Some of these guidelines and publications include, among others, the guideline for determining the water requirements of the country’s wetlands, CEPA guideline, the guideline for economic valuation of wetlands, the guideline for developing integrated management plans, the manual for online monitoring of wetlands, the guideline for assessment of Iranian Ramsar Sites, and the guideline for practical experiments for ecohydrology.
Currently, the number of CIWP publications has exceeded 100 on various areas related to wetlands. A large portion of these publications deal with technical and professional issues of wetlands, with the aim of promoting technical knowledge of the wetland stakeholders as well as providing a tool for the effective conservation and management of wetlands. For instance, the guideline for determining the water requirements of the country’s wetlands not only reviews all the methods so far used for determining the water requirements of wetlands around the world, but it also introduces the methods suitable for the country’s wetlands. Therefore, it can be applied as a practical guideline in studies on determining the water requirements of the country’s wetlands.
Furthermore, the experiences of CIWP in relation to the implementation of the ecosystem approach and the development of integrated management plans have been collected and published in another collection titled ‘the Guidelines on Developing Integrated Management Plans’, which can be utilized as a guideline for developing integrated management plans. Moreover, at the moment, this guideline is under revision, and its second version will soon be developed and published, which contains a number of new experiences.
Among the other experiences of CIWP, we can mention the development of the manual for online monitoring of wetlands, which includes the set of measures taken byCIWP along with recommendations and guidelines for implementing the monitoring protocol of the integrated management plans related to the section of online monitoring of wetlands. In this manual, the methods for selecting the appropriate strategy for monitoring a wetland, installation and implementation of suitable tools, and methods for storing and retrieval of the data are discussed and explained in detail.
With regards to the guidelines for assessment of Iranian Ramsar Sites, it can be argued that measuring the vulnerability level of wetland ecosystems and their components can be utilized as an effective tool in the course of prioritizing conservation plans, development and promotion of policies and plans, the development of managerial strategies, budgeting, and identifying information requirements and shortcomings. Accordingly, CIWP placed developing and achieving an integrated approach for assessing Iranian Ramsar Siteson its 2017 agenda. Therefore, the text was developed in order to disseminate and expand on the concept of vulnerability assessment of wetland ecosystems to provide an approach based on available information, accessible documents, and the knowledgebase of national, provincial, and local experts, without the need for special conditions and laboratory tools. This booklet educates the reader on the theory of assessment of Iranian Ramsar Sitesas well as the practical measures for implementing it. It also provides a framework for assessment of Iranian Ramsar Sitesto explain its implementation process.
The guidelines for practical experiments for ecohydrology involve a translated text dealing with sustainable management of water and resolving the multifaceted problems related to it. In this regard, the development of the science of ecohydrology is a new approach in environmental science, which deals with promoting the consolidation of hydrological and ecological sciences for the sustainable management of water resources. The development of the concept of ecohydrology reflects the urgent need for the development and implementation of new cost-effective methods for improving water sustainability in the face of the increasing load on freshwater resources.
The translators of the guidelines have tried to provide integrated and practical information on ecohydrology for their audience, including students of undergraduate, graduate, and doctorate levels; the faculty members of universities, institutes and research centers in the country; and experts working in executive and administrative institutes and organizations under the supervision of Ministry of Energy, Ministry of Agricultural Jihad, Ministry of the Interior, theIran Meteorological Organization, the Iranian Department of Environment, and other related governmental offices and institutions, as well as consultative engineering firms.