Agenda of the Asia Water Cycle Initiative (AWCI) International Task Team (ITT) Working
SessionMonday 25 September 2006
Rama Gardens Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand

The Asia Water Cycle Initiative had been proposed in recognition of the need for accurate,
timely, long-term, water cycle information as a basis for sound and effective water resources
and risk management in the Asian region and formally introduced at the Asia Water Cycle
Symposium held in Tokyo, 2 - 4 November 2005. One of the outcomes of this Symposium
was the establishing of the International Task Team as a leading body of the Asia Water Cycle
Initiative that include scientists, application representatives and data management experts
from participating countries.
As part of the Asia Water Cycle Initiative, the ITT working session is organized by theUniversity of Tokyo and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and includes thesupport of Asia Institute of Technology.
The ITT working session will provide the participants an opportunity to communicate theexisting capabilities of individual countries in terms of data access and tools for data
integration and information fusion for application to address the water resources management
issues. The goal of this working session is to identify possible strategy for cooperation
through existing national or international projects and outline the next steps that need to beundertaken. This session has been intentionally scheduled at the eve of the capacity building
workshop Earth Observations in the Service of Water Management as the workshop focus isclosely related to the Asia Water Cycle Initiative interests.
The regional workshop is part of the capacity building activities framework of the Integrated
Global Water Cycle Observations theme (IGWCO) which in turn is an important part of theIntegrated Global Observing Strategy Partnership (IGOS-P). The Group on EarthObservations (GEO) also endorses this workshop as one of the GEO 2006 Work Plan Tasks.
Organized by the IGWCO, JAXA, and the University of Tokyo, the workshop includes thesupport of Asia Institute of Technology (AIT).
This workshop will offer Asian water management decision-makers an overview of theexisting Earth observation programs, their applications, and opportunities for data access.
Toward this end, the program will include presentations from agencies that generate thesedata, as well as presentations on projects relating to application of Earth observation data forwater management either at locations in the region or being successfully carried out in otherparts of the world, with technologies that could be applied in the region. In addition, theworkshop will also have working groups with special emphasis on three areas: flooding;drought; and, water quality. The goal of the workshop is to identify the potentials of Earthobservation and needs for information in real-world applications in the region.

Monday 25 September 2006
08:00 – 08:30

Registration

08:30 – 09:00

Welcome Remarks, ITT members introduction

09:00 – 10:00

Introduction to the Asia Water Cycle Initiative and the International Integrated
Water Data Access and Transfer in Asia (Toshio Koike)--------------------------------10:00 – 10:30 BREAK--------------------------------10:30 – 12:00

Country reports based on the questionnaire – 5 minutes for each country--------------------------------12:00 – 13:30 LUNCH--------------------------------13:30 – 14:30

Discussion – part 1: Demonstration project--------------------------------14:30 – 14:45 BREAK--------------------------------14:45 – 15:45

Discussion – part 2: Data policy--------------------------------15:45 – 16:00 BREAK--------------------------------16:00 – 17:00

Discussion – part 3: Inventory of available observations and data--------------------------------17:00 – 17:30 BREAK--------------------------------17:30 – 18:30

Summary discussion – basis for the AWCI Implementation Plan--------------------------------18:30
ADJOURN---------------------------------

We suppose that during the following three days of the Capacity Building Workshop, there will
be opportunities to further discuss the above issues and thus provide sufficient basis for thedraft proposal of the core of the Implementation Plan that should be thence discussed inindividual participating countries.