Purposes and Objectives
During the 1st HESSS at 2007, we had attempted to ascertain the gaps between the needs of society and the services
of hydrology community. Estimation and reduction of uncertainty in simulations were indentified as key leverage points
along with an appropriate use of observational datasets in validation and data assimilation. The 2nd HESSS
international conference brings three unique communities together to bridge such gaps with a shared vision of a
sustainable and desirable world. Our objective is to establish practical protocols and frameworks to promote more
effective collaborations among the research communities of hydrological modeling, field observations, remote sensing
in the context of sustainability science. To highlight the core issues, values and implications, all the sessions consist
of stimulating keynote speeches and panel discussions by leading scientists and enthusiastic young researchers. As
a true test bed for community level collaboration, new frameworks such as the Global Soil Wetness Project phase 3
(GSWP3) and HydroEastAsia will be launched as the outcome of the conference. We invite you to join us and
contribute oral or poster presentations and to discussions.

 

The natural environmental condition, such as precipitation, air temperature, humidity and radiation, varies continuously with a wide spectrum of temporal scales from seconds to years and decades. Such variations are subject to slow and fast changes of solar radiation, passages of a front and pressure systems, and frequency of precipitation. In the Asian region, the monsoon system is driving temporal variability in the natural environment and consequently it makes impact on carbon and water cycles on from local, regional to continental and global scales. Terrestrial ecosystems in Asia cover wide spectrum of biomes and climate zones and represent many vegetation types. In particular, due to rapid changes of land cover and large population pressure for economic growth, the carbon and water cycles of the terrestrial ecosystems in Asia have undergone dramatic changes over the past several decades, leading to potentially significant influences on global climate change. Under future global warming scenario, seasonal precipitation cycle can be amplified in the Asian region. There is, however, the lack of our understanding on the interplay between the Asian monsoon and terrestrial carbon and water exchanges that hinders us from better understanding of carbon and water cycles and its impact on climate change. Using the ecosystem models, my presentation will briefly discuss major challenges in modeling ecosystem carbon and water exchanges in Monsoon Asia and their interplay with the Asian monsoon.