Floodplain and wetlands conferences

HOORC hydrologist Dr Piotr Wolski returned this week from two international conferences, Ecohydrological Processes and Sustainable Floodplain Management : Opportunities and Concepts for Water Hazard Mitigation, and Ecological and Socioeconomic Sustainability, held in Lodz, Poland in May 2008 and the Annual Meeting of the Society of Wetland Scientists (SWS) in Washington, D.C. from May 26th to 30th 2008. At the Lodz conference, Dr Wolski made a presentation of work coauthored by HOORC ecologist Mike Murray-Hudson, Linking Hydrological Variability to Ecosystem Functionality in the Okavango Delta, Botswana, in the Context of Adaptation to Climate Change. Participants at the conference approved the Declaration on Sustainable Floodplain Management, which identifies floodplains as as crucial areas of ecohydrological regulation and states the principles for integrated floodplain management planning. At the SWS meeting, also attended by HOORC ecologist Professor Lars Ramberg, Dr Wolski presented Assessing Hydrological Effects of Climate Change on the Okavango Delta, Botswana. You can find the programmes and abstacts for both the Lodz and Washington conferences in HOORC's Library.