From June 26 to 29, the members of the WATSON COST Action met virtually and in person at the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, Slovakia. The meeting was perfectly organized by Ladislav Holko of the Institute of Hydrology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.
More than 50 people from 30 countries attended the meeting in person or virtually. The meeting included a session dedicated to Extended Core Group (working group leaders and vice leaders, as well as Stakeholder, Short Term Scientific Mission and Inclusiveness Target Country committees), plenary talks, sessions for each working group; and a session for the Management Committee (MC).
The network chair and vice-chair discussed with the Extended Core Group important administrative issues, such as the budget available for the network activities, the admission of new members and the grants for short term scientific missions (STMS), conferences and to dissemination events. The working groups progressed in their scientific activities, which includes the preparation of review papers and the organization of training schools, seminars and other events. Some of these are presented elsewhere in this Newsletter, others will follow in the next weeks and months. The MC meeting was introduced by the Action Chairs followed by updates of the Grant Holder Manager, Denise Cuccìa, and the COST Officer, Carmencita Malimban.
The meeting also included very interesting plenary talks by Pertti Ala-Aho (University of Oulu), Stefan Terzer-Wassmuth (IAEA), Youri Rothfuss (Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH), Julien Farlin (Luxembourg Water Agency), Juraj Michalko (State Geological Institute of Dionýz Štúr) and Ladislav Holko (Slovak Academy of Sciences).
Paolo Benettin (École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne) presented his COST-related project, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) “Tracing the origins of transpired waters: theoretical developments and application to a vineyard in the Chianti region”, while Concetta d’Amato and Igor Karlović presented the work they accomplished during their Short Term Scientific Missions.
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