MINUTES OF AD-HOC SASCOM MEETING
15th December 2003
Hotel Himalaya, Kathmandu, Nepal
The Ad-hoc SASCOM meeting was held at Hotel Himalaya, Kathmandu, Nepal on 15th
December 2003. This meeting was attended by the following:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Dr Amir Muhammed, Chairman, SASCOM
Dr A.P. Mitra, Director, SAS-RRC and ex-officio member SASCOM
Dr K.L. Shrestha, member SASCOM
Dr Janak Ratnasiri, member SASCOM
Dr Sulochana Gadgil, member SASCOM
Dr Hasan Virji, Deputy Director, International START Secretariat
Dr C. Sharma, APN Liaison Officer for South Asia
Mr. Alok Mukherjee, Scientific Secretary, SASCOM
Dr Ahsan Uddin Ahmed, Head, Water & Environment Division, Bangladesh
Unnayan Parishad, Dhaka*, invited guest
10. Students of Tribhuvan University, Nepal*, invited guests
11. Dr Arshad M. Khan, Member of Pakistan team of South Asian Water Project*,
invited guest
12. Dr Joyashree Roy, Member of Indian team of South Asian Water Project and
Mountain Project*, invited guest
(* Participated only in the scientific program session of the meeting)
The meeting commenced with opening remarks by Dr. Amir Muhammad, Chairman
SASCOM who welcomed all the participants. Prof. Shrestha welcomed SASCOM on
behalf of the Ministry of Science and Technology of His Majesty’s Government of
Nepal.
Dr C. Sharma briefed the committee on the issues arising from the last SASCOM
meeting held in Dhaka in April 2002. SASCOM considered various actions taken and
approved the record of minutes of the previous meeting and actions taken by SAS-RRC
staff.
Thereafter committee was apprised about the developments in following scientific
research programs of regional importance:
1. Mega-cities/ urbanization – by Dr A.P. Mitra
The mega-cities/urbanization has become an important research theme. The IGAC
(International Global Atmospheric Chemistry Program) has adopted `MegacityAsia’ as a project in its Science Plan and IHDP (International Human Dimension
Program) has `Urbanization’ as an important research program. In the South
Asian region, the mega-city program which initially started with the APN support
covering the Indian cities of Delhi and Kolkata, has now been proposed to expend
to cover other mega-cities of the region like Karachi, Dhaka and Kathmandu. The
SASCOM members suggested developing a regional program for possible
funding by appropriate international agencies.
2. Atmospheric Brown Cloud - by Dr A.P. Mitra
Dr Mitra apprised the members about the Atmospheric Brown Cloud (ABC)
program and its various activities. He informed that South Asian meeting of ABC
will be held in New Delhi on 3rd February 2004.
3. APN Mountain Project – by Dr K.L. Shrestha
Dr Shrestha apprised about the progress of APN Mountain project. He informed
that while considerable work has been accomplished under the project but some
time extension with extra inputs in terms of fellowship etc. will be required to
develop scenario based future simulations. He also informed that a website
(www.idi.org.np) has been established for this project. SASCOM encouraged
completion of this project and advised Dr. Shrestha to seek close linkages with the
Mountain Research Initiative (MRI).
4. APN Water Project – by Dr Amir Muhammed
Dr Muhammed apprised about the progress of APN Water project. He stated that
the main activity during the second year (2003-4) has been collection of field data
through interviews of selected residents in the SHUs in the participating countries
of South Asia region. These interviews were conducted based on agreed and pretested questionnaire with the primary objective of getting respondents’ perception
of the occurrence of extreme events, measures taken in the past to meet the crisis
situation and their suggestions for future measures. The data has been analyzed
and presented during the year-end workshop held in Kathmandu during December
2003.
Dr. Muhammed also announced the publication of proceedings of first Year-end
workshop held at Kathmandu during 7-9 January 2003. The proceedings is
entitled `Climate Change And Water Resources In South Asia’ edited by Dr Amir
Muhammed and published by Asianics Agro Dev International, Islamabad,
Pakistan.
