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Kick-off meeting of the DROUGHT R&SPI project
From 5-7 October 2011, the kick-off meeting of the DROUGHT R&SPI project will be held in The Netherlands. The consortium for this EU FP7 project, answering to the call: ENV.2011.1.3.2-2: Vulnerability and increased drought risk in Europe, will begin its work during this meeting, held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Contact person / More info / October 5, 2011 |
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SIMGRO-SWAT model: Water quality analysis in Southern Africa
For effective integrated water resources management state-of-art models are needed that can cover the entire land and water system, including plant-atmosphere interactions, soil water, groundwater and surface water. Alterra has developed the regional IWRM simulation package SIMGRO for this purpose. There is also an increased need to deal with water quality issues. For this purpose the public domain model SWAT has been linked with the SIMGRO model. In this way water quality issues, like nutrients, sediments, etc. can be dealt with at the river basin scale.
Contact person / More info (pdf) / October 3, 2011 |
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Sustainable production thresholds for Sub Saharan African Agriculture
Our team recently started research on sustainable production thresholds (SPT) for Sub Saharan African Agriculture, focusing on water. The idea is to increase agricultural production (profit) and food security (people) without compromising the environment (planet). One of our projects is called “More food on smaller foot”, referring to maximum food production with minimum foot print. Although there is a wealth of sustainability approaches we advocate a river catchment approach be integrated in natural resources management, especially in situations where water is a crucial production factor. For instance upstream changes in water use will inevitably cause downstream effects, both in terms of water quantity and quality. This may refer both to surface water and groundwater, which ideally should serve as a water reservoir to overcome drought spells. Local changes will have impacts elsewhere. Therefore sustainability impact assessment should include a catchment scale analysis.
Contact person / September 20, 2011 |
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Retirement Hans Boonstra
On the 24th of March, Dr. Hans Boonstra will retire from active duty at the IWRM Team of Alterra. Dr Boonstra has served the Institute, from 1974, as a research scientist, lecturer, team leader, and consultant for the International Institute for Land Reclamation and Improvement, Wageningen, The Netherlands, that merged (June 2001) into Alterra, part of Wageningen University and Research Centre.
Contact person / More info / February 20, 2011
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Training and capacity building
This year 2 short courses for mid-career professionals in Land & Water will be organised:
1) Increasing Water Productivity in Water Scarce Areas
2) Save Water - Save Harvest - Save Life: Water for Food and Ecosystems.
Both courses will be organized from 6 to 26 November 2011 (3 weeks).
More information: Training and Capacity building
Contact person / February 18, 2011 |
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EU project awarded on research to increase Food production in irrigated farming systems in Africa (EAU4FOOD)
EAU4Food seeks to address the enormous challenges African agriculture is facing today: despite numerous attempts, agricultural productivity has only slightly increased in recent years and, in general, cannot keep up with population growth. Hence, new approaches are required to increase food production in irrigated areas in Africa, while ensuring healthy and resilient environments. Together with the partners in the project case studies will be carried out in Tunisia, Mali, Ethiopia, South Africa and Mozambique.
Contact person / More info (pdf) / February 17, 2011 |
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Training in regional hydrological modelling
At the end of March two colleagues will visit Wageningen for a training in applying the regional hydrological model SIMGRO. One scientist is from Prague (Masaryk Water Research Institute) and the other from Bari (Water Research Institute, IRSA-CNR). They will apply the SIMGRO model to a river basin from their own country. The focus of the Czech study is on drought mitigation in the Blsanka River and in the framework of the MIRAGE EU project the Candelaro basin will be modeled focusing on intermittent streams.
Contact person / February 15, 2011 |
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