1. ACTIVITIES UNDERTAKEN IN THE PERIOD SEPTEMBER 1996 - MAY 1998 1.1 Meetings of the IHP National Committee
1.1.1 Decisions regarding the composition of the IHP National Committee
The Polish Academy of Sciences has established the Committee for International Hydrological Programmes. It is presently composed of 18 members representing various international water-related programmes and organizations, such as Baltex, IAHS, IAHR, ICID, IGBP-BAHC, UNESCO IHP, OHP/WMO, WCP-Water and SCOWAR. There is neither a UNESCO IHP National Committee nor a separate budget to cover operational costs for the IHP or other international programmes in the country. Professor Dr Z. Kaczmarek is the Chairman of the Committee while Professor Dr W.G. Strupczewski is responsible for contacts with UNESCO IHP. The Committee convened approximately twice a year discussing various issues of our contribution to the international programmes, while informal meetings and other forms of contacts are very frequent..
1.1.2 Status of IHP-IV activities
Poland participated in two Projects of IHP-IV, i.e. H-5.5 and M-3.4. The final report of IHP-IV Project M-3.4 “Flood plain pollution control management of the rivers Vistula (Poland) and Main (Germany)”
has been completed and published by the German National Committee. All further activities have been shifted to Projects 1.1 and 2.3 of IHP-V.
1.1.3 Decisions regarding contribution to/participation in MP-V
In order to carry out a research project financial support is indispensable. It usually comes from the Committee of Scientific Research, which is a Governmental body. Because of the numerous international programmes, willingness of participation in such programme dbes not give any special preference for the project to be funded. Therefore, in succeeding in getting a grant its owner can consider benefits from contribution in an international project and compare them with additional bureaucracy caused by the participation. The usual expectations are increased research ability, exchange of knowledge and information, personal contacts and scientific competition.
Poland has declared its willingness to contribute to five projects of IHP-V, i.e.:
Project 1.1 - the team led by Professor Dr U. Soczynska (Department of Geography and Regional Studies, Warsaw University), continuation;
Project 1.4 - the team of Professor Dr W.G. Strupczewski (Water Resources Department, Institute of Geophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw);
Project 2.3-4 - the team of Professor Dr Z. Mikulski (former Chairman of National IHP-UNESCO .Committee, Department of Geography and Regional Studies, Warsaw University) -
continuation, and five teams led by Professor Dr M. Zalewski working in ecohydrology (Department of Applied Ecology, University of Lodz);
Project 4.3 - Dr J. Napibrkowski with his research team (Water Resources Department, Institute of Geophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw);
Project 7.1 - Dr J. Zelazinski (Institute of Meteorology and Water Management, Warsaw).
It is quite an ambitious purpose taking into account the financial constraints facing scientific activity, which make scientific careers less attractive than ever before. Despite that we have managed to enable outstanding Polish hydrologists to participate in IHP-V and work on all the above-mentioned projects
is in progress. Although the Programme is already approaching half of the Vth Phase, co-operation in participation in the UNESCO IHP. Furthermore, while distributing funds, UNESCO IHP shall take into consideration the financial.problems facing scientific activities in Central European countries.
A positive example of co-operation is provided by Project 2.3-4, where six of our teams participate, whereas there was only one in the previous phase. The co-ordination of activities started after one year of stagnation, with the idea of linking the MAB/IHP Ecotones Project with Theme 2 of IHP-V:
the conceptual background as well as the rational and scientific guidelines were formulated by the core group of IHP and MAB (Warsaw, October 1996);
in order to launch the project activities, an International Symposium on Ecohydrology was organized (Dienten, Austria, May 1997), where the regional co-ordinators and persons invited presented concepts, working hypotheses, and the network of Pilot Projects was set up;
the International Workshop on Ecohydrology (Lodz, May 1998) was organized, attended by 1.2.1 National/local scientific and technical meetings
German-Polish Workshop on progress in Project 2.3 - Interactions between river systems, flood plains and wetlands. Fieldwork in the Vistula floodplain studies area (20-27 October 1996, Murzynowo near Plock);
German-Polish field work in the area of the Vistula river floodplain (Project 2.3). Review of the manuscripts and preparation for publishing of the project proceedings in a special volume of the German Hydrological Institute in Koblenz.
1.2.2 Participation in IHP Steering Committees/Working Groups
Professor Dr M. Zalewski (University of Lodz) is a member of the Steering Committee of Second International Conference on Climate and Water, Espoo, Finland.
Docent Dr J.J. Napidrkowski (Institute of Geophysics, Polish Academy of Science) is a member of the Working Group of Project 4.3 (since June 1996). The Working Group has not yet met.
The work of Dr Napidrkowski and his associates on theoretical and computational problems of Project 4.3 is well advanced. Several papers on international symposiums have been presented.
1.2.3 Research/applied projects supported or sponsored
Research project “Hydrological design in non-stationary conditions” - grant of the Committee of Scientific Research (1994-1996) given to W.G. Strupczewski. The project related to IHP-V Project 1.4.
There were some other grants, not reported here, related to activities in IHP-V Projects I. 1, 2.3-4, 4.3 and 7.1.
1.2.4 Collaboration with other national and international organizations/programmes
On the level of the National Committee close co-operation takes place between the programmes represented in the Committee, i.e. Baltex, IAHS, IAHR, ICID, IGBP-BAHC, UNESCO IHP, OHP/WMO. WCP-Water and SCOWAR.
