Title: UNESCO-SPONSORED%20PROJECT%20ON%20VIRTUAL%20LABORATORIES%20FOR%20DRYING%20LAKES%20%20by%20O.A.%20BAMIRO%20Professor%20of%20Mechanical%20Engineering%20Faculty%20of%20Technology%20University%20of%20Ibadan
1UNESCO-SPONSORED PROJECT ON VIRTUAL LABORATORIES
FOR DRYING LAKESbyO.A. BAMIROProfessor of
Mechanical Engineering Faculty of
TechnologyUniversity of Ibadan
2UNESCO VL PROJECT OBJECTIVE
- GENERAL OBJECTIVE
- To 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.
3WHAT 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
4GENERAL 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)
5MOTIVATIONS 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.
6REQUIREMENTS 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.
7TAXONOMY OF VL TOOLS
- Person-to-Person (P2P)
- Chat
- Telephony
- Internet Audio
- Video Conference
- Whiteboard
- Virtual Awareness
- Applications Sharing
- E-mail
- File Exchange
- World Wide Web
- Joint Authoring
- Person-to-Equipment (P2E)
- Teleoperation
- Teleprogramming
8TRANSMISSION 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
9THE 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.
- SOLUTION
- Several 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.
10ARAL 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.
11LAKE 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.
12SCIENTIFIC 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.
13POTENTIAL 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.
14THE 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
Ndjamena.
15WAY 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.
16EXPECTED 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) -
17Contd.
- 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
18SOURCES 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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