Prof. Sangam Shrestha, Program Chair of Water Engineering and Management (WEM), AIT joined the panel discussion on the SUMERNET 4 All (S4A) partner’s meeting held virtually on October 7, 2020, with Dr. Eren Zink (Senior Research Advisor, Embassy of Sweden, Thailand) and Dr. Chayanis Krittasudthacheewa (Deputy Director, SEI Asia).
Prof. Shrestha discussed the importance of early collaboration and engagement with boundary partners in identifying research needs and it’s long-term policy impact referring to his anticipated research project “Assessment of Groundwater Sustainability in the Special Economic Zone of Thailand for Operational Groundwater Management (GISA)” funded by SUMERNET. The awaited GISA project shall be a joint-action project with the Department of Groundwater Resources (DGR), Thailand to assess the groundwater sustainability at Tak Special Economic Zone (SEZ) of Thailand and recommend the strategies to enhance the guidelines and policies for improved operational groundwater management in special economic zones. Furthermore, Prof. Shrestha emphasized on the actions required to mitigate the impacts of multiple stresses such as climate and land-use changes in social, environmental, economic, and institutional dimensions of groundwater governance for sustainable groundwater management.
SUMERNET Partner meeting is a crucial and important part of the program’s annual meeting. Dr. Leonie Pearson Senior Research Fellow, Water for SEI Asia welcomed all the participants and highlighted the major objective of the meeting which was to get to know and exchange knowledge and experience among all grantees and share you’re the development of the projects. The meeting was organized in two sessions the first being “Introduction and Panel Discussion”, and then the “Project Presentation and Group Discussion”. During the second session, all the S4A grantees presented their project focusing on how the research is aiming at policy and practice impact. The meeting was attended by participants from different SUMERNET grantees included with SUMERNET Steering Committee (SSC), SUMERNET Secretariat (SS), SUMERNET Advisors, and SIDA.
