Other

Meetings/Conference/Workshops
Events
MENRIS Visits
Visitors at MENRIS
Staff news

ESRI USER Conference

Basanta Shrestha and Pradeep Mool attended the ESRI User conference, a largest gathering of GIS professionals in the world with more than 11,000 participants, in San Diego. This year’s too, participation in the International ESRI User Conference and the opportunity to present a brief remark in the keynote plenary with Mr. Peter Hillary on the occasion of 50th anniversary of Mount Everest ascent has provided further visibility of ICIMOD GIS programme. During their trip they had discussions with EROS Data Centre and UN GIS Centre for acquisition and exchange of data for the HKH region and visited other institutions that are relevant to IKM - MENRIS activities in the United States.

IFAD Workshop

Basanta Shrestha and Sudip Pradhan attended the IFAD Programme Coordinators Review and Planning Workshop in Kathmandu on 1 July. Mr. Shrestha presented his paper on Community GIS which highlighted the Potential of infusing Conventional GIS system with Community based GIS for macro planning. Mr. Pradhan presented on ISNAR Case Study and relevance of using MASIF.

Seminar on Trends in Remote Sensing and GIS Nepal perspective

The entire MENRIS staffs attended a seminar on trends in remote sensing and GIS - Nepal Perspective, organised by NASDA Japan and GAC-AIT Thailand in collaboration with Purbanchal University, South Asian Institute of Technology, AITA Nepal and NSGIS on 7 August in Kathmandu. During the forum, Basanta Shrestha presented a paper on status GIS/RS of the HKH region.

SAR Workshop

Lokap Rajbhandari participated in the Training Program on SAR Data Potential and Application from 21 July till 1 August at Asian Institute of Technology, AIT Bangkok.

Participatory Three Dimensional Modelling (P3-DM) Training

Participatory Three Dimensional Modelling (P3-DM) Training was conducted from 23 to 30 September at ICIMOD Training Centre in Godavari. 3D Model is helpful to communicate with communities who do not know about maps and GIS. There were all together 46 participants, where 24 participants from different village community groups and 22 participants from different organizations nationally and internationally with resource persons. The Training was coordinated by IFAD Programme, ICIMOD.

Information about the P3-DM is as follows:

Location

Godawari and Tripeni Area

Watersheds

Godawari and Manedobhan (including Phulchoki Peak)

Elevation ranges

1455 m. to 2765 m.

Area covered

26 Sqkm. (on the ground)

Scale

1:2,500

Model Size

6’ x 8’

EVENTS

National Stakeholders Consultation

Birendra Bajracharya attended “The National Stakeholders Consultation on Planning and Improvement of Corridors between Protected Areas within Khanchendzonga Landscape" from 7 to 10 July, in Darjeeling, India organized by Natural Resource Management Program/ICIMOD.

Wet deposition monitoring training programme and refresher course

A centralized training programme to build the national capacity was held from 4 to 9 August in New Delhi. One participant from IAAS and one from DHM attended the training. The major objective of the training was to provide hands-on experience on analysis of transboundary pollutants in the rainwater (wet deposition) and discuss the issues encountered in operating the monitoring site.

Bhutan Training

Six member team from Bhutan were in MENRIS from 25 August for two weeks training on BASIF. They were later joined by Mr. Peter Kurt Hansen, Danida Land Use Advisor from the Ministry of Agriculture, Bhutan from 28 August till 4 September.

MENRIS VISITS

Walter Immerzeel attended a workshop organised by IWMI for the preparation of a full research proposal for the Challenge “Water for Food” program for which the concept note written by ICIMOD has been selected.

Sudip visited Palampur from 9 till 17 August in relation to extension of MASSIF project for HP, India in collaboration with CSKHPAU.

VISITORS AT MENRIS

Visitors from WinRock International, Kathmandu Mr. Johathan Brooks, Program Assistant, Dr. Binod Sharma, Coordinator and Ms Allison Brown, Horticulturist, visited MENRIS on 1 July 2003. They want to buy GIS Data from MENRIS as they plan to setup a GIS Lab in their organization and want to run their programme using GIS Application for 7 districts in Nepal.

Prof. Barry Haack was in MENRIS from 13 July till 8 August 2003 on his second visit as a visiting professor. He held discussions in MENRIS about ongoing project works and future collaborations, mainly in remote sensing aspects. He has planned his third visit in January 2004.

Ms. A Sezin Tokar, Ms. Mariza Rogers and Mr. Wiliam Berger from USAID/OFDA visited MENRIS on 14 July. They were attending the meeting on the project “Regional Cooperation in Flood Forecasting and Information Exchange” in ICIMOD.

Mr. Martin Rice, Programme Manager of APN visited ICIMOD from 6 August to 9 August. He had interactions with the participants of the APN GLOF workshop and with MENRIS staff.

The new Country Director of SDC Mr. Jörg Frieden visited MENRIS on 15 August.

Jan De Leeuw from ITC Netherlands visited MENRIS and discussed about the Regional Resource Centre for Wetland Conservation and Management in the HKH region.

On 31 August the participants of the wetland conservation workshop visited MENRIS for a tour.

STAFF NEWS

Mr. Andrew Inglis finished his term with MENRIS/ICIMOD on July 2003. Mr. Rajesh Thapa left for Bergen University on 1 August to do his Mphil. in Mountain ecology and human adaptation.