At Request of the Governing Board of UNESCO, Water Partner Joop de Schutter has evaluated the operations of the International Groundwater Resources Assessment Center IGRAC Category 2 Center IGRAC, and made recommendations on its future structure and operations. The evaluation process was completed in July 2017.
The International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre (IGRAC) is a UNESCO Category 2 Centre operating under the auspices of the UNESCO-IHP programme. The IGRAC mission is to contribute to world-wide availability of relevant information and knowledge on the groundwater resources of the world, with particular emphasis on developing countries, in order to support sustainable monitoring, utilization and management of the groundwater resources, to promote the role of groundwater in integrated water resources planning and elucidate the impact of groundwater on the ecosystems of the Earth.
In service of the global groundwater community, IGRAC develops, mainly web based applications, portals and viewers such as the Global Groundwater Information System (GGIS) and the Global Groundwater Monitoring Network (GGMN) and databases and maps such as Trans-boundary Aquifers of the World Map that was published in 2016. The applications are mostly publicly accessible and interactive and are regularly updated as a result of cooperative projects on groundwater assessment and monitoring around the world. IGRAC is also engaged in a number of projects related to capacity development, training and research in cooperation with its partners in the network and in as far as these projects contribute to its mission and objectives. One very interesting introduction on "groundwater the hidden resource" is to be seen on the IGRAC website.
More information: www.un-igrac.org, or contact Joop de Schutter
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Earlier, in September and October 2009 Water Partner evaluated the operations of the International Groundwater Assessment Center as well. At the time this was at request of DELTARES, Netherlands. WP made recommendations on further improvement of the structure and operations of the center.