 And we will be kind of making a schedule, right, Ola, for the coming one. Do we already have a date for the next one? No, we can discuss that maybe at the end of the hour. Maybe we spare 10 minutes at the end to discuss that. That's fine. Yeah, it seems we have now, I can't even see how many participants. Seventeen. Seventeen. Okay, that's what it's, 17 plus all the others that I see here, but maybe it's 17. Let, let us slowly start. And I think someone already records the session, which is very good. The announcement to everybody this session is being recorded. First of all, okay, first of all, welcome everybody. Thanks for joining. And immediately after this welcome, my apologies that I scheduled this first AMD seminar webinar today, where we have holidays in Bangladesh and the Philippines and probably other parts of the world. So I was not aware when I suggested that date. I'm very sorry. And next time, I hope we will make a better choice of the date. The more I appreciate everybody who made it today. And maybe then as a very brief introduction. So I think people and most people know me. My name is so it is under working with Erie and leading the Asian mega deltas initiative. And we have since the beginning or since before the beginning of the initiative actually had discussions with Wageningen University and research. And specifically a program on water and food. That, yeah, we saw a lot of alignment in terms of interest. In terms of interests, geographies. And so we started last year. We were hosting a site event at COP 27. We had a joint session at the Gubeshena conference. And now when I had the chance to visit Katarien at war in Wageningen earlier this year, we said, okay, why do we not really initiate a joint exchange of research results or ongoing work between AMD and Wageningen interested people from Wageningen University. And so this is now the first of those seminars or webinars. I think this is this is really just a first pilot at the moment. We can adapt to whatever may work better in the future. And if we all agree, this is a terrible idea, we can also stop it at any point of time. So that's just a very brief introduction. And I think it's a good chance to really have a bit more exchange on a more scientific and level of on the ground. Katarien, do you want to add something please? You're muted. Yes, I muted myself. Okay, this is a very all of thank you very much for for this introduction and nothing to add to that. I'm very pleased with this this interaction. I think it's very useful to maybe give a short introduction to the Wageningen part of the research. This is part of our strategic research on food security and valuing water. And then in particular, I'm leading a team on focusing on deltas and our particular focus is on salinity and drought at the moment. Overall, we follow food systems approach. I think Fiddles will say something in his presentation about that. And we do that because we are with researchers from different disciplines, and we like to be able to talk together. So we were looking for a common concept to work in. And then we also are looking at changes in agriculture and wider. And so for that also we want to interact with different parties in the society. So also we were we are looking for ways and means how to do that. And when talking with Ola and Catherine when they were visiting, it's very clear to us that you are working on similar approaches. And it needs exchange in order to learn from each other. And the faster we can learn the better it will be because we have a SDG2 that is behind and some other SDGs that are linked to it as well. So for that, though it was a bit short notice, we found that Fiddles is very happy to present about the fieldwork that we are doing in Bangladesh. We also have fieldwork in Vietnam, maybe another time about that more. And we are linking also to the international level. For instance, with the UN water conference where we also had a link to the CGIR, though not the Asia mega deltas, but in the wider sense. And that was part of our program there. And so we see that we need to move up and down between the different levels and see how we can share and learn faster. It also means that the work that Feroz is presenting is not a kind of beautiful. As you already felt already, you really will see work in progress. So please keep that in mind. But again, for learning together, we thought we should do that. So having said that, I think all of it can move to the presentation first. Yes, please. I mean, you introduced Feroz already. I think we agreed that we tried to have that alternating one speaker from Bacheningen, one speaker from AMD and Bacheningen offered to start. Generally, I think so we have about 15 minutes or so for the presentation plus minus and then maybe another 25 minutes or so for discussion. And then maybe we have 10 minutes to plan for how we want to organize it in the future. So yes, please Feroz introduce maybe yourself in a bit more detail and then go ahead with the presentation. Yeah, I'll start by sharing my screen. Let's see if it works. Usually the technology sometimes is a bit complicated. I hope you can see my screen. Yes, we can see it. So then I'll start the presentation. Can you see it now? In presentation mode, yes. Yes, so then I will continue. So, yeah, I'm Feroz Islam. I work with the team here with Catherine, Yudith, Vincent and Hacker. We are part of Water and Food team of Wagner and Environmental Research of Wagner University and Research. Today I'll be talking about