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Joint IWA/IAHR/IAHS SG on Hydroinformatics

Hydroinformatics is not just an application of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) to water resources, hydraulics or hydrology. The best analogy with which to explain the relationship between ICT and Hydroinformatics is probably the relationship between telecommunication networks (which can be, and on the trivial level most often are, applied to telephone conversations) and added value networks, such as those providing access to WWW servers. The former are only a low cost material support to the latter. Hydroinformatics provides a symbiosis, and even a synergy, between ICT and water science and technologies with the objective of satisfying social requirements.

This is a joint group with IAHR (and IAHS) and is concerned with the application of information technology in the widest sense to problems of the aquatic environment. The joint group has its own journal (Journal of Hydroinformatics) and holds a conference every two years. The upcoming Hydroinformatics conferecen is to be held from July 14 to 18, 2012, in Hamburg, Germany. For more information on this conference, please check the webpage under IWA event list for 2012 or the cofnerence website of www.hic2012.org.

The group has newly elected the management committee members. Each parent organization elected 4 committee members and they will work together to organize and support the group activities.

Working Group

Working Group on Hydroinformatics Vision

What is currently called “Hydroinformatics” (HI) has been developed within IAHR (International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research) and IWA (International Water Association), more precisely driven by a Hydroinformatics joint Committee of both organisations. The Committee is currently being in the process of enlargement to the third organisation: IAHS. The joint HI Committee set up a Working Group on Hydroinformatics Vision; the target of the Working Group was to produce two documents within limited time (end of April, beginning of May 2011):
(a) A full Report to the joint IAHR/IWA/IAHS Hydroinformatics Committee Leading Team. It is understood that the vocation of the Report is to be made available at the same time to anybody interested in the field.
(b) A draft of shorter Synoptic Report resuming the full Report. Present document is a draft of this Paper to be presented through the Leading Team of the Committee to the governing bodies of the three organisations (e.g. IAHR Council) and also published.
It must be understood that there was no preposterous ambition within Working Group and the authors of the Report to produce a kind of an “HI vision manifest” for the future. The ambition is to describe current situation as stemmed from years of experience, to enumerate a number of future (say next 10 years) developments and possibilities as are foreseen by the authors today, to produce a point of departure for further discussions and exchanges of views and, at the same time, to propose a number of practical actions, to be implemented now, and of aims which result from this vision of the future. For more information, please read the FINAL SYNOPTIC REPORT and the report of the working group.