GRDC 20th Anniversary Colloquium: 24 June 2009 in Koblenz
Participants of the GRDC 20th Anniversary Colloquium: 24 June 2009 in Koblenz
Source: Looser, Global Runoff Data Centre, BfG, 2009
For more than 20 years the Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC) has been operational at the Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG). In late 1988 the GRDC was established at the BfG in Koblenz and since then it has been funded by the Federal Republic of Germany as a contribution to the World Climate Programme of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). The GRDC operates under the auspices of the WMO.
The original global river discharge dataset of the GRDC was collected by the WMO in the framework of the First GARP Global Experiment in the early '80s. Since then the database has grown continuously and now encompasses discharge data from more than 7300 stations in 156 countries. To extend and maintain this global dataset the main functions of the GRDC will remain the acquisition and management of historical and near real-time river discharge data and associated metadata. For the provision of river discharge data, the National Hydrological Services of all WMO members remain the key partners of the GRDC. The user community served by the GRDC are the specialised projects and programmes of the United Nations dealing with climate and global change studies. Additionally a wide scientific and research community is utilising the global datasets for their studies on climate change, water resources management and related fields of research.
This Anniversary Colloquium provided an opportunity to highlight the GRDC’s progression in the role as facilitator between data providers and data users. It focused on the data collection, services and products provided by the GRDC such as the latest version of the “Freshwater Fluxes into the World Oceans”.
The Anniversary Colloquium was aimed at science and administration professionals in hydrology, climatology, water resources management, and related fields who have an interest in trans-regional issues dealing with the water cycle and its relation to global change. An opportunity was provided to be informed on the wide variety of applications of the global river discharge datasets and for the establishment of new contacts.
The proceedings of the Colloquium will be provided in the GRDC Report Series by the end of the year.
Contact: Ulrich Looser (looser@bafg.de)
Papers:
- Application of Hydrological Normals to the Rhine Basin / Pablo Borges de Amorim, Technical University of Dresden, Germany.
- Estimation of Freshwater Fluxes into the Oceans and Inland Seas / Thomas de Couet, Global Runoff Data Centre, Federal Institute of Hydrology, Koblenz, Germany.
- Value of discharge data for global hydrological modeling / Petra Döll and Martin Hunger, Institute of Physical Geography, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany.
- World-wide Hydrogeological Mapping and Assessment Programme (WHYMAP): Looking at Groundwater from a global point of view / Andrea Richts, Federal Institute for Geosciences and NaturalResources (BGR), Hannover, Germany
- The role of the GRDC dataset in global water resources modelling Frank Voß et al., Center for Environmental Systems Research (CESR), University of Kassel, Germany.
- Loading Estimate from Selected Major Streams using GRDC discharge and GEMS/Water WQ dataset, combined with continental-scale river basin model / Yosuke Yamashiki et al., Disaster Prevention Research Institute DPRI), Kyoto University, Japan