Can Tho University, where they have an office; senior scientists Dr Le Viet Dung, Dr Bui Thi Nga and Dr Nguyen Duy Can have also graciously agreed to act as local fieldwork supervisors.

WISDOM Project Annual Meeting of German Partners at DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen

The annual meeting of all German WISDOM Project Partners was held at the premises of the DLR in Oberpaffenhofen on the 14th and 15th of June 2011. After a short introduction of the “newcomers” Claudia Künzer reported about project related developments of the last 12 month, such as the successful project start in November 2011, conducted workshops and numerous undertaken field campaigns. This was followed by a brief description of strategic alignments of the project as well as new inter-project cooperation’s.

Graduation of WISDOM PhD Students from ZEF

On May 16th, Tatjana Bauer successfully defended her PhD thesis at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Bonn. Tatjana Bauer is the second out of 14 PhD students, who received her degree within the first phase of the WISDOM project. The defense took place at the Center for Development Research (ZEF), where Tatjana was enrolled as junior researcher for more than three years.

 

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