CNRD exceed

CNRD is one of five Centers of Excellence under the DAAD’s exceed program. The initiative was launched in 2009 by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) to provide valuable contributions to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Following global debate, the focus of the second phase is to contribute to the post-2015 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The CNRD exceed project is funded until 2019.

CNRD exceed brings together scientists from different countries with different academic backgrounds in social, natural, and engineering sciences to jointly work on societal challenges. This is the core of CNRD and comprises 13 universities overall, twelve of them in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Their many activities relate to sustainable management of natural resources and are linked to different SDGs. Case studies in the partner countries play a pivotal role in the CNRD approach, as they form the basis for joint teaching and research activities as well as science-society dialogues with key actors and decision makers.

Decisions on joint activities are taken in annual network meetings supported by valuable input from the international advisory board, with members from various stakeholder groups and international organizations. Since its launch in 2009, CNRD exceed partners have successfully carried out various activities: establishing joint teaching modules with mutual exchange of lecturers, making open source and web-based teaching materials globally available, setting up M.Sc. and Ph.D. scholarships to enable young academics to pursue research linked to sustainable resources management in international projects, and implementing capacity development and training activities in different partner countries.

DNRD Students

Funded by the CNRD exceed project (DAAD), the CNRD network was given the opportunity to support doctoral students from partner institutes with a scholarship of up to three and a half years, to integrate them directly into the network. Being part of an international network of scientists offers the young scientists, in addition to financial support, the best possible career opportunities. Furthermore, the support of doctoral students through scholarships contributes to the objective of the CNRD, to provide young professionals and researchers with the necessary competencies to become responsible decision-makers and change agents in natural resources management. Since 2009 around 25 PhD students have received a CNRD scholarship and finished their studies.

 

Amrita Gautam

Water Supply and Quality Monitoring using emerging technologies
This project aims to assess the water quality and its supply system in two water supply schemes in PMC; analyze temporal and spatial variation in quality of drinking water; appraise and compare the efficiency of three different method (analogue conventional, digital mobile based and remote sensing) of data collection procedure and recommend the most efficient one in the sense of cost effective and eco-friendly nature.

Duration: 2016 – 2019
Supervisors: Karl Schneider (University of Cologne), Lars Ribbe (TH Köln)
Publications:
– M. Neupane, J.K.Thakur, A.Gautam, A. Dhakal, M.Pahari, 2014. Arsenic aquifer sealing technology in wells: A sustainable mitigation option. Water, Air, and Soil Pollution. Springer. Published Online on 15th October 2014. Available at: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11270-014-2087-6
– A. Gautam, 2015. Design of a Community Based Water Quality Monitoring (CBWQM) Strategy in the micro-basins Barracão dos Mendes, Santa Cruz and São Lourenço, RJ, Brazil. M.sc Thesis, ITT, Cologne. Available at: http://intecral-project.web.th-koeln.de/results-data

Elmoiz Yousif Elnayer Taha

Agricultural Drought Monitoring in Sudan using GIS and remote Sensing, Case of El Gedarif State.
We studying the agricultural drought on the basis of remote sensing products dedicated to the soil moisture, the area of interest is predominantly agricultural land, and vulnerable to climate change and climate variability, Yet, most research in this part of the world; agricultural drought focuses on meteorological aspects with less attention paid on soil moisture drought impacts which in term of droughts describes the agricultural drought.