like vision of farmers on salinity in Bangladesh. So, yeah, just to introduce myself, I work in Wagner Water and Food team as a researcher. I'm a hydrologist. I'm a hydro-morphodynamic modeler. For now I'm working on hydrological models, soil, water, atmosphere, plant, swap model, LPGML model, salinity and agriculture. I have a master's in flood risk management and I have a PhD in water and sediment management from Motriq University. But today I'll talk about food system approach, transition pathway, field trip that we recently had in May in Bangladesh and where we talked with the local farmers and we'll talk a bit detail later on and planning for the future this year and beyond. So first, food system approach. As we know, the deltas like other areas in the world is rapidly changing. So the agriculture and food situation in the deltas are also changing. But for example, like in case of Bangladesh, the food system is always or mostly focused on production itself, so more production. But only focusing on production is not enough anymore. We need to take a look at a more holistic approach, so a balanced approach. That's where the food system approach comes in, which takes into account not only the food safety, so not only the production side, but also the environmental factors such as equality and equality of income, equality of benefits, and socioeconomic factors, sustainability and resilience, and safe and healthy diet. But future itself is changing and very uncertain. For example, if we take a look at the city of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, where I live most of my life, I've seen it grow rapidly and exponentially. It's growing at such a rate and such a way that it's very difficult to predict how it look like. It will look like in the future. So future is always uncertain, so long-term planning is always required. But even if we know in the future where we want to be, we need to know how can we get there? So how can we get there step by step? That's where like back-casting comes into play. So now we're here at present and we want to be here in the future. But we need to think about how can we get there step by step? So that's one of the things that we wanted to talk with our local farmers in Bangladesh during our recent field visit in May. So the objectives were that we would gather knowledge on the farmer's perspective on impact of salinity now and the future, and what kind of future do they envision and how would they like to get there? Step by step. It had three sessions. We had three workshops. So each workshop had three sessions. In the first session, we asked the farmers to talk about the impact of salinity now. In the second session, impact of salinity in the future. And in the third session, we asked them what kind of future would they like to have and how would they like to get there? We wanted to talk about these kind of things in different sectors. So what are the general information? How the agriculture sector, livestock, shrimp will look like? And what will be the impact on drinking water as well and health as well? But also when we asked them to talk about their envisioned future, like the future they would like to have, and how would they like to get there to make it more comprehensible of the time scales or the time step, what we asked them like, okay, what would you like to do now? What would you like to do in 10 or 20 years for your next generation? And what would you like your grandchildren do to achieve that goal? So we had these workshops in southwest of Bangladesh in three different locations. So locations were selected depending on the level of salinity. So low, medium and high. The location close to Kulna, workshop one was low salinity in Boti Agata. It was medium salinity. And in Rampal, it was high salinity and the landscape was a bit different as well. Close to Kulna, it was close to an urban city center. And in Boti Agata, it was inside a polder. But in Rampal, it was outside of the polder, still a very rural area. And in all these three workshops, we tried to have gender balance in participation. We tried our best. So during our workshops, we not only talked with the farmers, we also saw that the farmers are also adapting and they are getting quite used to different technologies as well. So here we see a lady who has this EC meter and salinity probe and the farmers use information from her through a crop calendar to decide which crop they should grow depending on the level of salinity. And then here we see there are some experiments going on on how to do different crops and which would do better in higher salinity level. So when we talked about the current situation, current salinity situation, there are differences in all sectors from different salinity levels of the farmers. So especially in low salinity to medium to high, what we see is that okay at low salinity, salinity high only during the summer season in the medium salinity region. It's also in the summer region, but as well as the end of spring as well, but in high salinity region, the salinity is high throughout the year. We also asked the farmers, okay, so how do you know it's getting saline or it's very saline. So what they told us is like, okay, we just test the water from water bodies and it's saline, we see it, we test it, we see the plants dying, we see the leaves dying. So we know that salinity is getting higher. And one thing that I haven't added here was a very interesting fact that they informed us that okay, when salinity is very high, they