EMMC in ECOHYDROLOGY

Open Lecture Changes in hydrological cycles...

“We deliver a live broadcast of the open lecture to remote students at www.ecohyd.org ”

Professor Rubén José Lara

Director of the Argentine Institute of Oceanography (Bahía Blanca, Argentina), Leader of the Working Group Wetland Dynamics at the Leibniz Centre of Tropical Marine Ecology in Bremen, Germany and member of the Ecohydrology Group of the UNESCO International Hydrologic Program

This lecture treats the relationship between aquatic ecosystems, water use and human health; and the necessity of interdisciplinary approaches for the development of water policies and disease control. It is emphasized that the comprehension of the multiple interactions among changes in environmental settings, land use, and human health requires a new synthesis of ecohydrology, biomedical sciences and water management for surveillance and control of waterborne diseases in basin-based, transboundary health systems. Surveillance systems should monitor changes in water management, ecotones and hydrological cycles and shifts in e.g. the outbreak timing of strongly seasonal diseases. These indicators would provide criteria for the development of innovative water governance systems combining methods of vector control and the safe creation of water reservoirs, irrigation systems and wetland habitats.

Prof. Dr. R. J. Lara is Director of the Argentine Institute of Oceanography (Bahía Blanca, Argentina), Leader of the Working Group Wetland Dynamics at the Leibniz Centre of Tropical Marine Ecology in Bremen, Germany and member of the Ecohydrology Group of the UNESCO International Hydrologic Program. He studied Chemical Oceanography in Argentina, and worked for a total of 25 years in Germany where he carried out his PhD and postdoctoral research at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Marine and Polar Research in Bremerhaven. Later he moved to the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Ecology where he has been –and still is- coordinator of international research programs on wetland and coastal research in Asia, South and Central America for 15 years, until recently returning to Argentina. His main research interests are aquatic biogeochemistry, paleoclimate, coastal vulnerability, wetland and estuarine dynamics and human health, and is author of about 140 publications on these topics.