Duration: 2016 – 2019
Supervisors: Elmar Csaplovics (Technical University of Dresden), Lars Ribbe (TH Köln)
Publications:
– Elmoiz, Y. E. Taha and Khair. M. A. (2013) Effect of Irrigation Regimes on Land and Water Productivities of some Autumn Sown Forages in the Gezira, Sudan). Proceedings: The 53rd Meeting of National Crop Husbandry Committee pp 5-19, Wad Medani, June 2013.Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, Agricultural Research Corporation.
– Elmoiz Y. E. Taha and Mohammed A. M. Khair (2014) Effect of Irrigation Regimes on Water Productivities of some Rainy Season Sown Forages in the Gezira, Sudan U. of K. J. Agric. Sci. 22(1), 166-178, 2014.
– Agricultural Drought Monitoring Using SWDI Derived from New SMAP Soil Moisture; a Case Study of El Gedarif State, Sudan (prepared to be submitted to the journal)

MD Asraful Latif

Application of Remote Sensing for monitoring Agricultural Productivity to Climate Change Impacts: A study on North-Western Part of Bangladesh
The Ganges-Brahmaputra Basin area in Bangladesh (the North-Western Part of Bangladesh) is one of the agriculturally productive areas in the world because of the alluvial land in nature. Despite the high productivity, the area is also subjected to severe climate change impacts in form of flooding, drought and changes in precipitation. Agricultural system in Bangladesh, in general, is still primitive and very much dependent on rainfall and availability of groundwater. Anticipatory adaptation and resilience measures in agricultural production are thus imperative to sustain and improve food and human security for burgeoning number of population in this region. One of the major emerging climatic challenges in crop production is interrupted rainfall leading to soil water stress during the crop-growing season. Consequently, the result is crop production failure associated with food and livelihood insecurity in the whole region. Hence, this research intends to develop a methodological framework for crop yield prediction based on soil-water balance component. The current study is focused on the Boro rice cultivation, the major dry season crop in Bangladesh. The framework is based on the Remote Sensing and GIS datasets and Technology using Landsat 16 day’s composite images with 30-meter spatial resolution during the winter crop-growing season (January to mid-April). It will monitor water stress at multiple scales (from local to regional) and inform farmers, decision makers and other stakeholders to undertake appropriate adaptation measures for ensuring food security. The framework is expected to be replicated to the similar socio-ecological systems of the world for improving agricultural productivity to meet the increasing need of crop production.

Duration: 2016 – 2020
Supervisors: Nguyen Xuan Thinh (Technical University of Dortmund), Lars Ribbe (TH Köln)

Muhammad Khalifa

Integrated analysis of nexus synergies and trade-offs between water, food and climate in the Nile basin region
With enormous interactions between water, food and climate, the nexus thinking is crucial to enhance the water and food securities, to ensure the sustainability of natural resources, and to mitigate climate change. This research aims at analyzing and quantifying potential synergies and tradeoffs of water-food-climate nexus in the Nile Basin region. To this end, the current study integrates diverse datasets including remote sensing, ancillary and primary data and applies advanced methodologies across multiple spatial and temporal domains.

Duration: 2015 – 2019
Supervisors: Karl Schneider (University of Cologne), Lars Ribbe and Nadir Ahmed Elagib (TH Köln)
Publications: Khalifa, M., Elagib, N.A., Ribbe, L., Schneider, K., 2018. Spatio-temporal variations in climate, primary productivity and efficiency of water and carbon use of the land cover types in Sudan and Ethiopia. Science of the Total Environment, 624, 790-806
Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969717335167?via%3Dihub

Nazmul Huq

Exploring the roles of ecosystem services in livelihood sustainability. An assessment of southern wetland region of Bangladesh   
The research is aiming to explore the interactions, and interdependence of human system and natural system of southern wetland region of Bangladesh. The concept of ecosystem services is employed as the birding element between the two systems. The research theorizes that the application of the concept of ecosystem services could describe the complex relationship between human-nature systems against the backdrop of climate change

Duration: 2015 – 2019
Supervisors: Antje Bruns (University of Trier), Lars Ribbe (TH Köln) 

