Planning for UNESCO IHP VII: Challenges and Opportunities

The International Hydrology Program of UNESCO has started their seventh 5 year plan in 2008. This phase of IHP focuses on water dependencies: systems under stress and societal responses to them because of growing water need and limited water resources with adequate quality. Five themes are considered in this phase of IHP. In the first Theme, the climate change effects on surface and groundwater resources are evaluated especially in arid and semiarid regions. The feedback mechanism of hydrologic cycle in stress is identified using hydrological research and also the effects of climate change on hydrological extremes and the resulted hazards. Water governance and water resources management go beyond utilization of existing structures and the physical limits of water resources systems to include technical, social, political and economics aspects for better resources management. This is included in Theme 2. The main aspects that must be considered for water governance are conflict resolution, water equality and public participation. The anthropogenic impacts on the urban ecohydrology and environment including processes and interactions in the urban water cycle are focused in Theme 3. In this theme, the water role in changing landscape such as erosion, solvability and regulation in biogeochemical cycles are targeted. In the 4th theme, the focus is on development of strategies and methodologies to supply safe water with high quality standards, for domestic, human health and food production purposes. In the last theme activities for water education to improve communications, public awareness and training are included. In this paper the themes of IHP VII plan will be discussed addressing certain challenges and opportunities for the developing countries.