5. Transport Sector program – by Dr C. Sharma
Transport sector is a major contributor of the emissions of green house and other
short lived gases including particulate matter in the national emissions of these
species in South Asian countries. In view of this importance, SASCOM had
organized a workshop on `Vehicular Emissions in South Asia’ on 22nd May 2001
in Kathmandu in conjunction with SASCOM meeting. During the workshop,
participants prepared and presented national and city level inventories of
emissions of various species from transport sector using then available emission
factors. A draft proceeding of this workshop has now been prepared which will,
after updating in the context of recent technological and policy development in
transport sector in the region leading to new emission factors, will be brought out
in the form of SASCOM scientific report in next few months.
6. FACE - by Dr A.P. Mitra
The studies related to impacts of elevated carbon dioxide on agriculture have been
continuing in South Asia. A network of `Open Top Chambers (OTC)’ is
operational in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan supported by
respective country’s own resources. In addition, a `Free Air Carbon dioxide
Enrichment (FACE) facility’ now is fully operational in Indian Agriculture
Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi. This facility is available for collaborative
research of regional scientists. Dr Ratnasiri informed that the initial APN grant
enabled the Sri Lankan scientists to obtain an additional grant from the
Government of Sri Lanka to continue the elevated CO2 experiment on rice for a
further 3 years. He also said that under the AIACC project, elevated CO2 trials are
being conducted on coconut and tea plants.
7. Packard/START Advanced Institutes Program – By Dr Hasan Virji
This program focuses on post-doctoral to mid-career scientists from developing
countries. Two advanced institutes, (i) on climate variability and food security
and (ii) on urbanization, emissions and the global carbon cycle, are ongoing.
Several fellows from South Asia have completed initial intensive training and are
now engaged in follow-on research projects. The next institute, to be held during
May 2004 at IIASA, Austria, will focus on the topic of risk and vulnerability
analysis related to global environmental change. Applications for the next
institute are being processed.
8. Monsoon Asia Integrated Regional Studies Program - By Dr Hasan Virji
This new program initiated under the Earth System partnership is in early
evolution phase. Initial discussions were held at a March 2003 scoping meeting
(held at the START Regional Center in Bangkok) and at the June 2003 IGBP
Banff Congress Session.
Initial funding support for sub-regional rapid
assessments (synthesis) to be conducted in collaboration with SCOPE has been
secured from ICSU. Additional resources are being sought. These rapid
synthesis exercises will form the scientific underpinning for eventual program that
will involve regional scientists, institutions and will critically depend upon
leveraging national and regional resources. Preliminary discussions preceding the
current SASCOM meeting developed the broad outline of South Asia subregional assessment report and agreed on a schedule for action on this outline.
SASCOM endorsed this effort and the South Asia Rapid Assessment Project
document.
Dr Mitra also briefed SASCOM members about the various efforts being initiated in the
region to build capacity in the region on modeling in the areas of climate change and
impacts on agriculture, water and mountains. He informed about his proposal to the
Ministry of Environment and Forests of Government of India to provide financial
assistance to organize training programs for regional scientists in India on modeling in
the areas of climate, agriculture and water balance/river basin. This proposal is under
active consideration of the ministry. Dr Mitra also informed about the visit of Dr Navin
Kalra of IARI, New Delhi in October 2003 to Coconut and Tea Research Institutes of Sri
Lanka to help in the development of crop models in Sri Lanka. Five scientists from Sri
Lanka are expected to visit IARI in February to receive further hands-on-training on crop
modelling. SASCOM endorsed these efforts and Dr Virji suggested that opportunities
provided by START’s fellowships could also be optimally used for this purpose. The
Committee also noted the opportunities available for capacity building in recently
awarded grant under APN’s CAPaBLE program to Dr Arshad of Pakistan in which
Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh will participate.
