DLR and University of Würzburg jointly conducted a training in Hanoi from the 23rd to the 25th of September. The program comprised general topics on OGC and ISO standards as well as specials on the WISDOM information system. In the three days the participants could test all they learned right away in some exercises in the WISDOM context.

From September 14th – 15th, 2009 the Center for Development Research (ZEF), organised a two days master class at its premises in Bonn. The main objective of the Master Class was to extensively discuss ZEF’s research results and promote junior researchers in their data analysis and writing process.

On 21st of July 2009 all the Vietnamese and German partners came together at SIWRR in HCMC to discuss topics and issues for the next WISDOM phase. All partners presented their works and achievements of Phase A and gave an outlook on what comes next in continuation of WISDOM. Many ideas had been exchanged and many suggestions stated in fruitful discussions. All in all WISDOM proceeds further to gain shape as an Information System integrating heterogenous data from all the different fields of hydrology, sociology and earth observation. During the planning meeting the idea of networking and sharing ideas was once again strengthened in order to support WISDOM in a joint effort.

Pham Van Toan, a PhD student from UNU-EHS working on pesticide monitoring in the WISDOM project was among six presenters who received an award to attend the “18th Symposium on Environmental Chemistry” from 9th to 11th June 2009, in Tsukuba, Japan. The award covering air tickets, registration fee, and accommodation enabled Mr Toan to participate and deliver a talk about his research on “Monitoring residue concentrations of recently used pesticides in surface water at two representative study sites of the Lower Mekong Delta Viet Nam”. The extended abstract is published in the conference proceedings.

In April / May 2009 DHI-WASY realised the second field campaign in the survey area in Tam Nong. The objective of this trip was mainly to do terrestrial surveying of dams and dikes alongside surface channel systems. This was realised with a satellite supported survey system with a mobile GPS receiver and a base station. The result is high resolution data for ground level elevations, especially for geographical breaklines like dams & dikes and roads of different categories. The data will be used for DEM generation and validation of DEM´s generated from remote sensing data.

The here presented summary represents the first part of a study on the legal framework of the water sector in Vietnam. The study is part of ZEF´s research activities within the WISDOM project and aims at understanding the institutional framework of water management in Vietnam.

On the 19th of March the German WISDOM members presented the WISDOM Information System Prototype during a formal event in Cuu Long Hotel, Can Tho, to about 70 directors and representatives of the DOSTs, DONREs and DARDs of the 13 provinces of the Mekong delta. A representative of MOST joined from Hanoi. The introduction of the technical concept of the Information System and the online presentation of the current prototype was followed by an afternoon of intense and fruitful discussions. The WISDOM prototype presented in Can Tho, will be online via the WISDOM website from June on.

A Vietnamese delegation with participants from SIWRR, SRHMC, MOST and VAST-GIRS visited Germany for one week. Dr. Tri., Dr. Duc, Dr. Thanh and Mrs. Long and Mr. Binh joined the Data Integration workshop in Potsdam, as well as one day meetings at DLR, Eomap, UNU and ZEF. The visit was very fruitful with regard to exchange on project progress, planning of next steps the preparation of the upcoming lare WISDOM field campaign in March 2009.