Progress of the CAWa project presented at Federal Foreign Office in Berlin

On April 12, representatives from GFZ and DLR participated in the “Berlin Process” coordination meeting at the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin. They presented the ongoing activities and the first results of the CAWa project.

The German Federal Foreign Office had invited representatives from GTZ, UNECE, EU, the German Water Cooperation, and Japan as well as from the CAWa project to discuss the progress of the “Berlin Process” which had been launched in April 2008 as the German contribution to the European Strategy for Central Asia.

GFZ and DLR specialists presented the ongoing activities and first results of the Cawa project. A special focus was put on the installation of hydrometeorological monitoring stations in Central Asia and the development of the Environmental Visualisation System ELVIS as main outcomes of the project.

The automated monitoring stations will be erected by GFZ and CAIAG in cooperation with the National Hydrometeorological Services of Central Asia. They will deliver important meteorological and hydrological observation data from high mountain areas which is needed to improve the regional water flow forecasts (for details see WP1).

The information system ELVIS developed by DLR will collect and display various data sets on Central Asia, such as geodata and remote sensing information, e.g. crop type distribution. It will also include reporting functionalities which may be specifically useful for policy makers and water managers (for details see WP5 and WP6).

Submitted by Katy Unger-Shayesteh on