go to a water body and disturbs the water body at night, then they can see reflections. And then they know salinity is really high. So I am not quite sure how that works out, but in my mind I think it's due to maybe density differences or something, but it shows like how local knowledge is also very important, like how local people actually perceive different kind of things. For agriculture in low salinity region, they see that the salinity is becoming challenging for irrigation for rice culture and vegetables are damaged as well. But when you move to more saline regions like medium to high saline, in medium salinity region, they already say that okay, irrigation during the high salinity season is not possible with surface water. We need to, they do the irrigation with very deep aquifer ground water. They said like 700 feet or something, they have the boring at different depth. And then they also do rice tolerant, salt tolerant rice crops, which are being suggested by a DAE department of agricultural extension and Bangladesh there. And they know that the vegetable production is not really good during the saline season. So what they do, they do vegetables just for themselves to use, so in their gardens or something or backyards. But for the high saline season, like when salinity is very high and nothing grows there. So seeds do not germinate, crops do not grow in this very low, only some vegetables grow there really. And for irrigation, they really have to buy the water from somewhere and bring it there for irrigation or they use rainwater harvesting. So three different scenarios and three different lifestyles, I would say. But for livestock, what they all agree is that okay, with saline water, the livestock actually gets sick. So like the cows get sick. And there is also becomes shortage of food, so feed grain and other things. But the thing is, when you go from low saline to medium saline, they already see that okay, the straw from the paddy that we're growing is not enough for the cows. But they still have some a bit of grass. But for high salinity, even the grass don't grow. So for them, like feed for the cattle is very, very difficult. And that region, we actually measured the salinity when we were there. It was like 14 or 15 ppt, quite high. But all of them actually see that opportunity. Okay, with the increasing salinity, maybe freshwater fish will not be possible. Shrimp could be possible, but they're also aware that the shrimp can bring risks as well because there are cases of diseases in the shrimps, then you lose your crop as well. Drinking water is another thing that impacts all of these regions, but in a different way. So for low salinity, there is shortage of drinking water during the summer season or like the saline season, high saline season. So then they buy water from a bit far away. But the thing is here, women actually carry the water home and the ladies actually see that the cookware also get damaged due to high salinity in the water. But they still have access to drinking water. In medium salinity, they already start to do like rainwater harvesting and that's even not enough. So they have to buy water from far away. And then there is also in that water, they have problems with iron and arsenic. So it's a bit challenging for high salinity season region. It's even more challenging and then they see that, okay, we cannot use groundwater because it's already saline. And then they have to buy water from far away. But then even with that water, children might have diarrhea as well. So when we ask the farmers, okay, you go far away, but nearby, what do you do nearby? So what they do, they take a look at different ponds that they have throughout the village and try to figure out which pond has the lowest salinity level. And then take the water from that pond and then filters it and try to bring that. So you are at about 10 minutes, so you need to speed up a bit. Okay, okay. Okay, so then about the future, how do they see the future to be? All of them see is like, okay, the salinity will be high. The striking thing that was for me is that, okay, level of salinity higher is a bit different as well. So what the low salinity farmers see is like, okay, rice production nowadays in Bangladesh we do it three seasons. Maybe we'll go back or go reduce to single season. But in the medium salinity, they already see that rice production will be hampered throughout the year and yield will be lower. And high salinity, they say that, okay, maybe a crop will not grow anymore. And the salinity will move more inland. So, okay, that's good to know. For the livestock, the situation will be even more dire with the drinking water problem. But what they see is that, okay, if they don't have livestock, they will have shortage of milk, eggs and protein as well. They see that, okay, increasing salinity will bring like opportunities for crabs and shrimps. And drinking water will still be challenging, but there we also see a different perspective of different regions. So the low salinity region, they don't mention a lot about like the treatments, but the medium and high salinity regions, they already have experienced some sort of treatment facilities. So they say that, okay, treatment for salinity, so desalination will be needed in the future. But as the salinity will increase, the diseases will increase as well. So there will be health issues for all three regions. And when we ask them, how do you see like ambition a future where you'd like to be, they all say, okay, we would like