The welcome talk was given by the rector of TIIAME Prof. Bahidir Mirzaev and Dr Abror Gafurov, the project coordinator of the CAWa Green project.

The first talk titled“Water Monitoring – going from ground to sky” was given by  Dr Tilo Schöne.  He is a Team Leader of Geodetic Hazard Monitoring at the German Research Center for Geosciences in Potsdam with a vast research experience in monitoring with radar altimetry and tide gauges, as well as the development, and installation and operation of large-scale monitoring networks in CA, which he presented in his talk.

Dr Igor Klein, the senior scientist at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), gave a second talk on "Remote sensing applications for large scale monitoring of surface water at high temporal resolution and land surface dynamics in Central Asia". He showed us different applications of remote sensing in the projects he is  coordinating such as the Locust-Tec project (Introduction of Innovative and Environmentally Friendly Technologies for Locust Management in Kazakhstan) and remote sensing activities within the Eco-Aral project (Ecological and economic development initiative of the Aral Sea region) (with a focus on Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan).

The take-home message from this edition of TWSL is that climate change is affecting water resources in Central Asia (CA). Observational monitoring of water resources in CA is limited and alternative approaches such as the remote sensing-based approach is gaining importance in modelling, not just to detect the change in a lake and river discharge levels but also a locust bread area, as Dr Igor Klein showed us in his talk. Both talks were followed by a lively discussion, and around 70 participants were attending the lectures. TWSL 5 will be announced in a timely manner on cawa-project.net events page.

Both talks are available in pdf format here.

Speakers and Talks