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Northern European FRIEND
The recent International Conference on Quality, Management and Availability of Data for Water Resources Management in Koblenz, Germany from 22-26 March 1999, convened jointly by the Dutch and German IHP Committees, provided an ideal opportunity for FRIEND participants to meet at a number of collaborative meetings.

On 21 March the sixth annual meeting of the Steering Committee of Northern European FRIEND was held. The meeting was well attended by 24 official nominees and observers from the countries of Northern European FRIEND including representatives from other organisations such as World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), Experimental Research Basin Network (ERB), Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC) and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP-BAHC). The meeting learnt of progress in each of the five research project groups since the last meeting in Postojna, Slovenia in October 1997. FRIEND participants in each group have continued to be very active in their research and have presented the results of their work at a number of conferences and through a range of journals. Most groups had met at least once during the last year.

One of the most notable achievements during the year has been the establishment of a Regional Data Centre of the European Water Archive (EWA) in St Petersburg, Russia with the help of funding from INTAS (International Association for the promotion of cooperation with scientists from the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union). This Centre supplies hydrological data to the EWA from the New Independent States of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. It is now fully operational with over 9000 station years of gauged daily flow data from over 230 catchments successfully transferred to the EWA. This work will have lasting benefits, enabling FRIEND research to be extended into new areas and by improving the technological capability in these FSU countries.

Another achievement has been the success of the Low Flows group in attracting European Commission funding for a project on the Assessment of the Regional Impact of Droughts in Europe (ARIDE) which aims to investigate the temporal and spatial coherence of drought on a pan-European scale. In addition, three members of the Low Flows Group (Bente Clausen, Lena Tallaksen and Henrik Madsen) in June 1998 received international recognition for their work by winning the prestigious Tison award for their paper on the definition and modelling of streamflow drought duration and deficit volume. The next Low Flow group meeting will be held at the University of Warsaw from 22-28 May 2000.

The NE FRIEND Steering Committee welcomed the UNESCO proposals for IHP VI and look forward to commenting on the role of FRIEND in the programme. The meeting also supported a proposal by Southern African FRIEND to host the next international FRIEND conference in Cape Town in 2002 to present the results of the current phase of FRIEND. It will be accompanied by a FRIEND Report.

Alpine and Mediteranean (AMHY) FRIEND
43 scientists from 14 countries attended the last AMHY Steering Committee meeting in Istanbul from 14-16 October 1998. The meeting was preceded by a seminar at which there were a number of parallel scientific sessions with presentations on a wide range of research topics including heavy rains and flash floods, low flows, erosion and solid transport and natural disasters. Dr Eric Servat has succeeded Dr Guy Oberlin as coordinator of AMHY FRIEND and may be contacted at Centre IRD Hydrologie, BP 5045,34032 Montpellier Cedex, France (eric.servat@mpl.ird.fr).

Southern Africa FRIEND
Following the successful completion of the first phase of the project with the publication of Southern Africa FRIEND by UNESCO (1997, Technical Documents in Hydrology Series No. 15), a second phase of the project is commencing in 1999. The work programme will be developed at the fifth Steering Committee meeting to be held at Windhoek, Namibia on 9 September 1999. Further details on the project may be obtained from Dr S. Mkhandi, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (water@udsm.ac.tz).

Nile FRIEND
The Third Steering Committee Meeting of the Nile FRIEND project was held in Khartoum from 4-6th July 1999. The meeting was attended by representatives of six of the ten Nile basin countries: Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. There were no representatives from Rwanda, Burundi, Eritrea or the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Representatives of UNESCO, IH and IHE, Delft, the Netherlands also attended the meeting.

The meeting decided that the principle research themes should be regional flood frequency analysis, sediment modelling and watershed management, rainfall-runoff modelling and drought and low flow studies.

There are two main constraints on active participation by regional partners, namely exchanging data, and lack of finance. The data exchange issue is becoming less significant, and it seems that most countries are now willing to supply data for specific research. However, unless a major donor is willing to put up some money, the real research effort will continue to be limited. However, overall, the group is enthusiastic with a general willingness for collaboration. Further information may be obtained from Dr R.K. Kachroo, University of Dar es Salaam, PO Box 35131, Tanzania (water@udsm.ac.tz)

Hindu-Kush/Himalayan (HKH)FRIEND
There has been much recent activity on this project. Several project groups have recently held inception meetings: the Database Group met from 3-5 March 1999, and the Snow and Glacier Group met from 8-10 March 1999. In April 1999 members of the Northern European FRIEND Low Flow group contributed to a low flow training course in Kathmandu, Nepal from 19-25 April 1999. This represents part of on-going collaboration between the two FRIEND groups. Recently Afghanistan expressed an interest in formally joining the project. Information on HKH FRIEND may be obtained from Prof S.R. Chalise, ICIMOD, PO Box 3226, Kathmandu, Nepal (chalise@icimod.org.np).

Asian-Pacific FRIEND
A science plan for Asian-Pacific FRIEND, which had been developing since May 1998, was recently published by UNESCO (Jakarta) as part of the Technical Documents in Hydrology Series, No. 2. The plan developed by the Regional Steering Committee for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, outlines, in detail, research plans for five working groups and is based on more than 50 research proposals originating from twelve participating countries. One proposal is to establish an Asian Pacific Water Archive. Further details may be obtained from Prof. K. Takeuchi, Yamanashi University, Takeda 4, Kofu 400-8511, Japan (takeuchi@mail.yamanashi.ac.jp)

West and Central Africa FRIEND
This project, involves thirteen countries and a steering committee meeting was held in Abdijan in November 1998. Further details may be obtained from Dr Afouda at the Universite Nationale du Benin, Dept de Mathematiques, BP526 Cotonou, Benin (Afoudab@france-mail.com)

FRIEND/AMIGO Caribbean
This project has been initiated in 1999 and includes 28 countries and administrative dependencies of the Caribbean region. The first steering committee meeting will be held in Mexico on 1-3 December 1999. The contact point for further information is Mr Eduardo 0. Planos Gutierrez, Instituto de Meteorologia, Lomo de Casablanca, Municipio Regla, CP11700, La Habana, Cuba (planos@met.inf.cu).

FRIEND Inter-Group Coordination Committee (FIGCC)
This committee, established in Slovenia in 1997, held its first meeting on 22 March 1999 in Koblenz. The Project Coordinators of eight international FRIEND projects, namely Northern European FRIEND, Alpine and Mediterranean FRIEND, Southern African FRIEND, Central and West African FRIEND, Hindu-Kush-Himalayan (HKH) FRIEND and Asian-Pacific FRIEND met to discuss liaison between groups and common issues. There is already evidence of growing Inter-Group cooperation with members of the Low Flows Group (Northern European FRIEND) organising and running a low flow training course for HKH scientists in Kathmandu in April 1999. Participants of the Database Group from GRDC also ran a Regional Training Course on Database Management there in May 1998. A colour brochure has recently been produced by the Institute of Hydrology on behalf of UNESCO outlining the work of the different international FRIEND groups.

Subsequent to the meeting FIGCC and UNESCO received a proposal for the establishment of a new FRIEND project in Central Asia focussing on the influence of glaciers on water availability in large Asian rivers. Other new FRIEND initiatives are also being developed in South and Central America and the Middle East.