the salinity level to go down and lower salinity levels where we can do crops, where we can do vegetables, where we can have our livestock. But the people in the medium salinity level, they actually kind of surprised me saying that, okay, we know that the salinity level will never be like a freshwater level. There will still be salinity. So we agree to leave with the salinity and adapt to it with the latest technologies, maybe adaptive crops, adaptive cropping patterns and different kinds of things. And when we ask them to think about step by step. So what they say in the first step, we actually need to plan it well. We actually need to have a long-term planning. We need involvement of government institutes and NGOs and together we should plan. In the next step, they say we need to educate our next generation and they should know about different technologies, different crops and everything and adaptation measures, but they still would like them to do at least sustainable, sustainable agriculture. So they want their future generation to still be involved in agriculture, at least for sustainance. For the next next generation, they want them to be more educated and more involved with technologies, but still do agriculture. So what we see here is that, okay, they see that the agriculture practices will become more and more difficult, but they still want to be in the agriculture practices, at least for sustainance. And when we were in the field, we saw that the situation is very difficult. There is high salinity in the field. The riverbeds are going up, but still people are adapting to it. So they're growing like vegetables close to the banks of water bodies where they have access to the water quickly. They're doing rainwater harvesting. They're doing depredigation with peaches. They're doing mulching. And this is one example of using solar panels to run a desalination plan, which were installed by DPHE in Bangladesh. So there are a lot going on and people are trying to find a solution. So for the planning for the future, what we're doing now in this year, we're working on identifying salinity hotspots around the world at global scale and also at local scale in Bangladesh. At national scale in Bangladesh, we're working on sub-seasonal to seasonal forecasting project, where a bulletin is provided to the farmers to what to do, depending on weather forecast. And we're working on trade-off and synergies in food system. We're trying to develop a tool to see how different indicators impact each other. We are planning to have a workshop on salinity future in ICWFM nine conference in Bangladesh in October. At local level, we're working on salinity perception of the farmers just like this, and we would like to link our research to see the results. So then I come to the discussion points to actually discuss like whether salinity is actually part of your research. And if it is, do you collect field data and how do you collect field data and why do you do it? What are your field locations and will there be field work in recent future? Yeah, so that's about it. Thank you for listening to me. Yeah. Thank you very much, Feroz. Was I on time? I'm handing to Ola to facilitate the discussion. Well, also thank you very much from my side. Yeah, I'm also thanks that you put up already some potential points for discussion. Before we get to that, I would ask if there are any questions from the audience to you. You can just raise your hands and we can then you can unmute yourself and ask your question. If you have problems with your internet connection or don't want to speak for any other reason, you can also type your question into the chat and both has been done already by Mike. So Mike, go ahead. Thanks. Thank you for us. An interesting presentation. And of course, what's happening in Bangladesh is also happening in Myanmar in the Iowadi Delta and in the lower Mekong in Vietnam. So my question is, have you or has the government of Bangladesh looked at the possibility of adopting genetically modified crops which are already available like rice, salt tolerant rice, shrimps, Metspaners, Vanamai for example, which tolerates a range of salinity between 15 and 25 parts per thousand. But there are breeds now which will tolerate even more salinity. Same with fish and same with other crops. I don't know about livestock, but I imagine that somebody somewhere is genetically modifying goats and cattle for their resilience or tolerance to higher levels of salinity. So my question is, would this be acceptable to the Bangladeshi government and the Bangladeshi people? Thank you. Over. Yeah, very interesting question. Thank you for the question. So yeah, when we were talking with the farmers, especially in the medium salinity region, they were saying like the Department of Agriculture Extension in Bangladesh, they are always communicating with them. And sometimes they're also providing salinity tolerant rice seed or varieties for them as well. To my knowledge, there are a lot of research going on on salinity tolerant rice varieties in Bangladesh as well, in Biri. So and the farmers, what they told us during these workshops is that they are willing to adapt not only to a salinity tolerant rice, they're also willing to adapt to different cropping pattern as well. If rice is not possible anymore, they're willing to adjust to do something else as well. As long as they can produce something about the fish, they see the opportunity that, okay, with higher salinity, you can maybe we'll be able to do some shrimp