On 1 October 2025, the German National Committee for the UN Water programmes UNESCO-IHP (Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme) and WMO-HWRP (Hydrology and Water Resources Programme) convened at Germany’s Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG) in Koblenz. The meeting was led by the Federal Foreign Office, with Holger Klitzing, new head of the Climate & Security Division, making his debut as chair. He was supported by Stephan Dietrich, Deputy Director of the National Committee’s secretariat and ICWRGC. The event brought together 20 participants from German government departments, the LAWA (joint German working group on water issues of the federal states and the Federal Government) and academics including the Chair of ICWRGC’s Scientific Advisory Board, Prof. Lars Ribbe.
Group picture of the National Committee for the UN Water programmes at their annual meeting 2025 at the Federal Institute for Hydrology in Koblenz, Germany.
The agenda centred around two key themes: “Networking to enhance coherence from research through to operationalisation” and “Sharing water data and information”. The latter also featured as one of the priorities highlighted in this year’s WMO State of Global Water Resources Report which draws on key inputs from German experts: Four global data centres based in Germany (GWDC, ISMN, GRDC and GPCC), along with the scientific hydrological community, made pivotal monitoring contributions to the report in order to help establish a systematic approach to observing the global water resources and deepen understanding of ongoing changes, based on in situ data, remote-sensing information and computer models alike. ICWRGC outlined its role in implementing the “UN System-wide Strategy for Water Sanitation“, pointing out the Centre’s close collaboration with UNESCO, WMO and UNEP in water observation. Participants also exchanged ideas on the Committee’s involvement in the 2026 UN Water Conference.
At this year’s meeting, the National Committee defined the following priorities for 2026:
- Over the upcoming two-year cycle of UNESCO-IHP (2026-27), ICWRGC will serve as secretariat for UNESCO’s International Initiative on Water Quality (IIWQ). One key objective set by ICWRGC for this period is to promote the complementary use of in situ and remote sensing data, with more targeted engagement of international associations in the fields of hydrology and geosciences.
- Holding an international data workshop at ICWRGC and BfG in June 2026, contributing to Output 3.3 of UNESCO’s IHP-IX Strategy and to WMO’s “Plan of Action for Hydrology“.
- Supporting initial research activities in glacier hydrology, contributing to the UN “Decade of Action for Cryospheric Sciences (2025-2034)“.
- Promoting a Summer School on global hydrological modelling at Johannes-Gutenberg-University Mainz.
The National Committee also endorsed a review of ICWRGC’s medium-term development prospects. To support this, the Centre was asked to set out possible options as part of the forthcoming evaluation and to prepare them in a form suitable to inform subsequent decision-making. One key approach could be to advocate enhancing the data products of the global data centres by integrating global models.
In addition, the National Committee agreed to continue developing a framework for better coordination of international water-related activities, with particular emphasis on specifying and strengthening Germany’s contributions to data and knowledge management in support of a sustainable water management. An important piece in the puzzle for fostering innovation will be the future collaboration with the German Water Partnership network. The National Committee instructed the Scientific Advisory Board and ICWRGC to work out an underlying concept to be presented at the next meeting.
