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UNESCO-SPONSORED PROJECT ON VIRTUAL LABORATORIES FOR DRYING LAKES

by

O.A. BAMIROProfessor of Mechanical Engineering

Faculty of TechnologyUniversity of Ibadan

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UNESCO VL PROJECT OBJECTIVE

GENERAL OBJECTIVETo enable researchers, no matter their geographical locations in the world, to collaborate and fully participate in and benefit from international scientific research.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES To provide researchers in the three regions harbouring drying lakes (Africa,

Central Asia, and Middle East) with ICT tools to enable them operate as virtual laboratories.

To provide a platform for the integration of research efforts towards solving the problems of the three drying lakes – Lake Chad, Dead Sea, and Aral Sea.

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WHAT IS A VIRTUAL LABORATORY (VL)?

An electronic workspace for distance collaboration and experimentation in research or other collaborative activity, to generate and deliver results using distributed information and communication technologies.

Basic Attributes

Users perform their research without regard to geographical location – interacting with colleagues, accessing instrumentation, sharing data and computational resources, accessing information in digital libraries.

Alternative Terms

“Collaboratory”, “Virtual Workgroup”, “Virtual Enterprise”, “Cross-organisational Group”, “Distance Collaboration Group”

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GENERAL FEATURES OF A VL

• PROJECT DRIVEN(e.g. environmental studies, telemedicine, etc.)

• LARGE AND COMPLEX PROJECTS(involving expertise from many institutions and cross disciplinary activities)

• GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF PARTICIPANTS(e.g. astronomical observations, research into the drying lakes in Africa, Asia and |Middle East)

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MOTIVATIONS FOR A VL

• Certain major scientific and technological challenges require a size and scale of effort beyond the capacity of a single laboratory or even a single nation.

• Human resources and expertise required for the scientific and technical goals may be distributed among two or more institutions.

• The subject matter may require participation of specialists from different regions due to needs for region-specific data (new or archival), field tests, or available human resources or training base.

• To carry out the research, it may be necessary or cost-effective to share access, via remote means, to scientific instruments that are unique, scarce or otherwise difficult to access. Examples of such equipment include accelerators, telescopes, deep-sea probes, planetary probes, electron microscopes, mass spectrometers or other high-end analytical equipment.

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REQUIREMENTS FOR VL

Underpinning the implementation of VL are:

Computer software that enables people at various sites to work collaboratively and simultaneously; and

The existence of generic communication tools that can link heterogeneous computer communication equipment in multiple,

geographically distributed institutions.

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TAXONOMY OF VL TOOLS

Person-to-Person (P2P)

1) Chat2) Telephony3) Internet Audio4) Video Conference5) Whiteboard6) Virtual Awareness7) Applications Sharing8) E-mail9) File Exchange10)World Wide Web11)Joint Authoring

Person-to-Equipment (P2E)

1. Teleoperation

2. Teleprogramming

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TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL MEDIA: Data Rates for certain media streams.

SERVICE MEDIUM RECOMMENDED THROUPUT

File transfer Text 1-10 kbytes/s

Formatted text 2-10 kbytes/s

Telephony PCM-audio 64 kbps

video-telephony MPEG-audio 64 kbps

Video H.261 CIF 384 kbps

Teleconference with n participants

channel MPEG-audio 2 participants

192 kbps

Video M-JPEG (10 frames/s)

400 kbps

graphics 1 kbps - 4Mbps

TV- quality MPEG-2 AV 4 Mbps

HDTV 17 Mbps

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THE PROBLEMS OF DRYING LAKES:

DEAD SEA

• The lowest point on earth – about 400m below Seal Level• In the 1930s, inflow was 1,300MCM/year. In the year 2000, inflow was

about 300MCM• Water level has been declining at about 1.0m per annum.• Water salinity 300g/cub.m (cf 27 – 30g/cub.m for ordinary sea water)• Huge environmental damage to the sea and the surrounding ground water

resources.• Severe shortage of fresh water for the region.

SOLUTIONSeveral studies conducted by scientists from Jordan, Israel and Palestine led

to: The “Peace Conduit” to convey about 1.8bcm of water per year from the

Red Sea to the nearest point on the Dead Sea, a distance of about 180km +Desalination to produce fresh water. Total Project Cost $0.8billion.

