联合国教科文组织科学副助理总干事A.Szollosi Nagy在开幕式上致辞
联合国教科文组织科学副助理总干事A.Szollosi Nagy
Opening remarks by Dr. A Szollosi-Nagy, Deputy Assistant Director General of UNESCO and Secretary of the International Hydrological Programme, 9th International Symposium on River Sedimentation, 18th October, 2004, Yichang, People’s Republic of China
Your Excellency Professor Shucheng Wang, Minister of Water Resources
of PRC,
Vice-Governor,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a great honor and pleasure for me to address you this morning at
the opening of the 9th International Symposium on River Sedimentation on
behalf of Mr. Koichiro Matsuura, the Director General of UNESCO. Allow
me to start with a rather subjective remark with respect to the venue,
Yichang, where we are at the moment. Last time when I was here, some
nine years ago, I toured around the region quite extensively. Nine years
after it was a bit difficult even to recognize the place. So many things
changed, such a tremendous development took place that it is indeed
breathtaking. Taking this opportunity let me congratulate first of all
our Chinese colleagues who contributed a great deal to these remarkable
changes.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The topic of this symposium is indeed very timely and UNESCO is pleased to be associated with this event. River and reservoir sedimentation, and its causes all the way up to erosion and land use, are strongly linked to the Millennium Development Goals. Water resources development and management issues cut across all the MDGs but are of particular importance in achieving two goals, namely to half by 2015 the number of human beings who have no access to safe drinking water as well as to half the number of those who have no adequate sanitation facilities. In the first case we talk about 1.2 billion people while in the second one about 2.4.billipn humans. Considering the role rivers and reservoirs play in water supply the linkage between the MDGs and this symposium is obvious.
The Member States of UNESCO have recognized the importance of the contributions the Organization can make towards solving the looming water crises and some four years ago made water and associated ecosystems a principal priority for UNESCO. As a result of this UNESCO’s water programmes have been considerable strengthened over the past years. Three major pillars represent the current UNESCO water activities:
(1) The International Hydrological Programme (IHP),
(2) The UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, and
(3) The UN World Water Assessment Programme UN WWAP)
Let me start with IHP that is the only water science and education programme in the UN system and is at the service of Member States for nearly 30 years now. As you know IHP is a global collaborative research programme that operates through some 160 IHP National Committees that set the scope and priorities of the Programme. The current, sixth Phase of IHP is devoted to “Water Interactions: Systems at Risk and Social Challenges” and contains a fair amount of task directly linked to the subject of your symposium. Erosion and sedimentation have long been one of the foci of IHP. The creation of the International Research Center on Erosion and Sedimentation (IRTCES) in Beijing exactly twenty years ago, under the auspices of UNESCO, bears witness to this. We are proud to be associated with IRTCES and are very thankful to the Chinese authorities for their generous support over the past decades. In accordance with a recent recommendation of the IHP Intergovernmental Council we would like to assist in further strengthening IRTCES as some new major tasks are ahead of both of us. As you may know the 15th session of the IHP Intergovernmental Council, inter alia, has recommended the launching of a new International Sediment Initiative (ISI). In justifying the relevant resolution the Council has noted that:
(1) Erosion and sedimentation processes and management in
catchments, river systems and reservoirs are increasingly important in
all parts of the world;
(2) Erosion and sedimentation processes have significant
socio-economic and environmental impacts in river basin management;
(3) Sediment production processes are not sufficiently understood;
(4) Within the next few decades more than 50 % of the world’s
reservoir capacity may be lost due to sedimentation; and that
(5) Sediment management practices should be improved.
The ISI is expected to add a new dimension to ongoing efforts aiming at sustainable sediment management in the context of sustainable water resources development at global scale. Hence, its mission directly relates to the MDGs. Indeed, ISI should be viewed as a vehicle to advance sediment management at global scale with the following three main components:
(1) Global Evaluation of Sediment Transport (GEST),
(2) Comprehensive review of global erosion and sedimentation
related research, and
(3) Education for sustainable sediment management.
Over the past two years the concept of the Initiative has been elaborated and was submitted to the recent, 16th session of the IHP Council that has endorsed the concept and was on the view that IRTCES is to be invited to play a key role in the global coordination of implementing ISI.
Needless to say that we are very pleased with this decision and have already started discussion with the leadership of IRTCES how to best achieve that by increasing the global outreach and international character if the Center in cooperation with the other existing and planned water Centers that are under the auspices of UNESCO, such as the UNESCO Center on Water Hazard and Risk Mitigation (CHARM), in the process of its creation in Tsukuba, Japan. Obvious linkages should exist in the area of education and capacity building with the second pillar of UNESCO’s water activities, the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, located in Delft, The Netherlands, that is now an integral part of UNESCO. The NGO partners of IHP, such as for instance IAHS, IAHR, IAH, ICCORES and others could certainly play a key role in strengthening IRTCES in making it a global institution in erosion and sedimentation related research and capacity building. It is also hoped that IRTCES will contribute to and benefit from the 70 million words UNESCO Encyclopedia on Life Support System (EOLSS) project that is nearing completion and contains the most comprehensive synthesis of knowledge available on sustainable development.
The third pillar I should mention is the UN WWAP, led by UNESCO, that produces the World Water Development Report Series, the first of which was released last year in Kyoto during the Third World Water Forum. The next volume is in the make and will be published in 2006 on the occasion of the Fourth Forum to be held in Mexico City. Given the importance of sedimentation I hope IRTCES through ISI and your cooperation will make a significant contribution. The sine qua non of having the appropriate picture on global erosion and sedimentation is to have the data collected in a global geo-referenced data base that will be one of the tasks we would like IRTCES to undertake in close cooperation with the network of IHP National Committees and other players. If we want to establish a meaningful picture on the global erosion and sedimentation processes in order to help policy makers and politicians to design appropriate policies and instruments at regional and global level these data, in accordance with the relevant recommendations of the IHP Intergovernmental Council, are to be accessible openly and available freely for the international research community.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In closing let me re-iterate how important this meeting for IHP is. I do hope I was able to get this message through by outlining IHP’s concerns, particularly those of ISI. Apart from wishing you all a successful symposium and a pleasant stay in the Three Gorges area let me also take this opportunity to invite you to
(1) Help us shape ISI further; and to
(2) Mobilize the research community in taking part implementing the
goals of ISI.
Last but not least, I would like to thank on behalf of UNESCO the Chinese authorities, notably the Ministry for Water Resources, the local water authorities and universities, the LOC and personally Professor Wang, the Three Gorges institutions for the excellent preparatory work that went into this symposium. May I wish you all a productive and pleasant stay in Yichang.