Embark on a unique virtual reality journey through six decades of hydrology and water science, showcasing how international research has shaped — and been shaped by — the International Hydrological Programme (IHP). Using Germany as an example, this immersive experience highlights key milestones across IHP phases.
Set within a virtual museum inspired by New York’s Guggenheim, each level of the iconic spiral rotunda represents a decade of scientific progress in hydrology.
Created by the German IHP National Committee, the International Centre for Water Resources and Global Change (ICWRGC), and the UNESCO Chair in Hydrological Change and Water Resources Management at RWTH Aachen University.
🔗 Experience the VR museum at: https://anywhere.academy/
Hashtags:
#UNESCOIHP #WaterScience #Hydrology #VirtualReality #VRMuseum #SustainableDevelopment #SDG6 #SDG4 #WaterResearch #Germany #GuggenheimInspired #ICWRGC #RWTHAachen #UNESCOChair #60YearsWaterScience #50YearsIHP #GlobalWaterChange #ScienceEducation #AnywhereAcademy
[Music] [Music] i would like to welcome you to the German side event as part of the UNESCO anniversary celebrations my name is Heraert Knacken and my team has created a virtual reality scenario for you featuring the significant contributions made by German hydrarology to 60 years of water sciences and 50 years of the intergovernmental hydrarology program so how can you access the fantastic national contributions using your browser it’s easy use your mouse to rotate the image orientation to the screen on the table in front of the large window move towards the screen using the WD keys pressing W moves you forward pressing S moves you backward and as you may have guessed pressing D moves you to the right and A moves you to the left just experiment a little with it at the top left of the monitor there is a globe with the words go online underneath it you will now see a small circle marker which you should align with this symbol once you have clicked on the symbol an input mask will appear in which you should enter your name using your keyboard then click again with the circle symbol on the go button next to the name input field you will now see a list of available rooms in this case there is only one room called German UNESCO side event please click on the field on the far right called join with the circle symbol again it will take a moment and then you will be in the virtual reality scenario with selected contributions from the German hydraological community i hope you enjoy browsing through the six decades i would like to welcome you to the German side event as part Hello everyone sorry for the small technical issues uh we had to restart the stream again but hopefully this one will work um so um welcome to uh our visual presentation um for celebration of the 50th anniversary anniversary of UNESCO IHP and 60 years of water sciences um we would like to present you and welcome you on behalf of the national IHP secretary and to guide you through the our German UNESCO HIPP virtual reality museum hosted on our software anywhere academy um the sea itself presents media content which is illustrated by boo we will um um discover in a minute and um it is um a contribution of um six decades of German uh hydraology and I will now introduce some interesting highlights from our scenario and guide you through the 3D environment um our first stop features three selected videos uh upstairs in this direction where showcasing um key milestones in German water research the museum itself the area is inspired by the Guggenheim Museum um and our virtual museum promotes education and sustainability in alignment with SGS 4 and six this scenario is online so um if you would like to join you can do so while with the online version web version on our website and also after the event you can uh join it and see what um kind of contribution and content is provided to you the scene itself it’s um reflected um by the museum area as mentioned and as you can see there there’s also someone inside the scene so it’s an online scenario which is also usable for communication with other users being in the same scenario and I will show you the starting area we have an elevator we have um elevation here a slope to go upstairs um we have guidances which shows you which direction you can go and it is built chronologically and what I want to say before we start with the discovery of the museum uh we want to um especially thank Dr stefan Dietrich Dr johannes Kulman and Dr uh Luna Barati for their um support in creating the media we will um show in some minutes um which was provided with the help of the German hydraology community which is a very big contribution thanks for that and uh this side event um we are showcasing now was developed by the German IHP national committee and the team of the UNESCO chair led by professor Harry Makan at RWTH University and now we will start to discover the scene let’s go quickly to the elevator because the elevator gives you a brief overview about the whole area so we have five levels um and every level we have Yeah interesting there’s a sound so every level itself is connected to a special epoch so the first level will be 1960 to 1974 and so on and the last level will be the most recent one we can also see on this image um like um information and scaling about uh how we are are using the the media formats we have uh specific time frames um with specific media provided and if you want just to change the level just click um on one of these um buttons here i I will showcase it or you can also just move around roam freely to see what the scene provides i will walk up now to the first area and while you walk up you can see also um the overview of the scene itself so every level is um like showcased like this um and we have a straightforward design so um it’s basically a spiral upwards to the most recent time block as you can see there upstairs is already another visitor looking around so let’s start with the first um videos we have uh 1960 we start here but I will go to the 1965 because we have some special media here from the three contributors we um said a thank you before let’s see if this video loads okay some visitors are already looking at the videos seems like to be a small connection issue to it but it’s not a problem what we also have besides um videos we have also images included some of them show for example a conference um which is a historic document if you can see it it’s from 1977 and this um area itself it can also provide audio files and videos and also images start this one okay it seems like to be a small issue with the loading of the video media but it’s not a big problem so when you visit the scene yourself um sometimes there um there will be causing some issues like this but it’s not a problem just restart the scene and the video should show should be showcased um I think um it is connected to the live stream at the moment at the same time so taking a bit of the bandwidth of the internet connection so that’s the first area I was jumping to i entered i can jump also to the second area which uh brings me here to the 1993 see if this one gives us Yeah gives us some medium so perfect this one is working