UNESCO-SPONSORED%20PROJECT%20ON%20VIRTUAL%20LABORATORIES%20FOR%20DRYING%20LAKES%20%20by%20O.A.%20BAMIRO%20Professor%20of%20Mechanical%20Engineering%20Faculty%20of%20Technology%20University%20of%20Ibadan

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UNESCO-SPONSORED PROJECT ON VIRTUAL LABORATORIES
FOR DRYING LAKESbyO.A. BAMIROProfessor of
Mechanical Engineering Faculty of
TechnologyUniversity of Ibadan
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UNESCO 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.

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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)
• 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

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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.
• 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.

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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
  Ndjamena.

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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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