The International Water Security Network has taken part in international training on remote satellite sensors for water resource management in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The week-long event took place from 13-20 July in Foz de Iguazu, Brazil. A press release from the UNESCO Office in Santiago explains that the training:
“…is part of the project Water Resource management in arid and semiarid regions of Latin America and the Caribbean (MWAR-LAC), financed by the Government of Flanders (Belgium). Fifty individuals from Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Venezuela, Chile, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Cuba, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Panama, Peru and the United States will participate in the course.
“The training is framed in UNESCO’s International Hydrological Programme (IHP) and is conducted in conjunction with the International Hydroinformatics Centre (CIH), an organization under the auspices of UNESCO and that forms part of the Itaipu Technological Park Foundation (PTI). The course will be carried out in association with NASA-ARSET (Applied Remote Sensing Training), the International Centre for Integrated Water Resource Monitoring (ICIWaRM), the University of Princeton, the Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO) and the International Water Security Network (IWSN), among others.
“The strengthening of remote sensing applications for monitoring extreme events is part of the strategic plan of the eighth phase of UNESCO’s International Hydrological Programme and the G-WADI programme. The latter focuses on capacity building for improved management of risks associated with water-related disasters and global change. Likewise, it forms part of a series of trainings geared towards professionals in the regions whose ultimate goal is to strengthen skills related to water resource management, contributing to the the goals of the MWAR-LAC project. In this framework, the training continues on the path of prior trainings on adaptive water resource management under scenarios of climate change, carried out in the year 2012 in La Serena, Chile.”
IWSN contributed funds to cover travel and accommodation expenses for several attendees, including:
- Gastón Nicassio – a computer analyst specialising in GIS with an emphasis on agro-climatic products, working at the National Agricultural Information System under the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries of Uruguay.
- Natalia Romina Accastello – an agronomist who graduated in 2012 from the Faculty of Agronomy and Veterinary Medicine at the National University of Río Cuarto (UNRC) in Argentina. She is a teacher and researcher in the area of Agricultural and Meteorological Climatology at the same university.
- Rodrigo Sigifredo Morera Guillén – a geologist working in the hydrogeological field (location of wells, springs and wells protection areas and wells) in Costa Rica, assessing areas of landslides in order to protect these areas before heavy rains.
- Nevil Quinn – Associate Professor in Applied Hydrology at the University of the West of England. His PhD in environmental hydrology, from the University of Natal, involved developing ecological models for the management of freshwater inflow to estuaries.
- Michael Horswell – a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management at the University of the West of England, interested in the application of GIS to address real world problems.