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Home > Forests-Water-People in the Humid Tropics: Past, Present and Future Hydrological Research - Updated: 22-05-2003 5:35 am
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This meeting was jointly organized by the UNESCO International Hydrological Programme (IHP) (as a contribution to the IHP-V Humid Tropics Programme and HELP) and the International Union of Foresters Research Organization (IUFRO).
Planning commenced in early 1997 with the following objectives: - To identify the chief questions that policy makers, resource managers and local communities have in relation to land and water management practices.
- To synthesize research results on tropical forest hydrology and the hydrological impacts of forest disturbance and conversion for the scientific, policy-making, and resource managing communities, using appropriate formats respectively.
- To demonstrate what can be achieved with the presently available knowledge in terms of guidelines for optimum land management and to explore ways of enhancing the implementation of such guidelines at the national, regional and local level.
- To highlight innovative methodologies to support land and water resources decision making, particularly at the large river basin scale; and to distinguish the impacts of climatic variability from those of land-use change on the hydrology.
- To identify gaps in knowledge and additional research needs, with emphasis on the understanding of processes to improve future land-use planning and management practices, and to contribute towards the development of a new global field-oriented UNESCO programme on experimental hydrology linked with policy and development (HELP: Hydrology for the Environment, Life and Policy).
Symposium/Workshop Outputs:- The production of a technical monograph based on the Symposium/Workshop by Cambridge University Press within the CUP-UNESCO International Hydrology Series. (The process of manuscript editing has commenced with a target date for publication in 2002.)
- The production of non-technical materials (brochures, posters, audio-visuals) for policy makers and resource managers, summarizing our current understanding of tropical forest hydrology and environmental effects of forest disturbance and conversion.
- The establishment of an advisory group to help implement the recommendations of the Symposium/Workshop within the framework of the new UNESCO programme on experimental hydrology linked with policy and development (HELP).
- To provide recommendations for consideration by selected IUFRO Divisions and Task Forces within the XXIth IUFRO World Congress, Forests and Society: the Role of Research, 7-12 August 2000, Kuala Lumpur.
- The programme was devised to interface science with policy and management so that in the opening session, an overview of the causes of land use change linked with policy and the perspectives of a resource manager and local communities were delivered.
Ensuing sessions enabled scientists to provide technical detail on hydrological processes in 'undisturbed' forest and then linked with various land use change impacts. New methodologies to evaluate the effects of land use change at various scales were then put forward based on experience both outside as well as within the humid tropics. The final two days of the meeting were devoted policy needs both in plenary and followed by a workshop. The CGIAR Centre for International Forestry Research -CIFOR was a co-organizer and co-sponsor of the workshop. The meeting was formally closed by Mr. Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, during his visit to Malaysia at the invitation of the Government of Malaysia.
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