Hidrológiai Közlöny 2001 (81. évfolyam)

4. szám - Hajós Béla: Magyarok a nemzetközi szervezetekben és a határvízi együttműködések

Millenniumi konferencia, 2000. december 11-12 247 Report of the Conference became an important milestone also in WMO water oriented programmes. Congress appreciated the initiatives of the Commission for Hydrology in the reformulation of its role to become a "basic" Commission instead of being an "applications" Commission. The structure of the working bodies of CHy was also slightly reformulated Advisory Working Group remained the major advisory body for CHy composed particularly by 3 Working Group chairmen and 5-6 rapporteurs. The traditional composition of working groups was as follows: - WG on Data Acquisition and Processing System - WG on Hydrological Forecasting and Applications for Water Management - WG on Operational Hydrology, Climate and the Environment. In Advisory WG the following rapporteurs were members: resource strategies, liaison with Regional Associations, users requirements for HOMS, training requirements and publicity for HOMS, co-ordination publications. Independent rapporteurs were: on Water Quality Monitoring, Sediment transport, Groundwater Modelling, HOMS, Guide, Standardization, Hydrological Services, Training, Lakes and Reservoirs, Urban Areas, Water-use data Systems, Hydrological interactions at the land surface. Opportunities for investigating climate variability and change In a number of countries, records of river flows and some other hydrological variables extend back in time for 100 years or more. As water resources are very vulnerable to the variations in climate and to possible change, analyses of these records offer means for detecting such phenomena. As a consequence, one of the projects within WCP-Water focuses on this topic. Work on the project started in 1988; a set of statistical tests were developed and more than 200 records of 30 to 200 years in length have been contributed to this study from around the globe. The results of the analysis of these records showed that in some parts of the world patterns of river flow had changed, in contrast to others where there was no change. Overall it was discovered that there were much larger variations in the records than could have occurred by chance. These and several other conclusions, including plans for the next stage of the study, emerged from a workshop on this subject held in the Secretariat in November 1992. Assistance to Hydrological Services Over the last 20 years or so WMO has successfully executed a considerable number of UNDP technical co-operation projects designed to assist particular services or groups of services to meet their responsibilities in hydrology and water resources. In order to continue support in this area, WMO developed 20 national and six regional projects designed to assist Hydrological Services, many of which, particularly those in Africa, are facing difficulties. In one such project, which is being encouraged by the World Bank, WMO was planning the first component of a world hydrological cycle observing system (WHYCOS) to be set up in Africa. WHYCOS-Africa is being designed to support Hydrological Services in maintaining about 100 stations at key sites where hydrological, climatological and other environmental variables will be monitored Records of the 15 or so variables to be transmitted from each site by data-collection platforms (DCPs) through METEOSAT to national and other centres for use in water-resources assessments, for deciding investment priorities and for a range of other socio-economic activities. The working bodies were supervised by the Advisory Working Group and the program of the reporting was followed on the basis of a questionnaire submitted by the rapporteurs regularly within 3-6 months. The work of the rapporteurs was co-ordinated by periodical meetings held two-times within the 4 years intersessional periods. Publications Reports were reviewed by experts recruited in every period and were accordingly redrafted, if it was advisable. The publication of the reports was executed either in the Operational Hydrology Series (like the Manual on Water Quality Monitoring) or the Technical Reports to the Commission for Hydrology (like Silver Jubilee of the WMO Commission for Hydrology) or separated publications (like Water Resources Assessment, Handbook for Review of National Capabilities). The average annual number of the hydrological publications were about 8-10 books. The new editions of the Annual Report (about 50 pages) have been attractive and cover the complete WMO activities including a chapter on hydrology. The scientific-technical meetings of WMO can be very important for the collaborations. The joint meetings with UNESCO offered good opportunity to co-ordinate efforts in the field of water resources and hydrology. Besides the meetings of the working groups, technical sessions used to be organized, like telemetering in hydrology (in Toulouse, France), conferences on Climate and Water (in Finland), training workshops (e.g. in Venezuela). Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC) Collection of river flow data continued at the GRDS, at the Federal Institute of Hydrology in Koblenz, Germany. At the end of 1991, the centre's database contained records for 2 930 stations from 131 countries. The GRDC data is to be used for the development and verification of global models of atmospheric circulation and for other purposes For example, GRDC works with the GEMS WHO Collaborating Centre for Surface and Ground Water Quality in the estimation of the loads of materials transported by rivers to the seas and oceans. WMO was active also in different water oriented projects (financed by UNDP) like the Eastern-European HOMS (e.g. improvement of hydrological forecasts). During the regular sessions of CHy, technical conferences were organized (e.g. on the Hydrology of Disasters, which was also published in book form).