Bowling Green, Ky. - A water resource project of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) led from Western Kentucky University has received funding through 2009.

UNESCO approved continuation of the program “Global Study of Karst Aquifers and Water Resources” at a meeting last week in Paris, France.

Dr. Chris Groves, director of WKU’s Hoffman Environmental Research Institute within the University’s Applied Research and Technology Program (ARTP), serves as the program’s Project Leader within UNESCO’s International Geoscience Program.

The project had been approved for one year in early 2005, with suggestions from UNESCO leadership to make amendments to the original proposal. The revised work plan was submitted to UNESCO by Dr. Groves in December and was approved last week for an additional four years.

“International participation in the project is continually expanding and after the first year we now have participants from 55 countries, including many of the top cave and karst scientists in the world,” said Dr. Groves, who returned last week from Paris. At the meeting, he also reported on recent U.S. activity overall within the International Geoscience Program, on behalf of the U.S. National Academies.

Dr. Groves was selected to lead the program after 10 years participating in previous UNESCO karst water programs, most recently serving as a co-leader of a five-year project on Global Correlation of Karst Geology and Relevant Ecosystems. The major focus of the U.N. funding is to support communication between scientists from countries around the world working on common environmental problems.

The project’s three co-leaders are Yuan Daoxian of China’s Institute of Karst Geology in Guilin, Bartolome Andrea-Novarro of Malaga University in Spain, and Heather Viles of England’s Oxford University.

A key benefit for WKU is that the project provides outstanding opportunities for geoscience students to participate in research projects and to interact with scientists from around the globe. Over the past six years, for example, nine Hoffman Institute graduate students have traveled to China to work on affiliated projects. Last summer another group of students gave scientific presentations at a project conference in Athens, Greece, and in 2006 students will do so again at conferences in Malaga, Spain, and Neuchatel, Switzerland.

“The activities of Chris Groves and his colleagues, both in the Hoffman Institute and around the world, continue to create opportunities and bring recognition to the Department and the University,” said Dr. David Keeling, head of WKU’s Department of Geography and Geology. “This project demonstrates the global reach of the department and provides an excellent example of student engagement on issues that can affect significant numbers of the world’s population.”

In August 2007, WKU and Mammoth Cave National Park will host a major international joint conference of this group, along with the International Association of Hydrogeologists, the International Geographical Union, and the International Speleological Union, that follows successful similar meetings here in 1981, 1998 and 2003.

More information on the Hoffman Institute is available online at http://hoffman.wku.edu/

More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu. If you’d like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.

For information, contact Chris Groves at (270) 745-5201.