ICIWaRM Holds Partners Meeting at U.S. National Academies’ Keck Center

ICIWaRM held its biennial partners meeting in Washington, DC on Friday, January 10, 2020 hosted by the U.S. National Academies’ Board on International Scientific Organizations (BISO). The 21 participants came from universities, US government, non-governmental and professional organizations, and UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme. ICIWaRM was encouraged to continue to move forward with our UNESCO-related activities, despite the withdrawal of the US from UNESCO at the end of 2018. During the next several years, the center was asked to consider developing new partnerships, while continuing to develop CRIDA and work with the IHP Secretariat on new products and services for the G-WADI program. ICIWaRM should also engage with NOAA-NWS on potential WMO-IHP activities.

Einstein thinking outside of the National Academy of Sciences Building, District of Columbia

Participating university partners included Oregon State University, which hosts a joint master’s degree program with category 2 center IHE-Delft; Florida International University’s UNESCO Chair on Sustainable Water Security; Princeton University, University of California, Irvine and University of Arizona who are strong partners of UNESCO’s drylands water program G-WADI, Colorado State University, who is a long-time partner in Integrated Water Resources Management, and University of Maryland, who is encouraging new partnerships with NOAA.

NOAA’s National Weather Service encouraged greater collaboration with the World Meteorological Organization, the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation continues to work with ICIWaRM on CRIDA training. the Water Science and Technology Board of the National Academies published a workshop report on Groundwater Recharge and Flow: Approaches and Challenges for Monitoring and Modeling Using Remotely Sensed Data.  The US Chamber of Commerce noted that new United States–Mexico–Canada [free trade] Agreement has specific line items to address international water issues. The US Water will be conducting a three-year exchange program to pair water utility partners in Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia with three water utilities in the United States.