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| *** Registration Extended Until Oct. 26, 2007 | |
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International Delta Roundtable November 28 - 30, 2007 |
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Conference Announcement (PDF 162 KB) Click here to register |
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With the impacts of hurricanes KATRINA and RITA still looming large on the Gulf Coast landscape, the need to develop, share, and effectively use data and information for the Mississippi River, the Delta, and the Coast has never been greater. The International Delta Roundtable (IDR) meeting, hosted by the USGS National Wetlands Research Center (NWRC) in Lafayette, Louisiana, seeks to bring together scientists and others concerned about sustainable management and conservation of the Mississippi River Delta and other deltas throughout the world. Comparative studies with other large deltas are essential to understanding and predicting the effects of large engineering projects, land use, hydrological change, and other anthropogenic impacts in these sensitive ecosystems. Deltas are often the powerhouse of a region’s or nation’s economy, and harmonizing socioeconomic, navigation/hydrology, hurricane protection, flood protection, and ecological functions are a massive undertaking. Deltas are also ecosystems of great concern with respect to climate change.
The IDR Program Committee’s members represent NWRC and other USGS Science Centers including the Columbia Environmental Research Center, the Upper Midwest Environmental Science Center, and the Florida Integrated Science Center. Partner organizations include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the International Crane Foundation, the Caddo Lake Institute, and the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. The purpose of the meeting is to develop a community of practice focused on delta and large river science. The plenary and working group sessions will highlight:
Currently, the technical program includes scientists and managers from eight nations representing efforts in the Mississippi, Mekong, Yangtze, Yellow, Volga, Rhine-Meuse, and other large rivers, deltas, and great lakes of the world. One of the key goals of the meeting is to develop a shared vision and operating procedures that support information exchange, visualization tools, and model development across large deltas under the framework of the NWRC DRAGON Project (DELTA RESEARCH AND GLOBAL OBSERVATION NETWORK). For further information, contact: 
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