Outline of Conference

PWRI co-organized the "International Conference on Advances in Integrated Mekong River Management" from November 24 to 27, 2004 at Lao Plaza Hotel, Vientiane, the Lao People's Democratic Republic as a member of the Japanese Research Revolution 2002 project (RR2002) team. Mr. Yoshitani served on the Scientific Committee of this conference. This conference was aimed at making a consortium and filling the gaps of knowledge and technologies on Mekong river management among those concerned, from a multidimensional viewpoint of scientific and technology. The conference was attended by over 100 people from riparian countries including Yunnan province of China and other countries. Prof. M.L. Kavvas at the University of California gave his keynote lecture on a modeling system for reconstructing development and decay of the Mesopotamia marshland without relying on any hydro-meteorological ground data. This modeling system is a product of UC Davis and PWRI joint research (reference: ASCE Journal of Hydrologic Engineering, November/December 2004). As a session of the conference, forum discussion focused on the importance of interpretation between scientists as model developers and government engineers who would use a model as decision support. CHARM is expected to serve as bridge between the two through capabilities of research, training, and information networking.