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CONVENED BY:
 | The GLOBAL WATER SYSTEM PROJECT of the Global Environmental Change Programmes
(IGBP, WCRP, IHDP, DIVERSITAS) |
DATE:
| 7-9 October 2003 |
VENUE:
| Sheraton Harborside Hotel and Conference Center, Portsmouth, New Hampshire (USA) |
PARTICIPATION:
| The Open Science Conference is limited to 150 participants, so please register early |
Analysis of the water cycle is increasingly being focused on broader and more integrative scales, up to the global. The emerging science encompasses both biogeophysics and socioeconomics and involves not only pure science but science that is policy relevant. The Global Water System (GWS) embodies all relevant stocks and fluxes of water and their control by both natural and anthropogenic forces. The role of humans in the GWS has to date been poorly articulated but new techniques and data sets permits offer promise.
From a scientific perspective, the key goals of this Open Science Conference are to:
 | Quantify the importance of anthropogenic influence in the global water system; |
| Review the technology permitting us to assess global-scale water resources; |
| Improve the contemporary benchmark of the state of the terrestrial water system needed to gauge the rate and intensity of future change; and |
| Explore the adequacy of current institutions to deal with future change |
In terms of executing the GWSP, the Conference has as its goal the solicitation of inputs from the science and water policy communities to help develop:
| Strategies to address the key questions of the GWSP |
| Activities and products of research on the GWS |
| Collaborations among ongoing water-related activities in this realm |
| A consensus view on the GWSP Science and Implementation Plan |
FORMAT:
| Seven thematic sessions with keynote addresses, open dialogue and hands-on activities to develop |
THEMATIC SESSIONS:
| A. | Key Factors Defining the State of Basins - The impacts of climate change and variability, hydraulic engineering, land cover change, urbanization, pollution, loss of biodiversity, and water economics and governance on the world's drainage basins vary spatially and temporally. A geography of these changes has not been established but would aid in identifying "hot spots" and "hope spots" - an important capability in regional policy formulation and development assistance. The goal of this session is to identify and rank these key factors region by region.
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| B. | Major Linkages and Feedbacks of GWS Changes - The broad set of factors defined in the previous sessions will be assessed with respect to their impacts on biogeophysics (e.g. sediment flux to the oceans), biodiversity (e.g. loss of migration routes due to impoundment), and human dimensions (e.g. human health, water-shortage induced poverty).
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| C. | Adaptive Capacity, Resilience and Vulnerability of the GWS to Change - Human and environmental systems cannot be viewed as isolated entities. The session will highlight key issues that need to be addressed to explore and increase the resilience and adaptability of contemporary human-environment systems to change in the GWS at different scales.
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| D. | Water and Food -
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| E. | Tools and Data Sets for Global-Scale Assessment - Uncertainties abound in our current ability to characterize the biogeophysics of the GWS, and to identify and rank factors responsible for contemporary change. The lack or deterioration of monitoring networks is now recognized. A review of existing and new tools that can be applied to data poor and data free regions is a primary goal of this session.
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| F. | Water and Climate -
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| G. | Water and Biodiversity -
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