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ARAL SEA

Problems One of the largest reservoirs of water on Earth with rivers Syrdarya and Amudarya

flowing into it. Excessive utilisation of water for irrigation led to the progressive drying of the sea. Salinity increased from 10g/l to 40g/l destroying flora and fauna Surface area has decreased by 45% and water volume by 65%. In 1989, complete separation into “small sea” and “Large sea” Severe shortage of water for the 50 million people in the region.

SOLUTION

UNESCO initiative in 1992 leading to the formation of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Aral Sea Basin including the six countries sharing the basin: Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. 20 research projects involving more than 140 scientists from the region in progress.

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LAKE CHAD

PROBLEMS• Reduction of surface area from 25,000sq.km to 2,500sq.km in 1976• Shallow: 1.0m to 1.5m deep.• Water Volume: Today: 7 – 43bcm:

Before 40 -100bcm.• Successive periods of severe droughts• Environmental degradation; High Winds• Excessive Temperature/Evapotranspiration

SOLUTION

Establishment of the Lake Chad Basin authority by concerned countries- Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Central Africa Republic. Proposal to convey water from River Congo to the Lake Chad Basin yet to be thoroughly researched.

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SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF THE ENVISAGED VL FOR THE THREE DRYING LAKES

Partners from a number of scientific institutions contribute information from a variety of sources such as in-situ and remote sensing measurements, monitoring and manipulative experiments, census, questionnaires, modelling, etc. to a joint knowledge base.

An integrated modelling framework to be developed in order to integrate the data, information and methods from a range of participating disciplines.

Synthesised results to be made available to water managers and other stakeholders.

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POTENTIAL VL PROJECT AREAS

• Climate modelling and scenarios building.• Impacts of global changes on surface and ground water

resources.• Study and Modelling of groundwater and surface water

resources.• Development of improved water use efficiency in

agriculture.• Development of local drought-resistant crop varieties.

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THE JOURNEY SO FAR

UNESCO established two development teams to develop software tools to achieve P2P and P2E. The P2P Team has already come up with some tools that are ready to be deployed for the project take-off

Facilities are already on ground for Central Asia to provide leadership for the VL project. A project website www.unesco.kz is already in place. Information on some of the Institutions participating in the project as well as IT professionals for the informatics part of the project is available at the site.

Institutions to participate in the VL project for the Middle East have already been identified.

The Coordinating research institution, other participating institutions and IT professionals for Lake Chad are still to be firmly identified. Hopefully, after this take-off workshop at N’djamena.

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WAY FORWARD

EVALUATE AT THIS WORKSHOP:• Existing Research Programmes, in general, and those of

relevance to the Lake Chad Basin.• Existing research manpower of relevance to drying lakes. • Development of Research programmes in the chosen area of

groundwater modelling.• Level of ICT development (computers, IT manpower,

telecommunication infrastructure, Internet connectivity, etc.) in the participating institutions..

• Linkage, if any, of institutions involved.• Existing platforms for the dissemination of research results –

journals, seminars, workshops, etc.• Degree of readiness to participate in the VL project.

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EXPECTED OUTPUTS OF THE WORKSHOP

• Identification of potential participating institutions and their roles in the project.

• Identification of workable institutional framework for the execution of the VL for Lake Chad.

• Articulate specific requirements of the participating institutions for the successful implementation of the VL project in terms of:

• Equipment (computers and accessories)• ICT Infrastructure • Manpower (different levels) • Training of different cadres of staff (researchers and technical

backup staff)

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Contd.

• Articulation of areas of research and requirements by the participating institutions.

• Proposed Timetable for Project Implementation

• Update of our website on Informatics and Research Groups

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SOURCES OF INFORMATION ON THE VL FOR DRYING LAKES PROJECT

WEBSITE NATURE OF INFORMATION

www.unesco.kz/ubb •Virtual Laboratories for Drying Lakes•List of Research Institutions•The Informatics Group for the Project

www.foeme.org Friends of the Earth Middle East. Contains a lot of information of the ecological problems in the Middle East including the Dead Sea

www.aralvision.unesco.kz Considerable information on Aral Sea

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CLOSEUP ON MAIDUGURI

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