This meeting, organized by UNESCO’s World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the International Association of Hydrologists (IAH), convened from 25-26 May 2003 in Vienna, Austria to discuss ways and means to better develop international groundwater indicators.

The expert group identified nine indicators to be developed, including two recommendations that highlighted groundwater as an intrinsic part of the hydrological cycle and proposed that groundwater should be integrated within a broader economic and social dimension. The WWAP, a UN system-wide global assessment of the world’s freshwater resources and their uses, has issued a call for public participation in developing indicators to assess the global water situation. For more information, visit: http://www.unesco.org/water/wwap/news/index.shtml#call_indicators