News / events

CEI KEP Belarus final meeting

The final meeting of the Central Europe Initiative KEP Project (Ref. 1206.006A09) Development of decision support systems for integrated water management in Belarus was held at the University of Trieste, Department of Life Sciences, the 27 – 29 September 2010. The meeting brought together Italian scientists from The University of Trieste and a group of Bielorussian experts from a number of organisations such as Central Research Institute for Complex Use of Water Resources, The Bielorussian State University and The Ministry of Mineral Resources and Environmental Protection. During the meeting the Case Study on Spatial Decision Support System applied to the Lake Naroch has been presented and discussed. The Bielorussian experts made some presentation about environmental problems linked to the water state and management in Belarus. Moreover, they gave a contribution for case study elaboration with the details on the specific questions regarding Naroch lake and further data sets availability. The methodological working document for IWRM in Belarus to be delivered to the Bielorussian Government by the end of the projects was also discussed. A special session of the meeting was dedicated to the discussion and proposals for future collaboration with the intervention of a CEI officer. It was decided to monitor various opportunities for new projects among the programs of CEI and European Union and to establish the frequent contacts between Italian and Bielorussian experts. The meeting has been concluded by field trip to the Grado lagoon and Aquileia archeological site.

Documents	Files
CEI KEP Belarus final meeting agenda

The training course

The training course on Development of Decision Support System for Integrated Water Management organised by The University of Trieste, Italy and the CRICUWR of Minsk, Belarus, was held in Minsk the 2 - 4 June 2010. The course brought together Italian experts on integrated water management and DSS and Bielorussian researchers, industry members and stakeholders in order to explore a range of DSS applications for problem solving in the field of Complex Use of Water Resources.

During the first training course working day, Italian experts gave a number of presentations on DSS theory and application experiences. The session has been concluded with an open discussion on future cooperation possibilities. The second training course day has been dedicated to the field trip to the study area where Bielorussian and Italian experts had a discussion on the main problematic of the area. The third training course day has been dedicated to an Open source GIS & remote sensing software applications. Prof Alfredo Altobelli described an example for the Bielorussian territory using free-off charge geographic information (satellite images, Digital Elevation Models, vector data) for the Naroch area and open source GIS software gvSIG. The session consisted of the presentations, practical exercises and an open discussion on possible open source GIS software applications, free geographic data quality, free geographic data sources etc.

Dissemination of the project knowledge	Article
The "Nastaunizkaja gazeta" by the 22 of July 2010, within the chapter Science has published an article about the training course which gives another possibility for better dissemination of the project knowledge at national level.

Kick-off Meeting

The kick-off meeting of the CEI-KEP project “Development of decision support systems for integrated water management in Belarus” was held at the University of Trieste, Department of Life Sciences (UNITS-DLS), 1-2 March 2010.