International Data Centre
on Hydrology
of Lakes and Reservoirs

Seventh Meeting of the Steering Committee

The seventh HYDROLARE Steering Committee meeting was organized by FSBI "SHI" in the format of a video conference and was held on October 27, 2021 (due to the coronavirus pandemic in 2019, the SCC meeting was not held ). The meeting was attended by the representatives of WMO, GTN-H, GRDC and LEGOS. The main objective of the meeting was to inform the Steering Committee on the progress made by the Centre over the past four years as well as to discuss the future activity and agree on the planned actions. Participants were informed by representatives of the Centre (V.S. Vuglinsky, E.I. Kuprienok, L.N. Barinova) on the status of the database and data collection, development of the IT-infrastructure, data products and core HYDROLARE activities. A representative of WMO, D. Berod (Switzerland) made a presentation on the development of new hydrological structures as part of the restructuring of WMO, its objectives and prospects for international cooperation in hydrology. He emphasized the important role of global hydrological centers in the implementation of the WMO hydrological program. The representative of the Federal Institute of Hydrology, Thomas Recknagel (Germany), made a presentation on the development of the network of global hydrological data centers of the GTN-H project (Global Observing Network - Hydrology). GRDC director U. Looser (Germany) spoke about the current status of the Global Runoff Data Center and the prospects for its activities. The Deputy Director of the LEGOS Laboratory J.-F. Crétaux (France) described the activities of the laboratory in monitoring lake levels using satellite altimetry data. He also reported on the results of a joint work with the Center on the correction of Russian lake level satellite data using ground-based observations provided by HYDROLARE. The presentations were followed by a general discussion on various aspects of HYDROLARE's activities and agreement was reached on the main directions for the future development of the Centre for 2021-2023.

Sixth Meeting of the Steering Committee

The 6^th HYDROLARE Steering Committee Meeting was held in Saint-Petersburg, Russia from 18^th to 20^th July 2017. The meeting was attended by the representatives of WMO, GTN-H, GRDC and LEGOS. The main objective of the meeting was to inform the Steering Committee on the progress made by the centre over the past two years as well as to discuss the future activity and agree on the planned actions. Participants were informed on the status of the database and data collection, development of the IT-infrastructure, data products and core HYDROLARE activities. The meeting also focused on the recent decisions of the WMO Congress, EC and the CHy. Participants broadly discussed the emerging role of the global hydrological data centres and shared views and opinions on the ways to link existing data centres in support of integrated observations of the global water cycle.

Visit of the LEGOS representative to HYDROLARE

Dr. Jean-Francois Crétaux - the representative of the Laboratory for Studies in Geophysics and Spatial Oceanography (LEGOS), French partner of HYDROLARE, had a short working visit to HYDROLARE in February 2016. He took part in short meeting with representatives of HYDROLARE where results of current bilateral cooperation, progress against the milestones of Fifth Meeting of the HYDROLARE Steering Committee and perspectives of future cooperation were discussed. He also presented the new Hydroweb website and handed over a new portion of satellite data.

Fifth Meeting of the Steering Committee

Fifth Meeting of the International Steering Committee for HYDROLARE was held from 29 September to 1 October 2015 at the SHI, St. Petersburg. The meeting was attended by representatives of WMO, GCOS, LEGOS/CNES, ILEC, Roshydromet and the staff of the centre. The objectives of the Meeting were to discuss progress of various activities of the Centre and implementation of milestones agreed at the previous meeting, to agree future plans of HYDROLARE activity. Participants highly appreciated the progress made in the reporting period. The meeting agreed on a work plan for 2015-2017. (More in Newsletter #6)

International Workshop on Monitoring of Large Lakes and Reservoirs of the World

International Workshop on monitoring of large lakes and reservoirs of the world was organized and held by HYDROLARE as a side event during the 15^th World Lake Conference (1-5 September 2014, Perugia, Italy). The conference was organized by the International Lake Environment Foundation (ILEC, Japan). Participants discussed issues related to collection, processing, storage and delivery of hydrological monitoring data. These data provide a backbone for studies of hydrological regime, water balance, global water cycle, as well as for maintaining environmental balance and efficient use of lakes and reservoirs. (More in Newsletter #4)

Fourth Meeting of the Steering Committee

Fourth meeting of the International Steering Committee for HYDROLARE was held in SHI, St. Petersburg from 24^th to 26^th September 2013. The meeting was attended by members of the Steering Committee from WMO, GCOS, Legos/CNES, ILEC and a representative of Roshydromet. The Committee highly appreciated significant progress made in the reporting period. Among main achievements participants noted substantial update of the database, introduction of an updated technology for displaying information about database content on the website and progress in HYDROLARE-LEGOS cooperation. The representative of Roshydromet Dr. A. Gusev provided information on the prospects of integration of HYDROLARE in the WMO Information System (WIS) as a Data Collection or Production Centre (DCPC). Participants acknowledged the planned international workshop on monitoring of lakes and reservoirs under the umbrella of the upcoming 15^th World Lake Conference to be held in September 2014 in Perugia, Italy. At the end of the meeting participants adopted a new list of actions for HYDROLARE until 2015.

Third meeting

The third meeting of the Steering Committee of HYDROLARE took place at the State Hydrological Institute (SHI) in St. Petersburg on 5–7 July 2011 with the participation of the representatives of WMO, GRDC, ILEC, GCOS and LEGOS/CNES. The meeting reviewed progress against activities agreed at SC-II in July 2009. The Committee noted substantial progress in development of the HYDROLARE database, data retrieval system for displaying information about database content on the Website and preparation of the HYDROLARE information product. List of activities until December 2012 was adopted. Report on the SC-III will be available on the HYDROLARE Website in September 2011.

The visit to GRDC

In accordance with the recommendation of the Second HYDROLARE International Steering Committee meeting (15–17 July 2009) HYDROLARE – GRDC Workshop took place in GRDC, Koblenz, Germany from 15^th to 18^th June 2010. During the meeting parties informed each other about their current activities. The issues of mutual interest were discussed: database support and development, technological and methodological solutions, website maintenance, data receiving and providing, preparation of the information products etc. The visit to GRDC was very useful for the HYDROLARE development. After the meeting parties exchanged electronic information materials with each other.

Second meeting

The second meeting of the International HYDROLARE Steering Committee to be held at the State Hydrological Institute – SHI (St. Petersburg, Russia) from 15^th to 17^th July, 2009. The International Data Centre on the Hydrology of Lakes and Reservoirs (HYDROLARE) has been established at the SHI in St. Petersburg, in accordance with the initiative of the Russian Federal Service of Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (ROSHYDROMET) under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).