culture and some crab or something else as well. But they're also worried a bit in a sense that like, okay, previously there were some talk about shrimps having viruses and stuff and losing the crop. So they're also worried about that as well. And for the livestock, I haven't heard about any like salinity tolerant variant, but I think the challenge here is also the food for livestock, the feed. So even though grass is more saline tolerant for a higher salinity reason, even grass doesn't don't grow there. So yeah, I think feed will be a challenge for livestock as well, not just for like, what do you say, the cattle, but maybe even for like chicken or even duck. Thank you. Thank you for the response. Let me add maybe that I'm not aware of any genetically modified salt tolerant rice variety. I'm not sure if some of my colleagues are, but I think generally there are very few genetically modified rice varieties that are available. There are, there is indeed a lot of research going on on improved rice for salinity tolerant. It's not as straightforward as one may think. And probably more straightforward than breeding for salt tolerant goat species, I assume. Just, just to add to that, the Chinese claim, and I have no means of verifying the claim that they have a genetically modified breed of rice, which will grow in full strength seawater 35 parts per thousand. As I say, it's a claim, it's out there on the internet. I've not seen it. If it's true, it will be very interesting. But it does come back to the question, the level to which a population or a government is prepared to accept genetically modified food. In the UK, for example, it is acceptable, but many sections of the community are against it and demonstrate actively against it. In Europe, I think it's, again, it's balanced. Some are happy and some are not. Indeed. We have more questions or comments. Bandari was first. Yeah, thanks, Oli. I think you already answered which I wanted to answer a few questions. So in terms of genetically modified, the China is working on some research, but in Bangladesh, there is no variety on the genetically modified rice. It is working on the golden rice in terms of genetic modification in terms of adding vitamin A, but still it's not approved by the government. So the GM crop is not well accepted. Although there is already the Brinjal, GM Brinjal, but after that one, no other crop has been released in terms of GM. But in terms of improved rice varieties, there are eight or nine salinity tolerant rice varieties already there. And then there are a few varieties which can tolerate up to eight or nine ds per meter, which is salinity level. But that's in the low or medium saline. They can still produce good amount of good yield. And also there are some hybrid varieties which perform quite good in terms of salinity condition also. But for the high salinity, it is working. And recently we found some germ plasm, which can still survive in 12 or 13 ds per meter, which is very high salinity. And we are working together in terms of developing some new varieties. So that's just some feedback in terms of this other issue. The livestock is quite important in the south. And then because of the salinity straw and then fodder production is one of the big challenge. And that's why if we can develop some sort of when we talk about the food system, some of the opportunity in terms of fodder production or the straw management. So that would be very good for the livestock family. And I heard that Ikara had some very good alpha-alpha saline tolerant variety. And also there are some salinity tolerant barley varieties. This will be good for testing in the coastal area. Thank you. Just feel good back. Thank you very much for the input and comments. Dr. Yen, that's the next question. Thank you. Thank you for your very interesting information. We are doing similar work in the same area. So this information from your presentation supports a lot for our work. I have one question for your slide number nine. Here we see that the saline tolerant rice is prioritized for the medium salinity barriers. But I see in the low salinity barriers, the salinity is the biggest challenge for rice. But why the saline tolerant rice is not selected here? Yeah, thank you for the question. I think the saline tolerant variant and everything actually in Bangladesh, as far as I know, it works in a way that the Department of Agricultural Extension, they introduce this kind of things to the farmers or they inform the farmers with this kind of information and practices. Then they pick it up. So in the medium saline region, it was introduced to them with the Department of Agricultural Extension. And for the low saline, I think they still have access to quite fresh water for irrigation, even during like a bit of saline region, salinity season. So maybe that's why they are not using the salinity, but it's my guess. I actually didn't ask them why they don't do it. That would be my guess or my opinion, I would say. But good question indeed to ask. Thank you. Stefan, please. Thanks. Just a quick question. It's going along the lines of, you know, having these solutions outlined. Do we have an inventory either across all the efforts jointly we also have on an inventory of solutions that are sort of say ready to go and certain high potential solutions that we would then be able to map against, you know, a gradient of salinity so that we can capitalize on the information that you have already collected, but that we also look at what can we learn from