1.2.5 Other initiatives
1.3 Educational and training courses 1.3.1 Contribution to IHP courses Non-relevant.
1.3.2 Organization of specific courses
Summer schools of hydrology, hydraulics and water resources management are organized every year by the Committee of Water Management of the Polish Academy of Sciences. However, due to a lack of funds, the Committee for International Hydrological Programmes does not sponsor them.
1.3.3 Participation in IHP courses Non-relevant.
1.4 Publications
There are number of papers reporting progress of our work on projects, published in books such as e.g.
Integrated Approach to Environmental Data Management Systems, N.B. Harmanciouglu et al. (eds), Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997, proceedings of conferences mentioned in section 1.5 and journals.
Brief reports from every session of the Intergovernmental Council are published in the Polish Geophysical Review (Przeglad GeoJzyczny).
1.5 Participation in international scientific meetings 1.5.1 Meetings hosted by the country
(1) The core group of IHP and MAB meeting (Warsaw, October 1996) Project 2.3-4. Discussion on the conceptual background and working hypotheses of ecohydrology - new paradigm for the sustainable use of aquatic resources. Results have been published in “Ecohydrology - A new paradigm for the sustainable use of aquatic resources” Ed.: M. Zalewski, G.A. Janauer, G. Jolankai, IHP-V, Technical Documents in Hydrology, No. 7;
(2) International Workshop on Ecohydrology (Lodz, May 1998) Project 2.3-4. Participants:
M. Zalewski with associates, A. Magnuszewski, S. Zober.
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1.5.2 Participation in meetings abroad Project 1.1
1. Scientific Conference and FRIEND Steering Committee Meeting, Paris, UNESCO 14-16 September 1996. Participant: Prof. Urszula Soczynska;
2. Flood Group Meeting, Izera Mountains, Czech Republic, 14-16 September 1996. Participant:
Urszula Somorowska;
3. FRIEND Project, Low Flows Group Meeting, 29 October - 3 November 1996, Technical University of Istanbul. Participant: Elzbieta Kupczyk;
4. International Conference on Regionalization in Hydrology (organized by IHP Nat. Corn. of Germany), Braunschweig IO-14 March 1997. Participants: Elzbieta Kupczyk, Roman Suligowski;
5. International FRIEND Conference on Regional Hydrology, Postojna (Slovenia), 30 September 1 4 October 1997. Participants: Elzbieta Kupczyk, Urszula Soczyoska, Roman Suligowski, Wojciech Pokojski, Wojciech Jakubowski.
Project 1.4
Papers presented on:
1. NATO/ARW Integrated Approach to Environmental Data Management Systems (Izmir, September 1996). Participant: W.G. Strupczewski;
2. IUGG XXII General Assembly (Vienna, April 1997). Participant: W.G. Strupczewski, W. Feluch;
3. Workshop of ICSU/IGBP (Warsaw, December 1997). Participants: H.T. Mitosek, W.G. Strupczewski, W. Feluch;
Project 2.3-4 Papers presented on:
1. International Symposium on Ecohydrology (Dienten, Austria, May 1997). Participant:
M. Zalewski;
2. USA 4th International Symposium on Environmental Geochemistry (Vail, Colorado, 4-7 October 1997). Participants: S. Zober, A. Magnuszewski.
.Projects 4.3 and 7.1
Participation in symposiums and conferences which were not organized or sponsored by IHP.
1.6 Other activities at a regional level 1.6.1 Institutional relations/co-operation
1.6.2 Completed and ongoing scientific projects See Section 1.1.3.
The methodological part of our contribution to Project 1.4 is highly advanced. Statistical parametric techniques of time-trend investigation have been developed in respect to flood frequency analysis.
Dealing with non-stationary hydrological conditions, it is necessary to build the trend into flood frequency analysis and hydrological design. It is implemented by the Identification of Distribution and Trend soft package, which enables an optimum non-stationary flood frequency model to be identified in a class of 56 competing models. The Maximum Likelihood method is used to estimate model parameters from a time series and the Akaike Information Criterion goodness-of-tit test to identify an optimum model, i.e. of distribution and trend functions. A trend can be assumed in the first two moments of a probability distribution function and it can be either of linear or parabolic form.
To deal with the trend in the two first moments, the Least Squares method has been generalized to the situation where the assumption of constant variance does not hold and the functional form of a trend in variance is given. Its generalization is the Weighted Least Squares method where the parameters of trend in the mean and variance are to be estimated simultaneously. To keep the weights as the power function of variances only, the restrictions on distribution functions have been formulated, which, in fact, are not rigorous for hydrological studies. It has been shown that the WLS method coincides with the Maximum Likelihood method in the case of normal distribution.
The partial results of contribution to Project 2.3-4 have been presented at international conferences (see 1.5), i.e.:
S. Zober, A. Magnuszewski, 1997, Hydrological explanation of the heavy metals concentration in Wyszogrod Island (the Vistula, near Plock);
A. Magnuszewski, 1997, Ground truth versus GIS model - the ground water quality of the Vistula river floodplain near the city of Plock (Poland);
W.L.F. Brinkmann, A. Magnuszewski, S. Zober, 1998, River floodplain structure and function (Vistula River case study).
2. FUTURE ACTIVITIES
2.1 Activities foreseen until December 1999
Operational activity is likely to be limited by the lack of funds while intensity of work depends on getting research grants. The task of getting free and easy access to Polish hydrometeorological data is crucial for the performance of all the projects.
Project 2.3. A German-Polish workshop and fieldwork are planned in October 1998 and 1999.
Project 1.4. Participation in the Second International Conference on Climate and Water, Espoo, Finland (August 1998). Three papers will be presented.
Depending on the financial situation, some new projects are likely to be undertaken.
2.2 Activities envisaged in the long term Nil respond.
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