[Activity Report] Dr. Ishida Visited Turkey for Joint Research

In late August to early September, Associate Professor Kei ISHIDA (IROAST International Joint Research Faculty member/CWMD*) visited Middle East Technical University (METU) in Turkey to advance my collaborative research with Professor Ali ERICAN (Figure 1). On the first day of his visit, they toured the terrain and rivers around Ankara, focusing on Lake Tuz (Figure 2), which has been experiencing a decline in water levels due to the effects of global warming. From the second day onward, they concentrated on writing a paper based on their collaborative research results.

Since last year, they have been analyzing global atmospheric data for both past and future periods, which are used as inputs for deep learning models. They have calculated statistics and indices for various variables from this atmospheric data and analyzed them. They are now drafting a paper based on one of these results, specifically focusing on the aridity index calculated from the atmospheric data and they are expected to finalize it soon.

This visit was supported by "IROAST International Joint Research Travel Support Program, which is expected to lead to further results in the IROAST Research Cluster “Deep Learning for Hydrology” coordinated by Dr. Ishida.

* CWMD: Center for Water Cycle Marine Environment and Disaster Management, Kumamoto University

(Figure 1) Dr. Ercan at right and Dr. Ishida at left                 Figure 2) Lake Tuz