what's out there if that has been done great. If not, then maybe that's a priority over. Yeah. Personally, I would say I am not aware of such a document or something. But what I would say that when in the field we actually saw that the farmers have, especially in the high salinity region that they have a crop chart where they can go to and figure out at what saline level, which crop does better. And in the picture I showed like one of the ladies who had this easy meter. She was hired by the farmers or she's paid by the farmers to test the salinity table in the beginning of the season to know which crop will do better and then take a look at the crop calendar and then decide which crop they should do. And the farmers also do the tests mixed season as well to know whether the salinity level is low or high or they have to do something. But that's what I've seen in the field. So yeah, maybe the others who are more knowledgeable than me and working on this more longer. Maybe they know if there are such documents available. And I add something because I think it's important to note that the crop chart and the lady measuring this is still a project context. So it's not a kind of standard procedure yet. But it looks very promising. And the other point about whether efforts and potentials are already listed. We didn't do that in our research but it might be that in AMD that was done. So I'm kind of asking, are you or maybe Humnat knows that? Whether in AMD something like that was done? I would say not yet. Humnat, do you know if that has been done outside of AMD in the SEAL folder? Yeah, in the SEAL folder project we did a lot of survey what are the choice for the different technology and then what are the different solutions. So based on that, what are the crops? What is the market? Even if the crop is there, whether there is market or not. So that type of exercise has been done for the SEAL folder project but that's only for the cool not for low, medium and high salinity area. But maybe it's interesting if you could share that to us then we can kind of look into the matter also because we will be going again. Yes, sure. And can I ask all three of you, do you know if there's a kind of systematic mapping that has been done or is ongoing in terms of salinity levels in normal years, in extreme years? Yeah, is there any kind of mapping there so that we have an understanding of where can we expect what kind of salinity levels? Okay, Humnat first. Yeah, there is the SRDI called the Soil Research and Development Institute, SRDI. That's the working on the soil related things and they do the current and then future projection of the salinity level what will be in the future. So that projection is already there until 2050 or I don't know exactly but future projection is there. And even in the SEAL folder project we do recording of the salinity level and the different months over the past five, six years. So where, which month there is high salinity, which month is it declined. So all this information we have recorded in the SEAL folder project as well. Across the delta or only in? Only in Kulna. So that's only in Kulna but SRDI has done all the coastal zone. That's the future projection. So that's more comprehensive and that's informative in terms of decision making. Pedro, would you like to add to that? Yeah, so I actually not adding but I might ask like SRDI, are they measuring like soil salinity or water salinity or something because I know like in BDP 2100, IWM also had a map for salinity maybe on water. How the salinity is now and how it might be in 2050. So, yeah. And I know like both soil and water salinity they project both. Nice. And these maps are available? Yeah, I put a link to the SRDI portal in the chat. Yes, that information is also used in the Bangladesh Delta plan. So it's very kind of government approved information as far as I know. It's mainly focused on the soil related salinity and not as much the water related salinity IWM has done some water related salinity modeling, which has been published with World Bank, where they made projections for the future which means very much why the area around Kulna Shatkira is far more saline than the area Potavakali Borishal. So that's a very important difference along the coast. And at the moment in Wageningen there's also a PhD from PSTU from Potavakali Science and Technology University, who is looking at salinity in that Potavakali Borishal area and who has done measurements at different depth throughout the year at different moments. And that's what I know about measurements. And I think there's a lot more to do there. Measuring can always be done at the kind of global level. We are now trying to kind of see whether we can, with other global modeling, we can get that to kind of get a grip on what global hotspots on salinity are, because if we can do that with modeling then we can also model the kind of future hotspots. So that's work in progress. And the other thing is that there is a difference on knowing at the national level things and knowing at the local level things also with regard to the future. So for the farmers, it might not be that they know like eight or nine PPT, but still it will be interesting to kind of match these different kind of knowledges together. Good point. Thank you. Also, thank you for the link. Mahesh, please. Thanks. Thanks for the presentation, which is quite interesting. I have the same question anybody monitoring on water and soil salinity. And you asked that. Thanks, Kathleen, for that information. And to go back to that crop information thing. I was wondering if there any information on crop yields actually, how the change in seasonal salinity and also change in the, if you look at the low salinity areas, high salinity areas, what the crop yield. Change with respect to the rice and also how the salinity impacting the crop. And the other question is, is anybody monitoring groundwater there? Suppose farmers are using this saline water from the canal. And how that's impacting the groundwater salinity or the saline inclusion mixing together. How that's anybody is doing that. Just one. