Ecohydrology
Mission Statement
UNESCO’s Ecohydrology Programme is a scientific programme to understand and elucidate the dynamic relationships between hydrological, social and ecological systems; to consider how these act upon each other, and to seek new ways to balance human and environmental needs for water resources.
The aims of the programme are:
- to advance the integration of social, ecological and hydrological research; and
- to generate outcomes that enable the development of effective policies and practices.
Programme Activities
2008-2009 Biennium
Under the newly structured Programme, activities are organized under four themes and carried out by working groups.
The Education Working Groupis developing a curriculum of academic courses and practitioner trainings to enhance ecohydrology knowledge and implementation on the ground. Priorities for this are to develop a ‘flagship’ course in ecohydrology and strengthen the numerous efforts already underway in partner institutions. Three new outputs to be developed include:
- developing a transdisciplinary, foundation classroom course on ecohydrology,
- adapting the course into a 3 month e-course and
- presenting a simplified version of these materials as an online tutorial.
The Demonstration Working Group has begun an initiative that aims to recognize sites where sustainable, innovative and transdisciplinary water management practices based on ecohydrology principles are implemented.
At the same time, the Demonstration Projects launched in 2005 will continue their activities to demonstrate the application of the ecohydrology approach to solve issues surrounding water, environment and people. These sites will also be featured in scientific research and training activities under the programme.
The Science Working Group is investigating the key intersections between social sciences and the hydrological/ ecological cycles. They will synthesize their findings in a scientific publication. In future works, the Science Work Group plans to target policy and decision makers potentially through the synthesis of policy briefs.
The Water and Health Working Group is newly formed and will set its objectives at its first meeting.
2006-2007 Biennium
In this biennium, activities were implemented through five Task Forces (Costal Zones; Assessing Impacts of Global Change on Aquatic Systems; Social Sciences; Education and Capacity Building; Demonstration Projects) which completed projects related to research, education and implementation. The accomplishments of each task force are summarized below.
The Coastal Zones Task Force furthered the dissemination of ecohydrology principles to coastal zone research and management by publishing eleven scientific papers regarding ecohydrology applications in coastal zones. Education activities were mainly linked with the Guadiana demonstration site where demonstration experiments and an information centre was setup. Participation in Project ASIA-LINK resulted in the development of teaching modules for integrating social sciences into coastal zone courses.
The Assessing Impacts of Global Change on Aquatic Systems Task Force cooperated with several other agencies in achieving their activities including the International Water Management Institute, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and UNEP GEMS/Water. Activities included
- the development of a new database on estimates of environmental flow requirements in world river basins,
- a study documenting global trends in inorganic nitrogen concentrations to detect changes in concentrations resulting from efforts to limit loadings and slow rates of eutrophication and
- the development of a database on the presence and impact of freshwater invasive species at the global level.
The Social Sciences Task Force focused on methods to facilitate the integration of social sciences into the Ecohydrology Programme. They produced a detailed paper [
- 204KB] identifying two priority needs and proposed appropriate projects to address these needs. First is the need to produce knowledge that is usable by decision-makers and helps to understand the drivers of unsustainable practices and their impacts on different vulnerable human-social-cultural systems. Second is a need for an analytical framework that incorporates and informs of state-of-the-art water management options. Two additional papers discussing the integration of social sciences and ecohydrology were produced in the last biennium: "Integrating the social sciences into ecohydrology: facilitating an interdisciplinary approach to solve issues surrounding water, environment and people" [ - 144KB] and "Social ecohydrology: an integration of the social and natural sciences" [ - 68KB].
The Education & Capacity-Building Task Force focused on three activities – identifying partner organizations, synthesizing existing ecohydrology materials and a needs assessment. A survey of individuals and groups was conducted to determine existing activities, interest in programme participation, and perceived needs related to this task force. An analysis [ - 360KB] of the gathered information identified the needs and priorities related to this task force which will be addressed in the next biennium.
The Demonstration Projects Task Force’s main activities focused around the Ecohydrology Programme’s demonstration sites which are a group of sites being managed based on ecohydrology principles. The task force participated in the UNESCO Hydrology for the Environment, Life and Policy (HELP) conference titled "HELP in Action" in South Africa in November 2007 to provide information on applying ecohydrology principles in sustainable water management. For more information on each demonstration site, please see the Demonstration Projects page.