February 28th 2013

IMBRIW was invited to Lefkosia, Cyprus, at the well organized workshop developed by an Italian EU Life Project headed by Andrea Buffagni (CNR-IRSA).  The Water Development Department (WDD) of Cyprus hosted the event. Obviously such a happening is relevant to progress towards the application of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) on Cyprus. A total of nine technical presentations including work by the Italians, our team from IMBRIW HCMR Greece, and by local Cypriots. Andrea Buffagni and David Armanini showed us some cutting-edge developments that definitely affect policy-relevant river management and conservation in the Mediterranean. It was very kind of the Italians to choose Cyprus as the venue for this excellent technical workshop. Apart from the Italian river research shown, a lot of former work that was presented here has been supported through several contracts with the WDD.  We all learned a lot. The participation from the patient and engrossed audience was stimulating. After the workshop we continued discussion at the Fanous Lebanese Restaurant in the old city. I strongly believe the Cyprus Government should continue to support river research and applications – much of which has produced pioneering work for Mediterranean Europe! Cyprus really could become a great demonstration of “river management best-practice” at this distant edge of Europe.
For more information on the project Life INHABIT “Local hydro-morphology, habitat and RBMPs: New measures to improve ecological quality of south European rivers and lakes”;
 please check: www.life-inhabit.it
Gerald with Deputy Director of the WDD opening the workshop.
WDD has the legal responsibility to manage the waters of Cyprus wisely; so this kind of workshop is introduced by the Deputy Director.

 

This is Gerald Dorflinger, a seasoned potamologist; master-and-commander of the WDD hydrometric databases and more! He outlined the Cyprus’ WFD obligations.

Andrea Buffagni; one of Italy’s most famous potamologists. Nice to meet him again, especially in Cyprus where he has done pioneering work.

David Armanini of the Prothea Group; another Italian with lots of Cyprus experience- he talked about typology etc.
Me, trying to talk about fish in Cyprus’ rivers: we found very few fish !
One of  the HCMR slides showing the distribution of alien fish speceis in 31 researched  river basin areas in Cyprus.

One of the more boring slides I presented.
Skevi Manolaki a river-plant-woman from Cyprus: plants nourish life in rivers…

 

Skevi has done a lot of work on the plants of the rivers – they are biological quality elements too.
Kostas Gritzalis and Gerald organizing the presentations well.
Greek, Italian, and Austrian cooperation in Cyprus. I think the American Apple computer let us down.
One of Andrea’s high-tech graphics – I am sorry I cannot explain it in  just a few words – but it looks great!
Audience: Students, NGO people, Institute scientists, administrators, consultants.
This was an interesting audience and at lunch there was a great Buffet complete with Cypriot “Koupes”.
Some of the audience members are experts in the field and have worked long and hard in water management: So now they hear about the “biology of the rivers”…
Question-time for the science panel was interesting because there were many good questions!
Panel at question-time: Nikos Skoulikidis from HCMR (Greece) lent support.
With Charles Demetriou, Senior Hydrologist at WDD; he asked some difficult questions.
Iakovos Tzortzis, one of Cyprus’ best potamologists with his Italian co-workers.

 

Gerald leads the workshoppers away for some much-needed rest at the end of the meeting.

 

Enjoying wine and beer at the Fanous Lebanese Restaurant.