Seasonal School 3 - Integrated Water Resources Management and Water Governance


The IWRM (Integrated Water Resources Management) seasonal school was initially planned to take place in February 2021 at the University of the Algarve (UAlg), Faro, Portugal. However, its organisation and course was significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the ongoing situation with meeting and travel restrictions it had to be decided to hold the training event as an online event organised by the MARSoluT coordinators. For the course, the project invited international experts Prof. Susana Neto (University of Western Australia/University of Lisbon, Portugal) and Prof. Jeff Camkin (University of Western Australia). Both have a strong background in integrated water management (see the course outline below). They are offering block courses on Water Governance and Integrated Water Management for different audiences worldwide, including a regular course for international students of the international master's course on "Tropical Hydrogeology and Environmental Engineering" (TropHEE) at the Technical University of Darmstadt (TUDa), Germany. Jeff Camkin contributed as an external expert to the predecessor MARSOL FP7 project.

The one-week summer school took place from 5. to 9. July 2021 and was performed through online lectures and interactive course elements such as workshops where MARSoluT's research fellows discussed the lessons learned from the lectures, presenting home work as preparation for the respective day, and further discussions. During the lectures the opportunity was given to ask questions, which the participants used extensively. The lecturers also offered the fellows the opportunity to contact them by e-mail in case of questions. The training was completed by a round table where all participants had the chance to summarize their impression of the course and to give suggestions for improvement.

The scientific focus was laid on current and future challenges of water governance related to MAR and integrated water management (IWM). Furthermore, the novel geo-discipline of hydrogeoethics was presented. The course contents were as follows:

  • Lecture: Water Governance and IWM - Definitions, principles, and practice (Susana Neto and Jeff Camkin)
  • Guest presentation: The Papa Warringka scheme - 10 years of large-scale MAR in NW Australia (Doug Brown)
  • Workshop: Lessons from a successful large-scale MAR project related to WG & IWM
  • Lecture: The role of water governance and IWM in addressing global changes, challenges, and opportunities (Susana Neto and Jeff Camkin)
  • Workshop: The role of MAR and opportunities to address global water challenges
  • Guest presentation: Hydrogeoethics, a novel transdisciplinary approach on ethics in water science, technology, and culture (Manuel Abrunhosa)
  • Workshop: Hydrogeoethics, water governance, and my PhD
  • Workshop: Research fellows presentations
  • End of the Summer School: Feedback session

Also for this training event it was not possible to perform site visits of MAR case study sites as planned in the work plan of the project, due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation. Therefore, the planned site visit of the South Portugal case study, a site close to Faro and initially intended to be a part of the summer school, had to be postponed. The field trip eventually took place in February 2022.


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MARSoluT - Managed Aquifer Recharge Solutions Training Network - is a four-year Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Innovative Training Network (ITN) funded by the European Commission.


Coordination & Contact:

Prof. Dr. Christoph Schüth

Darmstadt Technical University
Applied Geosciences
Schnittspahnstr. 9
64287 Darmstadt
Germany


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