13.1. Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS)
13.1.1. Colin Summerhayes made a presentation on the Global Ocean Observing System and in particular on the GOOS Coastal Module. The GOOS mission is to use long term, multi-disciplinary operational ocean monitoring to assess present and forecast future states of seas and oceans in support of their sustainable use; to contribute to the prediction of climate change and variability; and to meet the needs of a wide range of users. He underlined that GOOS is products and services oriented. It has developed four design modules for monitoring, assessment and prediction: climate, coastal, living marine resources, and health of the ocean.
13.1.2. The Coastal Module of GOOS (C-GOOS) aims to promote the design and implementation of end-to-end systems that are responsive to user needs in the Coastal Zone. It concentrates on the effects of human activities and global climate change on ecosystem services and human health in coastal areas, where over 50% of the human population are expected to live by the turn of the century, where living resources are most concentrated, and where inputs from terrestrial, atmospheric and oceanic sources converge. The next meeting of C-GOOS will be held late October 1998 in Brazil. A letter of invitation will be sent to GTOS. It was noted that the establishment of a Joint GTOS/GOOS Panel on Coastal Zone would be useful in developing the terrestrial issues related to coastal areas and to help in defining the social benefits.
13.1.3. Mr. Summerhayes mentioned the support provided by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) to the GOOS Project Office, both in terms of human (four full-time persons) and financial (ca US$ 300.000) resources. GOOS reports directly to the IOC assembly, which then reports to UNESCO council. This intergovernmental mechanism is very useful because it serves to interact with governments and to put pressure on them.
13.1.4. GOOS encourages the formation of national GOOS committees (where representatives of governments are present) and of regional initiatives such as NEAR-GOOS and Euro-GOOS.
13.1.5. The participants were informed that at the National Ocean Conference held in Monterey, California on 11 -12 June 1998, it was announced that an additional US$12 million would be invested through 2002 to place monitoring buoys in the North Atlantic and North Pacific to measure critical ocean data. GOOS was specifically mentioned.
13.2. Global Climate Observing System (GCOS)
13.2.1. Josef Cihlar made a brief presentation on behalf of the Global Climate Observing System, which was not represented at the meeting. GCOS works to ensure that the required observations from atmosphere, ocean, and land surface that relate to the Climate Agenda are addressed through partnerships with research and observing programmes. The final goal should be the delivery of products to the various user communities. The GCOS plans have been published and a number of networks have been established. These include atmospheric components obtained through partnerships with the World Weather Watch and the Global Atmospheric Watch, oceanic components through partnerships with a number of implementation groups and GOOS, and terrestrial components, similarly with a number of collaborators including GTOS.
13.2.2. The currently implemented GCOS Upper-Air Network and the established GCOS Surface Network have received the endorsement of many WMO Members, on the progress of GCOS. The GCOS panels are continuing to develop a strategy on how to encourage additional observations and how to establish new networks, e.g., supporting observations of atmospheric constituents or precipitation measurements.
13.2.3. Mr. Cihlar underlined that the GCOS/GTOS Terrestrial Observation Panel for Climate (TOPC) has identified the set of terrestrial observations required to detect, predict and assess impacts of climate change. Two types of initiatives are planned to acquire data for the required variables-establishment or consolidation of terrestrial networks, and identification and access to existing data sets. With regard to the latter, Panel members have identified over 150 possibilities and are assembling comments on each, describing such things as existing metadata, quality assessments, uses, etc. The Panel has met in May (TOPC IV) to review the data sets and plan next steps, and seeks guidance from JDIMP, specifically with regard to format, standards and metadata requirements. A further question concerns the process or procedures to be followed once a data set has been identified as one, which meets the requirements of the observing systems. At the TOPC IV meeting, the Panel made significant progress on various issues and developed numerous recommendations which are described in other parts of this report.
13.2.4. The Thirds Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN/FCCC) addressed the need for systematic observations as stated in the appropriate articles of the Climate Convention. In particular, the UN/FCCC requested a report on the status of observing networks to support the needs of the Convention. GCOS has agreed to take a lead role in preparing a document for the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) to address this issue. This document will be submitted to COP-4 in Buenos-Aires in November 1998.
