District 6290–
Happy holidays! I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday season and great start to the new year! I am lucky enough to have a sister living in Prauge, Czech Republic and was able to go visit her during the winter break before all the borders closed again.
Back in Cologne, the semester is wrapping up and with it our projects. This semester I have been working on a drought analysis of the Yarmouk Basin, in Syria and Jordan, which is hopefully where my Master’s thesis will be based. I have been working in conjunction with an ecological and social risk assessment of the disasters in the area and am excited to continue my work in this area. It is a pivotal region and water management issues play a major role in the cultural and political landscape.
I have also been working on the Clean Tigris project with a team from Iraq focused on water quality and availability in the Euphrates and Tigris basins. We have been working with a team from the German and Iraqi governments doing research and building informational products for the website so that it can be used as an educational and outreach tool. They just did the first focus group with a combination of scientists, activists, and citizens and it seems like it’s going to be a really useful tool in addressing water quality issues in the area. I’ve included the sites below!
Hopefully, it will be possible to do community work and gather once again! I will have more updates on my project in the next letter. Thank you all so much for all you do and happy 2021!
Best, Flannery