International Short Course on River Basin Management and Flood Risk Management

Having started scientific and cultural cooperation with the Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences since around one decade; holding summer academies, students exchange and excursions. Cooperating with Ostfalia had another achievement for us that the “International Short Course on River Basin Management and Flood Risk Management” took place at Sari Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University from 12-21 February 2019. Actually this short course in River Engineering presented according to European countries framework for river restoration entitled; “Water Framework Directive-WFD”.

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Human activities and climate change has a remarkable impacts on waterbodies definitely rivers in Iran have been severely affected. Status assessment of the rivers, defining and implementing the measures for river basin management and flood protection needs an integrated directive. The main objective of WFD is achievement of good ecological and chemical status of waterbodies. Lack of ordinances, overuse of surface waters and old pattern practices for development and river restoration strategies justify WFD implementation for Iran. As an integrated study on a river basin, flood risk must be considered so we tried to combine these two topics for our short course. Duration of the course was 8 days included 4 excursions in Tajan river basin in Sari from up-stream Shahid Rajaee Dam to the Caspian Sea. The aim of these excursions is visiting different sections of Tajan River to find the near natural condition as a reference for defining the river restoration measures. Students in M.Sc. and PhD levels attend the course and excursions, mostly they have this topic for their thesis and thus practical aspects of this course will be clearer for them. As a main outcome of this scientific event we can affirm that widening the knowledge of WFD in Iran and having more common research programs in this field is expected in the future

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