SASCOM was also apprised about the restructuring and updating efforts of SASCOM
website by SAS-RRC which was appreciated. In order to make it more informative and
interactive, following suggestions have been made (i)
(ii)
Establishment of an online forum for discussion on global change matters
SASCOM E-Newsletters to flag new/upcoming activities and provide linkages
to them
(Action for SAS-RRC)
SASCOM members also suggested restructuring ‘Directory of South Asian Scientists’ (a
new version was shown during the meeting) by segregating the scientists as per their
expertise to make it more useful.
(Action for SAS-RRC)
SASCOM members also endorsed the plans of SAS-RRC to print following documents
as `SASCOM Reports’ after suitable amendments/modifications in next few months(i)
(ii)
(iii)
Regional Synthesis Report
South Asian Transport Sector Document
Impact of Climate change on human health in South Asia
(Action: SAS-RRC)
In the close-door session, the SASCOM members made following decisions:
1. SASCOM decided to re-initiate contacts with Maldives to ensure active
participation of Maldives in SASCOM activities, especially in view of
their interests in sea level changes, ecosystem and biodiversity as well as
atmospheric brown cloud issues.
2. SASCOM decided to continue effort to contact relevant ministry/ persons
in Bhutan to ascertain interest in participating in SASCOM initiated
scientific research projects (note Bhutan already involved in the APNfunded GLOFS project) and in SASCOM.
3. SASCOM decided to re-consider the status of membership of Mauritius
and proposed that in accordance with the usual practice in multilateral
settings, Mauritius might be included in the African programs of START.
4. SASCOM decided to adopt followings four as the priority global
environmental change related research themes for South Asian region for
next five years:
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
Water
Climate variability
Urbanization
Mountain ecosystem
5. Membership rotation:
In view of the recent discussions at the START Scientific Steering Committee
Meeting (Trieste, November 2003), SASCOM considered need for
membership rotation and representation of relevant core projects of the ESSP
at future SASCOM meetings.
SASCOM decided to rotate several current members of SASCOM, noting
with special thanks their active service on SASCOM. SASCOM also decided
to replace the outgoing members with new members as noted below:
(i)
Current members Dr G.B. Pant of IITM, Pune and Dr A.M.
Choudhury, former head of SPARSO of Bangladesh are
rotated off SASCOM. Current member Dr Sulochana Gadgil
of IISc, Bangalore will remain as ex-officio member of
SASCOM in view of her status as the Co-Chair of the
START SSC.
(ii)
Dr Rupa Kumar Kolli of IITM, Pune is nominated as a new
incoming member with contacts in CLIVAR/WCRP
community.
(iii)
Dr Anand Patwardhan of IIT, Mumbai is nominated as a new
incoming member of SASCOM with contacts in the IHDP
community as well as ESSP’s Joint Carbon Cycle Project.
(iv)
SASCOM decided to invite nominations of suitable senior
scientists from Bangladesh for membership of SASCOM.
The names of Dr. Ahsanuddin Ahmed and Dr. D.A.Quadir
were approved for inclusion in the list of candidates.
Additional nominations are being sought. These nominations
should be forwarded to the international START secretariat
for consideration by the START SSC at its next meeting.
6. SASCOM decided to sponsor the forthcoming Asia-Pacific Geophysical
Union’s meeting on PAGES to be held in Singapore without any financial
commitments.
7. SASCOM approved the budget of SAS-RRC for financial year 2003 and
recommended an increased budget of US$ 22,000 for the financial year
2004 from which US$ 2000 will be spent on local expenses of visiting
scientists. SASCOM also decided on the request of Dr Virji to submit
annotated budget details and also annotated details of in-kind
contributions being made by National Physical Laboratory (NPL) for
facilitating SAS-RRC activities.
(Action: SAS-RRC)
8. SASCOM decided to hold its next meeting in July/August 2004 at Indian
Institute of Science, Bangalore in conjunction with next meeting of South
Asia Sub-regional MAIRS project.
(Action: START Secretariat/ SAS-RRC)