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for the question. So first of all about the rice production and everything. So as far as I know, in Bangladesh, like the Minister of Agriculture publishes yearbook every year, which gives information on how much rice is produced in different districts. And also like Bangladesh full of statistics, they publish, I think also yearly basis, like how much production is going on. But relating that to salinity, in my opinion would be a bit challenging in a sense that the measurement for the salinity is not continuous, or it's not available publicly. So I would say it's not like these two hasn't been compared together, because the measurements are not in my opinion, according to my knowledge is not continuous or not available. So if the measurements are there, I think this can be done. But also, it's difficult to assess whether the impact of salinity was high or low, because if the farmers actually switch to saline tolerant rice variant, which actually offsets the reduction of rice production, then it's difficult to see. Okay, what salinity has been impacting comparing just these two data sets, maybe we need the cropping pattern data as well like okay what kind of crops were there. That's one thing. And about the modeling, so I know maybe IWM does some model on like national regional scale levels with the groundwater and maybe with the surface water, but I'm not sure whether they combine these two. Not at least for salinity, so not for IWM transfer, as far as I know they might be combining these two for water levels and this kind of things, base flow and others, but not for IWM transfer as far as I know. And at field scale, I don't think it has been done, but like the research that Katharine actually suggested, the research is from PSTU, Protocol Science and Technology University. He actually I think did a bit of modeling with SWAP, with using the measurement data that he collected salinity at different levels, so that's as far as I know. Does that answer the question, Mayush? Yeah, that's great. Thanks for the information. Yeah, we will explore more actually. Yeah, I would be very sorry to interrupt you, but it would be very interesting to hear from the AMD on your side, who is actually the person who is most kind of working on salinity in Bangladesh in the AMD from the water angle? It's not so easy to answer. Okay, that's fine. No problem. We have kind of, I would say, three main contact points there. We have the work package on agronomy is looking at agronomic practices and better agricultural systems to adapt for salinity. That's led by Robert, who's not here, but I think also Bandari is involved there. Then we have work on salinity risk mapping, a participatory approach that has been done by Katie and Yen and Chung in a different work package. That's more supposed to support planning. And then we will start work on more modeling related work, which you are aware of done in two different aspects of that done by Wageningen and Imi. And that's, now I'm not sure, Mahesh, would that be, I forgot who's the main contact point there from Imi, is that you Mahesh or? Katie, Katie's in college. Yes, is he here? I think so. Okay, no, okay. Does that answer? I have a question. Yes, please. Feroz, thanks actually for the presentation. I just want to know, what I saw during your presentation is that actually the farmer perceptions, but during your visit, did you discuss with the extension agencies like DOF, like DAE, like department of livestock, any discussion with them local level, any discussion with them? Because when I discuss with these different agencies, I really find a different kinds of views from different persons. If you ask a department of fisheries officials, you always say that, okay, salinity is good for us, for the problem, because why you want to grow everything everywhere? Salinity is good for shrimp, we can go for shrimp in this area. So, you know, if you ask department of agricultural extension, they are coming up with different solution, you know, because diversity of the food system is also required. But really a consensus among these extension agencies is needed to make a comprehensive plan to address the salinity in that area. And I think, you know, from the field level, these perception kinds of things, we know your presentation give us some new idea, but you know, many people are also doing this in this area. But really, if you want to think about a, you know, sustainable plan, you need to add those agencies and to look at how we can actually integrate these results, how we can actually make a joint plan to address these issues. So this is very important for my view. Because different people has different opinion there, you know, it could be something really, really sustainable solution for a sustainable solution. Thank you. Maybe a short response. