Rather than file an exhaustive report, I think it would be best to direct the reader to some of the support materials for the meeting, which are on line and stick to the items that were of notable interest rather than written in the meeting. I also have a list of abstracts which you can ask me for. The website (still on Dennis Lettenmaier machine) is at http://maximus.ce.washington.edu/~tempcm/index.html (some of it is out of date since it still has Eric Wood as program head) and includes three reports in a previous workshop in April regarding post 2002 missions. These mission documents include work and discussion towards a 3-hourly precip modeling satellite constellation after TRIMM (covering greater percentages of the surface than the current mission) for the Global Precip Mission [this one isn’t on the site but I have a copy], a Soil Moisture/Ocean Salinity Mission, a focus on cold season processes [once again, this one isn’t online but I have it too], and Hydra-Sat, a potential instrument for monitoring [large-scale] surface runoff and lake elevations. (The HydrA-Sat may be work watching and I attended that session in the breakout meetings).

Notable items that were discussed regarding the LSHP program was the announcement for a more permanent civil service position for a new program manager (Paul Houser is only the temporary manager). No one seems to be biting at it with one possible exception late Wednesday and he isn’t eligible since he isn’t a US citizen. Eric Wood, Dennis Lettenmaier and others have strongly made their intentions clear that they want a surface hydrologist. A call for proposals will hopefully be drafted soon.

For near future initiatives the LSHP PIs will be drafting a white paper shortly with an RFP to follow. They also want program offices for the previously mentioned. The need for developing international ties was also discussed.

While at the meeting, I had a detailed discussion with Bill Crosson and Bill Lapenta regarding possible collaborations in NASA EPSCoR (to be discussed under separate cover). I also discussed potential wetland interests with Mike Jasinski and Charron Birkett both of NASA GSFC. Birkett is heavily involved in the HydrASat mission. It should be noted that HydrASat may not be what we need to monitor the prairie wetlands, the proposed instruments and mission parameters will be involving wetland monitoring but only the larger systems in South America and Africa. However, as Ted Engman ad Birkett mentioned in one-on-ones, there may be some potential and I will be sending Birkett specifics on what our remote sensing needs would be (as well as sample MSS imagery over Waubay). [Ted also told me Thursday that he was pleased that someone in the meeting was interested in wetlands.] I am not sure where the HydrASat will lead but let’s keep some fingers crossed.