Publications:
– N. Huq, J. Hugé, E. Boon, and A. Gain, “Climate Change Impacts in Agricultural Communities in Rural Areas of Coastal Bangladesh: A Tale of Many Stories,” Sustainability, vol. 7, no. 7, pp. 8437–8460, 2015.
– N. Huq, “Small scale fresh water ponds in rural Bangladesh : navigating roles and services,” Int. J. Water, vol. 10, no. 1, 2016.
– N. Huq, A. Bruns, L. Ribbe, and S. Huq, “Mainstreaming Ecosystem Services Based Climate Change Adaptation (EbA) in Bangladesh: Status, Challenges and Opportunities,” Sustainability, vol. 9, no. 6, p. 926, 2017.
– N. Huq, A. Bruns, and L. Ribbe, “Interactions between freshwater ecosystem services and land cover changes in southern Bangladesh: A perspective from short term (seasonal) and long-term (1973–2014) scale,” Sci. Total Environ., Aug. 2018. N. Huq, R. Pedroso, A. Bruns, L. Ribbe, and S. Huq, “How is the livelihood dependency on ecosystem services changed in temporal and spatial scales? An assessment in the southern wetland areas of Bangladesh,” Ecol. Indic., vol. Submitted, 2019.

 

Nguyen Thi Ngoc Uyen

Harmonizing multi-sectorial water management with minimum inflow requirements in an anthropogenic impacted Central Vietnamese river basin
The case of Vu Gia – Thu Bon    

Global supplies of freshwater are strongly under pressure with one third of the world’s population lives in area with water shortages, and 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water (Hess et al., 2014). Increasing human populations will result in an increasing demand for freshwater, which will affect freshwater inflow into estuaries and have consequences on the functioning of estuarine ecosystems (Montagna et al., 2002). The overexploitation of this resource put the negative impacts on water availability. Water scarcity is being further compounded by low flows which affect both surface water and ground water resources (Belal et al., 2012). Climate change induced hydro-climatic extremes and sea level rise are also expected to aggravate low flow phenomenon in many coastal regions worldwide, like the Vietnamese coastal regions (IMHEN, 2012; IPCC, 2013). Due to the variety of direct or indirect anthropogenic impacts on stream-flow in river catchments, the low-flow regimes of many rivers have been significantly modified and the origin of water in a stream during low-flow conditions has been changed (Smakhtin, 2001). Low flow periods severely impact on socio economic activities as diminished freshwater resources of rivers are unable to provide adequate water for crop production, hydropower generation and urban water supply as well as to maintain water quality of freshwater bodies due to saltwater intrusion. In addition, water quality has also been declining rapidly because of increasing in the discharge of untreated domestic and industrial wastewater, irrigation return flow, and non-point-source pollution (Pringle and Scatena, 1999; Scatena, 2004). This is more apparent in low-flow periods when the assimilative capacity of the river decreases (Liu et al., 2005). Minimum flow in rivers and streams aims to provide a certain level of protection for the valued features of the ecosystem (Liu et al., 2005). It refers to the water considered sufficient for protecting the structure and function of an ecosystem and its dependent species (Elhatip et al., 2014). Releasing minimum inflow can reduce the impact of saltwater intrusion and maintaining the sustainable water supply for irrigation and domestic demand in the downstream.

Duration: 2015 – 2019
Supervisors: Karl Schneider (University of Cologne), Lars Ribbe and Nadir Ahmed Elagib (TH Köln) 

Teresa de Jesus Arce Mojica

Methodological approach for assessing forest ecosystems vulnerability in the context of Disaster Risk Reduction.
Ecosystems play an important role in disaster risk reduction (DRR). Healthy ecosystems are able to reduce vulnerability providing well-being, livelihood and basic needs to communities and on the other hand; they reduce physical exposure to natural hazards acting as natural buffers or protective barriers. However, in many countries near-natural ecosystems have been lost or degraded due to resources exploitation, agriculture, and urbanization. This is particularly true for forest ecosystems which have suffered the conversion to another land use; leading to a reduction of their protective functions and services, increasing the risk of disasters and accelerating climate change.

