国际水文科学协会主席竹内教授出席会议并讲话

        国际泥沙信息网10月19日讯  世界泥沙研究学会于今日正式成立，国际水文科学协会主席竹内教授出席会议并讲话。（Address by Kuniyoshi Takeuchi during the inauguration of he World Association of Sediment and Erosion Research）全文如下：

President, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is my great pleasure to congratulate, on behalf of IAHS, the inauguration of the World Association of Sediment and Erosion Research. The sediment and erosion problems in he world are increasingly serious and the establishment of a comprehensive professional association was strongly needed to support the societal effort to overcome the problems. IAHS enthusiastically supports fro WASWER to take this important responsibility.

IAHS was established in 1922 and has a longest history as a comprehensive water science association. It promotes hydrology as an aspect of earth science and of water resources. Within IAHS we have International Commission of Continental Erosion (ICCE) held a number of symposia and workshops and published a series of proceedings in Red Books, which I believe are the most valuable scientific knowledge base in the field of erosion and sediments in the world. We are glad to see and congratulate Prof. Des Walling, former IAHS ICCE President to serve as President of WASER.

Now, WASWER is going to integrate all related professional activities on erosion and sediments by providing a forum where a wide spectrum of disciplines from physics and engineering to management, and phenomena from ice and snow capped mountains to estuary and coral reefs are put together. WASER is trying to respond the societal needs and IAHS is pleased to offer its expertise. In Japan, among all water related disasters, human lives are mostly lost by landslides, debris flows and slope collapses. We fought against floods for many years and reduced the number of death tolls from some thousands to a few hundreds a year in the last half of the century. But the slope failure type disasters are most difficult to predict and they are now the only major natural cause left that takes many human lives. The same is true in many parts of the world and the needs of WASER and the expectation to it are tremendous.

Last but not the least, I would like to express our appreciation to IRTCES for its taking the secretariat of WASER. It has a long history of research, training and helping practices in erosion and sediment fields in the world. This is exactly the most eligible Center to support the WASER activities. WASER will be successful without doubt with the commitments of IRTCES and Ministry of Water Resources of China.

Congratulations!