OSCE supports regional summer school on sustainable water governance for young water specialists in Almaty

Innovative methods and tools for analysing and monitoring water and land resources in Central Asia were the focus of an eleven-day OSCE-supported annual summer school which concluded on 22 June 2018 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Some 25 Master and PhD students as well as junior university teachers and researchers from the Central Asian countries and Afghanistan took part.

Organized by the OSCE Programme Office in Astana in partnership with the German-Kazakh University and the Regional Research Network Central Asian Water, the programme has been implemented for the fifth consecutive year.

During the training modules, participants were familiarized with the principles of geographic information systems (GIS), monitoring practices of land and water resources, climate data analysis and the principles of glaciology.

An OSCE-supported national expert from Kazakhstan’s national space agency delivered a presentation on using remote sensing software and provided practical examples of interpreting satellite imagery to monitor environmental factors.

The German-Kazakh University has been implementing the summer school programmes since 2014 as part of the regional Berlin Process initiative launched by the German Federal Foreign Office in 2008.  The event is a follow-up to the Programme Office's earlier activities aimed at promoting sustainable water governance.