13.3. Biodiversity Conservation Information System (BCIS)
13.3.1. John Busby presented the Biodiversity Conservation Information System, which brings together twelve international organizations and networks concerned with the conservation of biodiversity. Its goal is to support environmentally sound decision-making and actions affecting the status of biodiversity and landscapes at local, national, regional and global levels through cooperative provision of data, information, advice and related services.
13.3.2. BCIS is an open partnership that builds on existing resources and expertise. It recognizes the concerns of those who contribute data and information and protects their rights and interests through a "data custodian" model. BCIS complements other biodiversity information initiatives and supports biodiversity-related conventions such as CITES, RAMSAR and World Heritage Convention. It will assist development of environmental assessments by UNEP and the World Resources Institute.
13.3.3. It was mentioned that WCMC (World Conservation Monitoring Centre) has undertaken a feasibility study with the secretariats of five conventions (Biological Diversity, RAMSAR, World Heritage, CITES, Migratory Species) to harmonize their information and data management needs both from the point of view of the conventions and the countries, and to identify commonalities. Ian Crain (Orbis Institute) acted as lead consultant on this and a draft report is now complete.
ACTION: Gwynneth Martin/John Busby to request WCMC to make the draft report on the information needs of the conventions available to the GTOS Secretariat.
13.3.4. John Busby will visit UNESCO (Diversitas and MAB) to assess how BCIS can start a biodiversity module with GTOS. Being more product and user oriented, a collaboration with BCIS would be beneficial for GTOS.
13.4. International Long Term Ecological Research Programme (ILTER)
13.4.1. James Gosz presented the ILTER programme. Its objectives are to: promote and enhance the understanding of long-term ecological phenomena across national and regional boundaries; promote comparative analysis and synthesis across sites; facilitate interaction among participating scientists across disciplines and sites; promote comparability of observations and experiments, integration of research and monitoring, and encourage data exchange; enhance training and education in comparative long-term ecological research and its relevant technologies; contribute to the scientific basis for ecosystem management; facilitate international collaboration among comprehensive, site-based, long-term, ecological research programmes; and facilitate the development of such programs in regions where they currently do not exist.
13.4.2. ILTER aims to involve within-country scientists in the development of LTER and site selection. Fifteen countries are now members of the programme.
13.4.3. The GTSC agreed that national ILTERs should be invited to become members of GT-Net. It was observed that although GTOS and ILTER are both interested in long term research and monitoring, GTOS focuses more on generating global/regional data sets and analysis. GTOS is also more than "ecological monitoring" because it includes also social dimensions.
Recommendation 13: the differences and similarities between GTOS and ILTER should be clearly defined. It is important to clarify the interactions also between GTOS and the other participating networks, explaining what are their respective responsibilities and how they complement each other.
13.5. International Lake Environment Committee (ILEC)
13.5.1. Christopher Magadza presented ILEC, which has a large inventory of data describing the conditions of lakes throughout the world. It aims to promote environmentally sound management of natural and man-made lakes and their environments consistent with sustainable development policies, by promoting international research and by facilitating the exchange of findings and knowledge among the experts around the world. ILEC organizes training seminars on regional developing and lake environment conservation in developing countries and prepare guidelines for lake environment management. It also supports the UNEP International Environmental Technology Centre.
ACTION: GTOS Secretariat to invite ILEC to link its database to TEMS.
13.6. Texas A&M Impact Assessment Group
13.6.1. Neville Clarke, Coordinator of the Texas A&M University Impact Assessment Group (IAG), presented the objectives of the IAG. It was established in 1996 to bring together a group of related research and development activities that assess the impact of policy options and new technology for agriculture and natural resources. A team of experienced senior faculty are developing interactive linkages between economic, environmental, and demographic models to provide an integrated analysis capability. The method includes extensive georeferenced analysis of related basic and foundation data and a spatial characterization tool that provides the capability to link both models and spatially referenced data for integrated analysis at multiple levels of scale.
13.6.2. Texas A&M is extending and expanding these methods for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to provide the ability to conduct impact assessment of new technology and policy options in developing countries. Current research in Kenya and Mali will demonstrate the utility of these methods at local and national levels and contribute to USAID's ability to meet its institutional requirements for impact assessment. This research will be extended to the development of regional and global levels of scale and to other continents.
