7 April 2017 | SADC-GMI
Joint SADC-GMI / UNESCO-IHP Groundwater Modelling Training Held at Johannesburg from 20 - 22 March 2017
The SADC Groundwater Management Institute and the UNESCO International Hydrological Programme (IHP) conducted the 3-day training program on groundwater modelling and data management.
The aim of the training program was to build capacity of SADC countries’ experts in groundwater modelling including surface water-ground water interaction.
The groundwater modelling course was delivered by eminent experts from the Sant’Anna University (Italy) and it covered modules on groundwater modelling using the FREEWAT platform (www.freewat.eu). The FREEWAT platform is an open source and public domain GIS integrated modelling environment for the simulation of water quantity and quality in surface water and groundwater with an integrated water management and planning module. It integrates several existing free software modules (e.g. QGIS, MODFLOW, MT3DMS) in one single and user-friendly GIS environment.
The training program also included a module on data management on the UNESCO Water Information Network System (WINS) (http://en.unesco.org/ihp-wins).
Quotes from the some participants:
“…the training was wonderful and I learned a lot from the group that I was trained with and the trainers / lectures were willing to assist and were very helpful”, Ms Christinah Makoae (Department of Water Affairs-Lesotho)
“It was a worthwhile opportunity and I have learnt a lot through that training. Modelling seems to be not very difficult as I thought,…. The training opened my eyes to what softwares can do as far as groundwater modelling is concerned”, Mr. Percy Mugwangwavari, (Ministry of Energy, Water and Climate-Zimbabwe)