Despite the acceptance that ecosystems, disasters and development are interrelated, the multi-dimensional role of ecosystems in the context of disasters is insufficiently addressed. There are knowledge gaps in measuring ecosystems capacity to absorb hazard impacts; moreover the existing risk methodologies do not identify properly the ecosystem status and their influence on reducing/increasing vulnerability and risk. In this sense it is fundamental to develop conceptual models and indicators which put stronger emphasis on the role of ecosystem to reduce the exposure and vulnerability that population is facing.

Duration: 2016 – 2019

Supervisors: Dieter Anhuf (University of Passau), Udo Nehren (TH Köln)

Tran Thi Ha Van

Long-term assessment of irrigation efficiency in major agricultural production areas of Vietnam
The future challenges raised for irrigated agriculture in most developing countries are to contribute to the global food production and to achieve water security through improving irrigation efficiency and promoting a sustainable water use. Furthermore, the future food security of 94 million people in Vietnam continues to rely on the country’s ability to expand agricultural production through increased efficiency of irrigation systems. The proper evaluating of irrigation efficiency can provide a valuable overview of irrigation performance and inform decision makers about measures to gain optimal effectiveness in irrigated agriculture.

Accordingly, the main objective of the research is to appraise long-term irrigation efficiency of the selected agricultural production areas in Vietnam based on the application of remote sensing, GIS, modeling and field measurement. Based on the concept of irrigation efficiency defined by this study, proposed indicators for irrigation efficiency assessment include: crop consumptive use fraction, agronomic water use fraction, water management fraction, distribution efficiency, scheduling efficiency and productivity of applied water fraction. A combination of in-situ measurements and remote sensing is considered as the key to a more standardized approach to estimate irrigation efficiency especially for large scale irrigation schemes.

Duration: 2016 – 2019
Supervisors: Nguyen Xuan Thinh (Technical University of Dortmund), Lars Ribbe (TH Köln)
Publications:
– Tran Thi Ha, Van (2016) LUCCI: Land use and climate change interactions in central Vietnam. In: Liniger, Hanspeter / Mekdaschi Studer, Rima / Moll, Peter / Zander, Ute: Making sense of research for sustainable land management. Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), University of Bern, Switzerland and Helmholtz-Center of Enviromental Research GmbH. S. 271–274. http://www.ufz.de/export/data/2/126685_full_version_WOCAT_Glues.pdf
– Van Tran Thi Ha, Viet Trinh Quoc, Lars Ribbe (2017) Reuse potential of return flow for irrigating paddy farms in the Vu Gia Thu Bon Delta, Central Vietnam. Journal of International Scientific Publications: Agriculture & Food, 1, 346–360.
– Poster presentation: “Remote sensing based actual evapotranspiration estimation for efficient agricultural water use in the Vu Gia Thu Bon Delta, Central Vietnam”. International Conference On Water Security And Climate Change (WSCC), Cologne, Germany

Products

The CNRD network is a network of universities that seek to create synergies and join forces. For many partners, global networking is crucial and offers significant benefits. Considering that today’s universities have to be internationally positioned in order to be competitive, participation in a network such as CNRD can be seen as a cornerstone of contemporary science. This applies in particular to partners from low income countries, who are often on the threshold of becoming a knowledge society.

Since the implementation of the CNRD in 2009, about 1000 scientists have been involved in CNRD measures (workshops, trainings, events, conferences), and around 350 students have benefited from support for PhD scholarships, MSc field research, exchange semesters, and joint student projects. More than 120 events, workshops, and conferences have been implemented or visited and hundreds of publications published with the involvement of CNRD partners. Furthermore, different consortia of CNRD partners have been formed and initiated spin-offs. The CNRD has grown into a network of experts that can be described as the nucleus of numerous efforts, initiatives, and projects in the field of natural resources management and development. Some of the results are visible, such as the conference series “Water Security and Climate Change” or the MOOC on “Disasters and Ecosystems: Resilience in a Changing Climate”. Sometimes, results are less visible, e.g. the establishment of a joint research data infrastructure or a web-based platform for exchange of teaching materials.

