Hydrology and water management in the humid tropics: proceedings ...

Second International Colloquium on
Hydrology and Water Management in the Humid Tropics
out). The funding was from several sources: UNESCO, SOPAC, CSC and at a
national level.
In a similar manner, I am acutely aware that this region is occupied by some of
the best remnants of montane cloud forests. Such forests on a global scale are one of
the last sources of potable surface water in the humid tropics. They also have high
conservation value for their biodiversity. Yet, we know comparatively little of their
water balance and process hydrology, biological processes and biodiversity, in
comparison with lowland tropical moist forests.
I hope that one of the achievements of this Colloquium is to encourage at least
one field project devoted to Cloud Forest Hydrology and I would like to propose
CATHALAC being a focal point to assist in its coordination. In fact I have been
trying to encourage such developments with my Netherlands’ colleagues and
CATHALAC since 1997, with the South Pacific model as a possible framework. The
United States is already operating a project in Puerto Rico in the Luquillo
experimental basins and scientists from the Netherlands have participated in this
project, as well as in a separate one in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. I am also
aware of excellent expertise in Colombia, Panama and Costa Rica, for example, as
evidenced by recent publications in international journals. So I see there is a good
basis for regional and international co-operation in the Latin America and Caribbean
region.
Supporting field projects requires field technical skills. Significantly, at a
recent meeting of the International Steering Committee on Humid Tropics for SE Asia
and the Pacific Region in Kuala Lumpur, November 1997, this issue was raised in the
context of data logger failure in a Swedish Government supported, Department of
Irrigation and Drainage, urban hydrology project in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
I am aware of similar problems in the University of Sao Paulo urban
hydrology project. The urban hydrology issue is one of the most critical in the humid
tropics and the least researched. It has been foreseen, therefore, that Australia will
host a data base/data management workshop, including data logger maintenance for
two participants from, respectively, SE Asia and the South Pacific who are currently
active in field projects. If successful, then this may be extended to other humid
tropical regions using existing field projects linked with the IHP where possible.
We are now in a period where at a national level, support for scientific
research is commonly locked into short-term economic cycles of only one to three
years. There is a paradox here that whilst the Global Change issues (including those
for water) are based on long-term questions, the funding response at a national level is
mostly short-term. In that regard, UNESCO has an advantage and I see it as our
responsibility to prepare for the longer-term environmental issues. According to
CIFOR (Centre for International Forestry Research), within the next 20-30 years
current deforestation rates will mean much reduced accessibility for forest products.
Thus whilst global attention is being devoted to deforestation, we must now turn our
focus towards supporting inter-disciplinary efforts at reforestation of degraded lands,
including the use of native species. I am pleased to report that at the invitation of the
Karnataka Forest Department, India, UNESCO in collaboration with the National
Institute of Hydrology, Belgium, has commenced a project that assesses the
hydrological impact of various reforestation strategies of degraded land on the water
cycle. This project also addresses the controversial issue (and yet with minimal
scientific evidence) that deforestation increases floods and conversely decreases dry
weather flow. It is the dry weather flow that is a major water supply at the village
level during periods of drought. People need both the products from forests and water
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