News and Events

(last updated May 5, 2006)

The Project was launched in April 2005 with the Inception Workshop, which was announced and described in the CP Newsletter “Water and Food Monthly,” April, 2005 (PDF 199Kb).  Read Inception Report (PDF 81Kb).

Read the latest newsletter of the Challenge Program on Water and Food.

Sensitization Tour

As part of the start-up of the project, and in response to the recommendations derived from the Inception Workshop in April, 2005, a Sensitization Tour to all five project countries was scheduled to take place between October and December, 2005.

The objectives of the Sensitization Tour were to:

• Meet and initiate collaboration with organizations and institutions involved in groundwater management, research and media coverage that may provide fellows and participate in research within the project
• Present the project, its scope and to advocate for active involvement and commitment
• Present a draft proposal for a research agenda for the project
• Make initial steps towards recruiting the fellows for the courses
• Get feedback from the institutions in terms of capacity building needs and priority research topics that could prove valuable in the more detailed planning of the courses and the research.

The first sensitization meeting was held in Zhengzhou, China from 16 to 24 October 2005. The presentation made at the workshop is available in Chinese (PDF 716Kb)

The next sensitization trips went to Kathmandu, Nepal, from 7 to 9 November, to Lahore, Pakistan from 14 to 17November, and to Dhaka, Bangladesh from 12 to 14 December, 2005.  After consideration of previous consultation processes taken place in India prior to and very early in the project, it was decided not to make a sensitization trip to India.

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Presentations made by the project participants:

China:

1. CUG (PDF 3 Mb)

Nepal:

1. DWSS (PDF 146 Kb)
2. GWRDP (PDF 80Kb)
3. KU (PDF 140 Kb)
4. TU1 (PDF 24 Kb)
5. TU2 (PDF 60 Kb)

The meeting in Nepal was covered by the National Daily News (PDF 600Kb)

Pakistan:

1. CEWRE (PDF 60 Kb)
2. IWASRI (PDF 1.2 Mb)
3. PCRWR (PDF 329 Kb)
4. PID-DLR (PDF 1.9 Mb)

The meeting in Pakistan was covered by the international press: Dawn (PDF 50 Kb) and The News (PDF 112 Kb)

Bangladesh:

1. BWDB (PDF 2.0 Mb)

Reports from the sensitization mission:

China

Nepal

Pakistan

Bangladesh

India

The outcome and recommendations of the Sensitization Tour have been presented to the Challenge Program in April, 2006.

Course development

The project is moving into a crucial phase.  On May 31, 2006, the deadline for application to the international and inter-disciplinary training and research program ‘Groundwater Governance in Theory and Practice’ is closing. The project team is busy developing and finalizing the course program and making the necessary arrangements with invited guest lecturers and groundwater specialists from around the world – to come to the course and deliver their views and experiences on theoretical and practical groundwater management.

The training program is one-of-a-kind. It targets five Asian countries with critical groundwater management challenges. ( The five project countries cover the CPWF benchmark basins, the Indus-Ganges River and the Yellow River basins, that is: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal (for the Indus-Ganges River) and China (for the Yellow River)). Furthermore, it attempts to involve actively the very key people within these countries responsible for developing and safeguarding  groundwater resources for future sustainable use. An innovative approach to the training has been developed that ensures optimum exposure, interaction and active engagement of the participants throughout a nine to 21 week rigorous program.

The two-staged program starts with a five-week intensive classroom program, designed to give a concentrated but holistic and integrated introduction to, and avenues for, further training within the multi-disciplinary fields of knowledge required to address groundwater governance in real-life situations, namely the engineering and technical aspects, the agronomical aspects, the socio-economic and institutional aspects and finally the overarching aspects of legislation, policies and pro-active approaches to groundwater management. In order to cater for participants of varying background and seniority and to build up a progressively more complex understanding, the five-week program is divided into a four-week program for junior managing practitioners followed by a one-week workshop involving junior as well as senior managers in discussions with reputed experts and researchers on groundwater from the region as well as outside.  The course is scheduled to be centered at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee, India with some parts taking place at institutions nearby.

The five-week classroom course, which also includes field trips, is followed by a research training phase in which the junior fellows will take part in a pre-designed research program of cross-cutting action research within the two project basins. This will involve the training in and application of a series of inter-disciplinary field research and survey tools to elucidate physical and socio-economic conditions behind groundwater use and potential avenues for more informed and appropriate groundwater management approaches in specific communities. The senior fellows will be granted a four-week trip to a country outside the region and a chance to visit institutions and organizations involved in groundwater management at various levels, from local to national to international. This will offer the senior participants a chance to investigate and compare groundwater issues and possible solutions from different perspectives.

The training and research program will have room for 40 participants, 35 junior and media fellows and five senior fellows. The course will take place from Oct. 9 to the end of March, 2007. The program will be repeated in 2007-2008, hopefully in China, with a new batch of fellows.

Research Agenda

Besides the training and research program, the project attempts to build capacity and knowledge on groundwater governance through pilot projects within the basin countries. One such project is being drafted in collaboration with Chinese counterparts, most notably the Chinese University for Geosciences in Wuhan. The project, which targets the Zhengzhou area (7,446 km2) at the lower reaches of the Yellow River Basin with signs of groundwater over-draft and groundwater quality deterioration, aims to: 1) better understand groundwater and its water quality as well as its options and limitations to use for various purposes in the case study area; 2) create a toolkit for sustainable groundwater governance, including a GIS-based groundwater modeling tool that tells how land use influences groundwater resources and how much water can safely be abstracted from where, and policies and economic instruments that could control the demand and extraction of groundwater; and 3) develop, disseminate and promote practical approaches for effective and proactive groundwater governance and promotion of policy dialogue on groundwater management in the region. A meeting was held in March, 2006 to define approaches, activities, specific research areas and meet implementing partners (Figure 1 to Figure 3).

A second initiative in China is being led by the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy and builds on their ongoing work on China’s groundwater economy as well as work initiated under the Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture. Under this initiative, survey work and analysis is being undertaken to examine how China’s agricultural groundwater economy has evolved over time, the conditions under which water savings technologies have been adopted, and how policy has and can play a role in shaping the future of groundwater resources use.

Figure 1 Project meeting to refine pilot project proposal

Figure 2 Project meeting to refine pilot project proposal