In short, CNRD has succeeded in networking a wide range of actors from academia and have established international and interdisciplinary research collaborations, which form the basis for future partnerships.

The Network

The birth of CNRD dates back to 2009, when the TH Köln (University of Applied Sciences) was awarded a five-year project grant by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) as part of the program for Higher Education Excellence in Development Cooperation (exceed), in order to establish a university network under the auspices of the Institute for Technology and Resources Management in the Tropics and Subtropics (ITT). Since then, research and training of young scientists as well as capacity building have been used to meet global challenges by promoting higher education and science. In 2015, the project was extended by a second phase and given the title CNRD exceed in order to ensure the sustainable consolidation of the CNRD network beyond 2019.

Since its foundation, the CNRD has grown steadily and now has more than 30 members. The particular value of such a global network is the transboundary and multidisciplinary approach to address the challenges of today’s world to natural resources at the international level. A common goal of all the partners is to make CNRD sustainable beyond the funding phase of the exceed program, in order to make further use of such synergies.

All CNRD member universities have the same role, rights, and responsibilities, with the only exception of ITT (located at TH Köln), which is the administrative hub responsible for the network’s management. The main CNRD management is located at TH Köln and organized by a Management Board consisting of the CNRD exceed project head, the project coordinators and the vice president for academic affairs of TH Köln. Membership of the CNRD network is open to any Higher Education Institution (HEI) which pledges to significantly contribute to reaching CNRD’s goals. Currently, CNRD is in a phase of consolidation, and the admission of new members takes place exclusively by recommendation.

CNRD’s vision

… is to be recognized as an internationally renowned knowledge network for sustainable natural resources management to address global challenges, local action, and development.

CNRD’s mission

… is to operate as an international network of higher education institutions that collaborates with local actors to develop evidence-based action plans for sustainable management of natural resources and development by fostering quality higher education and transformative research.

CNRD’s objectives

  • Strengthen capacities of the member institutions to impact evidence-based decision-making, supported by an international and global network.
  • Provide young professionals and researchers with the necessary competencies to become responsible decision-makers and change agents in natural resources management.
  • Respond to societal challenges in natural resources management and development by co-designing demand-driven scientific knowledge.

 

Scope of CNRD’s actions

  • Thematic Focus:
    • Natural resources and development: management of water, land and energy resources, rural and urban systems, ecosystems and climate change
    • Dynamic challenges: global change, climate change, disaster risks
  • Orientation: Agenda 2030 and other relevant global and regional agendas
  • Guideline principles: problem-based, participatory, inter- and transdisciplinary, solution oriented, collaborative design with stakeholders, policy influencing
  • Areas: education; research; knowledge transfer and capacity development

 

Various initiatives have been established in recent years, starting with CNRD semester scholarships for master’s students and full scholarships for PhD candidates → to produce young professionals with a profound knowledge of NRM. The teaching capacity of CNRD members is strengthened through individual and didactic support for staff and through curriculum development workshops. CNRD also supports joint development of teaching material (including MOOC and educational movies) and e-learning modules on the main CNRD topics. The teaching materials are provided in a Shared Educational Resource Repository (SERR) platform for the CNRD members.

To support empirical research and systematic collection and interpretation of data, CNRD is promoting Labs for Natural Resources and Development (LNRDs). The data from these natural labs are transferred to an open source Research Data Infrastructure (RDI) →, connecting the partners’ single databases (River Base Information Systems, RBIS). The research results and data are also published in the network’s Journal of Natural Resources and Development (JNRD). In order to increase the visibility of the network, a conference series on Water Security and Climate Change (WSCC) is yearly organized giving CNRD members the opportunity to interact with international peers.

