INTRODUCTION TO THE FEATURED SERIES ON SATELLITES AND TRANSBOUNDARY WATER: EMERGING IDEAS

摘要

During the catastrophic floods of 2001 in Mozambique, there were reportedly only four precipitation gages reporting rainfall for the whole country, an area larger than New Mexico. According to Arthur Askew, then director of hydrology and water resources at the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva, "Many stations are still there on paper, but in reality they don't exist. Even when they do, countries lack resources for maintenance" (Stokstad, 1999).rnPrecipitation and stream gages are controlled by the countries in which they are located; their governments decide who has access to the data. However, commercial and scientific satellite data generally are available to all, and this might bring about an interesting twist to the way we have traditionally done business with water. We live in a world where terrestrial water flow does not recognize political boundaries of nations, only the topographic limits of the catchments. Yet, more than 260 river systems of the world are subject to international political boundaries (Wolf et al., 1999). These river systems flow through multiple nations within the basin before draining out. An International River Basin (IRB) is such a basin within the jurisdiction of many nations. IRBs are ubiquitous in all five continents and a total of 145 countries are geographically associated in their drain-rnage area. Today, these basins account for more than 40% the earth's inhabitable land mass and more than 50% of global surface flow.