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so yeah, so when we're in the field, we actually talk to the like officers from department of agricultural extension. We were, we came to know that they were introducing or informing the farmers about different saline tolerant variants and also they promoted like the mustard seed production in the high saline season this year. So we did talk with some of them and doing my PhDs work was also on South West Delta, South West part of Bangladesh. And I actually saw that the different agencies sees the problem in a different lens lens. Yeah, I think there is a consensus is needed, of course. Yeah. Okay, thanks. I'm afraid we have to, I think Catherine wants to say something urgent, but I think we have to kind of come to a close because we're wanted to discuss the future plans. The UND will organize a site event on Salinity in Delta's during the International Rights Congress in October this year. So maybe that is another chance where we can continue the discussion or go a bit more in depth. If people attend. Catherine. Yes. Well, the point I wanted to raise was that I fully agree on the point on the consensus that is needed it will be interesting in that regard to reflect at a later moment. The research that was mentioned that you do with the participatory approach on and the risk mapping, and to see if that could help in that regard. And maybe, well, if you are not already in touch with government at various levels, I would be very willing to help also with our network. In case that would help yours, though I think you have a quite good network there with whom that's coordinating the Bangladesh case overall. With regard to the. You mentioned October, the eerie conference that will be very great if you can raise this the flag on this topic there. I very much look forward to hear more about that in Bangladesh there will be the ICW FM nine the international conference on water and flood management. And we are in touch with the organizers for a session on salinity. And I will follow up with whom not and you all on how to kind of reflect from AMD also in that session that would be a great opportunity also to link. And that's also in October correct. Yes 14 to 16 October. So we can have a rowing event starting in Dhaka and then moving to Manila. Yes. And then following it up also linking to the work we did for the UN water conference to kind of bring this also to the international level. To raise the flag that a lot of work is needed and of course we do our research work, but we already can identify more questions so maybe we should wish to work on a knowledge agenda for this. And then separate from that. So other organizations World Bank ADB are involved in implementation projects and we need that's kind of difficult because either it goes from agriculture and then it's not integrated or it goes from soils and then it's not integrated or it goes from livestock. So you see that's that's quite difficult to get it embedded in implementation as well. For the agree Cog 28 is also coming up another opportunity. We have three minutes to look into the future. So first of all I'm very happy that we had around 30 participants today, despite holidays. So that's very good and an indication that there's interest in that we should continue. If anyone objects, please let us know immediately. From our side, we were thinking of having this every four weeks. Would that work and so first of all maybe the timing is the timing okay for you. Yeah. And then maybe in terms of frequency we were thinking of every four weeks and then alternating between bargaining and AMD speakers. And then but I mean the main point is the discussion later on I think so with that. Would that work every four weeks to that. That would be now the whereas my calendar 26 July I just put it in the chat. Wonderful. Does that work. And then we can maybe create a regular event in the calendars every four weeks. Yes. And we can make a schedule so that also some people can say I would like to present and then we can communicate so people know it a bit further in advance. Mm hmm. Yeah, good point. We can create an agenda maybe for the rest of the year where people asked to present already. It also doesn't have to be strictly alternating. I mean it's just because we will run out of time soon and people will need to move. I want to thank everybody. One question is can we expand to more partners in the chat. Stefan asked that question and I would be in favor that we anybody who would wish to join can join. Is that okay with you? Yes. Yeah. Okay. I think then we are going to say our goodbyes. We can also, I mean at some point maybe next time we discuss that if we make that really a bit more public and advertise that more widely these delta thoughts. I think that's a good idea. Yeah. Okay. Then we lose a bit of the, of course, of the no bilateral discussion between Barclay and AMD. So it will be a bit on a different level than maybe the question. We will experiment and if we think we lose too much out in the discussion because we are too many people or not free enough to talk. I think people could feel free to give us feedback that I missed this part. Let's go to that because we can then also alternate. We can have kind of some are for everybody like every quarter and some are internal. Yeah. Let's experiment. Very, very good. Good. Let's move more forward. So 26 of July next time. See you again and we will identify someone. Have a good day. Everybody. Thanks for joining. Bye. Have a good day and may it move our. Bye, bye. It move our to everybody.