Preface
It is with great pleasure that we present the fourth volume of the Calalogue of Rivers for Southeast Asia and the Pacific. This Volume contains 25 rivers from 10 countries and brings the total number of rivers catalogued in the region, including those in volumes I to III, to 94. With this volume a new phase of publication has been entered for, besides the printed book, a CD-ROM version is also included. It is intended that over time previous volumes will also be made available in CD-ROM format. Further information on this project will become available on the Web page maintained by the Humid Tropics Centre (HTC), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia i.e. http://htc.moa.my/apfriend/wa/.
The objectives of the Catalogue, as stated in the first three volumes, are:
* To promote mutual understanding of hydrology and water resources of the region and of the neighbouring countries. This is essential for better regional cooperation in hydrological sciences as well as for water resources development and management.
* To promote information exchange among different organisations in each country. This is essential for the development of hydrological sciences and for better development and management of the water resources within each country.
* To promote the establishment of an international data exchange and collaborative research network in the region. This is expected to assist the Asian FRIEND (Flow Region from International Experimental and Network Data) Projects in IHP-V and IHP-VI to meet their goals.
It is heartening to note that all these objectives are being realized. With the dissemination of more information it is hoped that there will be better understanding and cooperation on matters related to water resources within each country as well as regionally. Of particular importance are the establishment of the Asian Pacific FRIEND, a UNESCO-IHP regional collaborative project, and the Asian Pacific Water Archive (APWA) that archives and makes available hydrometeorological and related data for Asian Pacific FRIEND projects and other IHP related activities in the region.
In connection with the APWA that is held at the HTC Kualu Lumpur, the contents of the Catalogue of Rivers acts as a source of "meta-data" for some of the data in the APWA. Owing to differences in national data-release policies not all basins covered in the Catalogue of Rivers have matching data in the APWA. It is hoped that over time these differences can be resolved and that a complete set of matching data will become available.
Producing the Catalogue of Rivers is a complicated logistical exercise. This volume alone has involved contributions from 10 countries most of which do not use English as their first language. Furthermore, the languages of 7 of the countries have their own character sets. Similar logistical problems have also been a feature of the compilation of the first volumes. It is not surprising then, that from time to time, errors or editorial misinterpretations will have crept into the text despite the best efforts of the editors and the contributors. At the Ninth Regional Steering Committee meeting for the IHP in the Southeast Asia and Pacific Region, held in Ha Long Bay in November 2001, this matter was discussed. It was resolved that as errors are detected they will be compiled into errata notes to be held on the HTC Kuala Lumpur Web page, and users of the Catalogues are advised to check there for the latest corrections.
Another feature of the Catalogue of Rivers is that different contributors sometimes place their own unique interpretation on how to present particular information. No attempt has been made during editing to standardise such presentations as merit is seen in providing different ways to look at similar data. Often this can throw new insight on the information signal contained in the data. While some standardisation of formats has been made, data are expressed in the units in which they were provided. This can sometimes lead to apparent errors, for example when monthly mean discharge, expressed in m3/s, is presented alongside daily flows in the same units. The reader is reminded of this fact as ultimately it is the users' responsibility to check that the data are suitable for their particular use.
We would like to express our sincere appreciation and due respect to all the individual contributors of all the countries who have consolidated the data and information from various, and often diverse sources, prepared the text, maps and tables, and co-operated with us by responding to revision requests. We also express our sincere gratitude to the many institute, agencies and other organisations that provided the data, facilities, and above all, the funds and the personnel to carry out the work. In particular, we would like to thank the following organisations for providing the necesssary financial support.
UNESCO Jakarta Office
The Mininstry of Education, CUlture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan
The Infrustructure Development Institute of Japan
We are hopeful that the Catalogues can serve in various ways to further fulfil the national and regional objectives that were originally aimed for. We ask the readers to provide critical comments and ideas to improve future volumes of the Catalogue.
Editors
Richard Ibbitt (National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), New Zealand)
Kaoru Takara (Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University, Japan)
Mohamed Nor bin Mohamed Desa (HTC Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
Hidayat Pawitan (Department of Geophysics and Meteorology, Boror Agricultural University, Indonesia)
March 15, 2002