let’s see what 1995 gives us hydraological maps a guide and standard a guide and a standard legend provides a standardized framework for created legend provides a standardized framework for creating and interpreting provides a standardized framework for creating and interpreting hydrogen for UNESCO’s international hydraological program this guide supports harmonized international hydraological program this guide the interesting part about this area for example is that we have also videos that were created with artificial intelligence now in this case it is something that was created with a specific software uh if you’re interested you can contact us and we can give you detailed information about it um it’s um something um very interesting so you can um scan um some real people inside and provide text to it and the software generates this video for you so the content can uh be um presented in a different way which is very interesting so 1996 Since the 1990s since the 1990s global modeling of water resources Since the 1990s global modeling of water resources has become essential to understand since the 1990s global modeling of water resources has become 1990s global modeling of water resources has become essential to understand global modeling of water so this one is about the summary i would recommend um to uh try this for yourself because then there will be no um big connection issues as mentioned there’s a streaming at the moment going on and everything is connected to the bandwidth so it might be that um the technical um difficulties seen now in the live stream will not um be occurring o IHP eco-hydrology gained ground with professor Nicola Ecohydrology gained ground with professor so this one is gallery from 2000 it provides images as you can see the third one is selected and if I click the next one it should to change and show me another page 2001 the Zeph UNESCO project 2002 there’s a video about the water cycle showcasing how water is um related to um ecological changes and also how water is provided and created in the ecosystem so ecohydraology is now the topic we have also images next um posters next to the videos which can be uh seen and discovered 2007 we have a video about um the flood damage database which is also very interesting to discover and here’s a poster to it again also so a bit scientific background about uh the videos and the content provided for the orientation we are now on the third floor and we continue to the fourth floor 2010 summary of a decade gallery about global change facing risks and free top of water resources uh thanks again for the um media provided which is very um interesting to discover a video of 2010 about 200 years of hydrarology in Germany um International Hydraological Symposium 2010 a video about um BMBBF founded PhD programs which is also interesting to understand 2014 from Gamstart to BFG also provided with the poster next to it of a global water quality monitoring video of 2015 um the global resource water grow so here we check out the post of it global water system project the summary of the decade and we are coming to the next elevator international Hydrarology Prize media data from the event from 2020 we are now approaching uh the last decade also the top of the area of the museum 2022 media about the International Soil Moisture Network a long-term data service for global M2 soil moisture observations 2025 integrated water resources management and also a poster provided next to it with an overview of the SGS and also the information And last but not least um a video of our UNESCO chair for hydraological change and water resource management at RWH University so this is basically the overview so as I mentioned we start um very early in the decade and um every visitor of the museum I look down now so you can see the overview again um can start from the beginning choose his epoch um use the elevator up and down and um see very interesting curated media data um as mentioned now there there’s an issue going on with the network connection which is um like connected to my streaming uh but um if If you um visit the scene yourself then everything should be very smooth and working and you can see the media data that was curated and uh provided by um our contacts i will now just walk down slowly and start from the beginning soil moisture data which is essential for understanding the global water balance and enhancing climate resilience is your data which is essential for understand the interesting part of the about this scene of course is the synchronos synchronicity so um as we saw there are other visitors so you can also communicate with these visitors you can uh go to the same booth area media data and also talk about what you are seeing for example if you have a video and this video is started it will also be started by another um user which is inside the scene so this um scenario itself it’s not only just the showcasing of the chronology of hydrarology but it can also be used as a classic museum going inside with a lot of visitors who are interested about hydraologic topics and also about the celebration projected research in a and also for school classes especially also students and teaching staff who is interested about understanding the history behind everything connected to hydraology now a bit the background about the techn technology behind it so this is um basically a PC version you can use i’m using a PC version at the moment but it is also accessible uh with the web browser and every web browser will work and you can try it out yourself directly after the event avatars look like this everyone who joins the scene gets a specific avatar and as an identification um model they are randomly at the moment uh in the future it will be like this you can customize them like uh you would look like in real life so what I showcase now is the PC version of course um this um software and also this museum is available also for um VR headsets meta Quest 3 um at the moment and um in the future it will be also provided for different um specific um supported VR devices and uh the experience will be a different different one as you can see now it’s just a 2D screen and 2D screen is not very immersive there’s one um of the um VR related topics immersion but when you are using a VR headset which we would recommend also for this purpose then the feeling will be completely different because you have um like um a special point of view perspective inside the virtual glasses so at this point to all visitors that uh looked at the live stream and also the ones that will see it afterwards we publish it on the website um on the YouTube um site um I I want to thank you for the participation and uh if you are uh visiting the event in in real life um also say hello to my colleagues in Paris um they um provide you with the information about using the VR headsets and uh also additionally um background information about the development of the scene and hopefully you have fun also with the small um hurdles we have with the live stream but um uh in the end um this is something uh we deal with every day and uh I hope you had fun and uh you will enjoy um the uh rest of the event thank you very much