About us

  • Overall Objective of Centre

    Establishment, development and regular update of international database on hydrological regime of lakes and reservoirs in order

    • to stimulate the development of the global monitoring system on lakes and reservoirs for rational use, preservation and management of their water resources;

    • to improve the knowledge of lateral fluxes transformation within lakes and reservoirs;

    • to supply data for scientific and educational purposes, modelling, development of different global and regional projects/programmes.

  • Specific long-term objectives

    • To develop standard procedures for collection and processing of comparable basic data on lakes and reservoirs of the earth based on the international experience (Annex).

    • To review the state and changes of the largest lakes and reservoirs water resources under the impact of climatic and human factors periodically.

    • To review the state and changes of water resources of lakes districts of the world under natural and human factors.

    • To promote adequate lakes and reservoirs hydrology monitoring systems, including collection, processing and dissemination of hydrological data as a part of sustainable resource management and protection strategies.

    • To increase public awareness of lakes and reservoirs as a multi-functional resource, and the strategic importance of water bodies.

  • Functions of the Centre

    The Centre will operate under the auspices of WMO and a detailed protocol, which will be developed by an International Steering Committee of the Centre and agreed by WMO. It is anticipated that other UN organizations with responsibilities in freshwater matters such as UNESCO and UNEP will also, amongst others be represented in the Steering Committee for HYDROLARE.

    In particular, the centre will:

    • contribute important information for decision-making on regional and global scales concerning water resources of inland lakes and reservoirs;

    • improve of data collection, processing, analysis and monitoring;

    • assist WMO member countries in the analysis and improving monitoring systems on lakes and reservoirs;

    • support the exchange of information;

    • the centre should function on the basis of free of charge dissemination of information (used for non-commercial purposes) for governmental, scientific, educational, projecting, public and commercial institutions