Research

The CNRD network fosters interdisciplinary research addressing the challenges related to the UN Sustainability Goals (SDGs). The CNRD partners engage in consortia to develop competitive research proposals. These proposals target most interesting national and international calls and aim to strengthen the research capacities as well as widen the research portfolio at the partner universities. The network partners form consortia with key associates from international research institutions, and also others from outside academia: industry, NGOs, governmental development agencies, and other relevant stakeholders. In order to facilitate this cooperation between science and partners in politics and society, workshops are financed and implemented by CNRD.

 

Research Data Infrastructure (RDI)

Around the world, research institutions and funding agencies realize valuable benefits in publishing and sharing research data. The aim of our RDI is to support the development of the LNRD and respective case studies with appropriate means for storing and sharing research data. In the field of environmental information, data sharing seems to be particularly useful. Yet the actual implementation of data sharing mechanisms and principles is still in its infancy. The implementation of our network’s RDI is a major contribution of CNRD in this direction. The storage of data is provided by the implementation of a web-based River Basin Information System software (RBIS). The different case studies and respective RBIS are available for partners in the CNRD web-based Research Data Infrastructure (RDI).

 

Doctoral Program on Natural Resources and Development (DNRD)

The Doctoral Program on Natural Resources and Development (DNRD) was a semi‐structured doctoral program. The program was concerned with the major challenges of today’s societies and also inspired by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which served as a reference for the program’s research portfolio. It was designed for a three‐year time frame and was structured to cover supervision, education, field research, and exposure components.

Funded by the CNRD exceed project (DAAD), between 2009 and 2019 the CNRD network was given the opportunity to support doctoral students from partner institutes with a scholarship of up to three and a half years, to integrate directly into the network. Being part of an international network of scientists offered the young scientists, in addition to financial support, the best possible career opportunities. Furthermore, the support of doctoral students through scholarships contributed to the objective of the CNRD, to provide young professionals and researchers with the necessary competencies to become responsible decision-makers and change agents in natural resources management. Until 2019 around 25 PhD students have received a CNRD scholarship and finished their studies.

 

Researcher Exchange

CNRD promotes the exchange of researchers between the partner universities. Next to the positive impact on the personal qualification of the scientist, it brings international research dialogue forward and supports the partners in conducting interdisciplinary research. The major goal is the development of scientific articles aimed at publishing in peer-reviewed journals.

South‐north, north‐south, and south‐south research cooperation are supported. The south‐south exchanges are realized within geographical regions, such as Chile‐Mexico, Jordan‐Egypt, Indonesia‐Vietnam, and between sub-Saharan African countries. Each researcher exchange stay is planned for a minimum of three weeks. At the end, a working paper summarizes the researcher’s work developed during the stay.

 

The Journal of Natural Resources and Development (JNRD)

The Journal of Natural Resources and Development (JNRD) is a peer-reviewed, free of charge and open access journal that publishes papers related to natural resources management and the analysis of socio-ecological systems. It is devoted to the publication of scientific, technical, and demand-driven original research papers that address societal challenges under global change.

Its aim is to enhance CNRD’s understanding of environmental, biophysical, and socio-ecological systems, primarily in data-scarce regions. We promote the communication of interdisciplinary research and stakeholder-oriented information to stimulate the dialogue between science, policy, and society.

We also strongly promote interdisciplinary approaches and work that has resulted in negative findings like obtaining inadequate results when applying a method or problems while using specific datasets. In addition to original research articles, JNRD also publishes review papers, data sets, infographics, and posters.

Topics within the scope of JNRD include:

  • Hydro-meteorological extremes and their impacts
  • Climate Change Adaptation
  • Integrated Water Resources Management
  • Land and Ecosystems
  • Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Management
  • (Agro)-Biodiversity
    Sustainable Energy Systems
  • The Water – Energy – Food Security Nexus
  • Environmental Governance

The JNRD was designed to provide CNRD with a platform for scientific publications and to make research results available to the public. The declared goal is to make JNRD a renowned journal that contributes to the reputation of the CNRD and the achievement of the SDGs in general.

Visit the JNRD page