Asian G-WADI

Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Lanzhou, Gansu, China

Asian G-WADI was established in Roorkee, India in March 2005 based on consensus and collective understanding of representatives from Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan to confront the urgent need for increased regional co-operation for sustainable development of arid and semi-arid zones. Since 2005, six subsequent meetings have been held in China, Iran and India where annual or bi-annual progress has been discussed. In addition, the workshop “G-WADI: more than a decade enhancing water and sustainable development for arid regions”, which took place in October 2016 in Beijing, China, was a primary source of ideas for G-WADI's current strategic plan. There are currently 13 member nations in Asian G-WADI; Kazakhstan, Thailand, Turkmenistan and Vietnam have also joined the network.

Asian G-WADI has held numerous workshops and training courses, such as an International workshop on remote sensing and eco-hydrology in arid regions, Sept 16-19, 2013, Beijing China. It also facilitates cooperation, exchange and capacity building, including periodic, competitive scholarships. It has published a special issue on G-WADI projects in the Journal "Sciences in Cold and Arid Regions". And it coordinates a network of pilot river basins throughout Asia.

The secretariat from 2011 to 2017 has been hosted by the Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Lanzhou, Gansu, China. In November 2017 it was agreed to transfer the secreatariat to the National Geophysical Research Institute of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR-NGRI) in Hyderabad, India, for the period 2018-2020.