At the beginning of June 2025, UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (IHP) celebrated its 50th anniversary. In addition, UNESCO has now been active in hydrological science for 60 years. The two anniversaries were celebrated from 11 to 13 June with a ceremony at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.
The IHP is one of the United Nations’ most important intergovernmental water research programmes and ensures that essential data and knowledge for the global community is not lost. The celebrations therefore focused on global networking for data and knowledge exchange and the joint search for solutions to the global water crisis.
Since the inception of IHP, the German Secretariat has been located in Koblenz, first at the Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG) and now, since 2014, on the premises of ICWRGC, which underscores our strong connection to IHP.
ICRGC delegation on stage at the UNESCO IHP anniversary.
Harald Köthe presenting his award for long lasting contributions to UNESCO IHP.
Dr. Johannes Cullmann of BfG giving a talk at the UNESCO IHP anniversary.
Group picture of members of ICWRGC with Prof. Mariele Evers and Prof. Lars Ribbe in front of the Eifel tower.
ICWRGC was therefore also part of the German delegation in Paris, alongside representatives of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, the German UNESCO Commission and BfG. The delegation also included the two holders of German UNESCO water chairs, Prof. Dr. Mariele Evers from the University of Bonn and Prof. Dr. Heribert Nacken from RWTH Aachen University.
The event included a series of panel discussions, expert meetings and cultural contributions on the current state of water sciences and future developments. The ICWRGC delegation was particularly impressed by the participation and enthusiasm of a global youth delegation, in which Prof. Evers’ students also played a key role.
For the official German side event, ICWRGC and Prof. Nacken, with the support of the German Hydrological Society and the Scientific Advisory Board of the German National Committee for Paris, developed a virtual tour that guides visitors through the history of German contributions to the IHP. These include events of international significance such as the early groundwork for the standardisation of hydrological maps and, building on this, the Hydrological Atlas of Germany in the 1970s, or the development of hydrology under the IHP into interdisciplinary fields such as ecohydrology in the 1990s and 2000s. The tour was well received in Paris and will also be presented at the upcoming Day of Hydrology in Kassel in March 2026. Further contributions to the tour can still be submitted by email to ICWRGC.
In addition, ICWRGC also contributed to open education, UNESCO’s Global Water Education Network (GWEN), open science and open data, and the centre’s cooperation on the development of a tool for global drought prediction. Dr Johannes Cullmann, Head of International Networking at BfG, also highlighted in a panel discussion how important globally uniform data standards are for providing information for decision-making. During the event, both the current head of ICWRGC, Harald Köthe, and Johannes Cullmann were honoured for their long-standing contributions to IHP.
Female avatar standing in the entry hall of the virtual tour on german IHP contributions that was developed by RWTH Aachen and ICWRGC.
Group pictures of members of ICWRGC and BfG, representatives of RWTH Aachen and the German Unesco Commission.
A student from RWTH Aachen is guiding a guest during a virtual reality experience.