13.6.3. The GTSC recognized the potential mutual interests of GTOS, USAID and Texas A&M, in a collaboration wherein the modelling and impact assessment methods of the IAG could support the use of data collected by GTOS at both national and global levels. At the same time this would offer Texas A&M the opportunity to create linkages with policy makers in developing countries to use impact assessment methods in evaluating policy options related to agriculture and natural resources. The GTOS demonstration project on Net Primary Productivity may offer significant opportunity for mutual benefit between GTOS and USAID by providing new extensive data on land use and degradation and the possibility of using Texas A&M models in decision-support.
13.6.4. Mr. Clarke mentioned that Texas A&M could consider seconding staff to the GTOS Secretariat under the FAO Academic Exchange Programme. The GTSC agreed that the SC Chairman and the Secretariat should continue discussions with Texas A&M representatives to further explore mutual interests and to come to specific recommendations.
13.7. Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC)
13.7.1. Wolfgang Grabs presented the Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC), which operates under the auspices of WMO and is core funded by the government of Germany in the Federal Institute of Hydrology, Koblenz, Germany. The Centre's principal objectives are to collect and archive discharge data from rivers on a global scale and to make them available to the global scientific community. Dissemination of data is regulated by an explicit data policy based on a free and open access to data for identified users. Principal users of the database are climate modellers, hydrologists and water-related programmes of UN agencies such as UNESCO and UNEP.
13.7.2. Though GRDC by itself is not a network, it routinely collects data from now over 3,600 gauging stations worldwide (mean daily and monthly discharge data). Close linkages exist inter alia with regional components of UNESCO's project Flow Regimes of International and Experimental Network Data (FRIEND), the Global Environment Monitoring System - Water (GEMS/Water) of UNEP and WHO, World Hydrological Cycle Observing System (WMO), the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) of WMO, GCOS, WCRP. In this respect it is noteworthy that GRDC is listed as GEWEX project. GRDC is actively involved in regional and global levels.
13.7.3. Mr. Grabs observed that local hydrological observations, which are the hydrological response from most of the largest drainage basins, and concurrent global coverage offer cross-cutting opportunities for GTOS through tier levels 2-4. An obvious opportunity is the global observing network of GRDC consisting of 174 stations from gauging stations close to the mouth of rivers discharging into the world oceans. Issues such as land-based sources of pollution, coastal pollution, influence of freshwater fluxes on the oceanic thermo-haline circulation are in need for surface water information.
The GTSC made the following recommendation:
Recommendation 14: a GTOS Freshwater Panel should be established in order to explore the potential of hydrological information for GTOS, including the role of GRDC, and to define feasible objectives and deliverables. Such a panel could meet on an ad-hoc basis.
13.8. International Boreal Forest Research Association (IBFRA)
13.8.1. Anatoly Shvidenko briefly presented IBFRA, which consists of six boreal zone countries: Canada, Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States. IBFRA was formed in 1991 to "promote and coordinate research to increase the understanding of the role of the circumpolar boreal forest in the global environment and the influence of resource management and environmental change on that role". The three major areas of interest within IBFRA are the effects of global climate change, monitoring and classification of boreal forests, and biodiversity and forest management.
13.8.2. Mr. Shvidenko underlined that IBFRA could be considered by GTOS for two main reasons: 1) it is an international Association collected comprehensive data on boreal terrestrial biota; and 2) IBFRA is starting to develop a new Integrated Information System which could be extremely valuable for future GTOS activities.
13.8.3. The GTSC noted with interest the work done by IBFRA but concluded that it should not be included in the GT-Net at the present time, because it focuses on data collection rather than on already established data sets.
13.9. Global Observation of Forest Cover (GOFC)
13.9.1. As a contribution to the implementation of an ongoing forest monitoring system, GOFC will produce high quality, multi-resolution, multi-temporal global data sets and derived products of forest cover and attributes, with particular attention to areas of rapid change and fragmentation. The project aims to satisfy multiple user communities in producing a variety of products at different scales, covering the range of forest issues.
13.9.2. The GTSC approved the progress achieved so far and endorsed GOFC as a GTOS/CEOS project. The GTSC agreed that GOFC should be linked to the NPP project and that the TOPC should be responsible for GOFC oversight on behalf of GTOS.
