The International Sediment Initiative (ISI) was launched by UNESCO׳s International Hydrological Programme (IHP) in 2002 with the objective of advancing sustainable sediment management on a global scale. The ISI Technical Secretariat was very successfuly taken over and is eversince led by the UNESCO Category 2 centre in Beijing, China: The International Research and Training Center on Erosion and Sedimentation (IRTCES). The ISI was initially led by the Steering Committee, chaired by Manfred Spreafico (Switzerland) (source), and later by the Advisory Group and the Expert Group (source).
Under the IHP IX Programe (2022-2029), ISI as one of the IHP Flagship initiatives (there are more than 15 in total), is aligning itself with the main IHP activities and reporting system (taking into account the new Framework for the Planning, Implementation and Monitoring of IHP Flagship Initiatives – Resolution XXV-2 adopted by the UNESCO’s IHP Intergovernmental Council at its 25th Session in Paris, April 26-29, 2022), and has therefore started to prepare a new ISI strategy 2022-2029 as a contribution to the IHP IX – a (current – 2023) draft version of the ISI strategy is available here.
As the new ISI strategy was developing, the idea arose to incorporate the International Programme on Landslides (IPL) into the ISI strategy for 2022-2029. Since Dr. Mikoš is currently the Chairman of the Global Promotion Committee for the International Programme on Landslides and the Kyoto 2020 Commitment for Landslide Risk Reduction (GPC/IPL-KLC), he was elected in March 2024 by the UNESCO Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (IHP) to the newly established ISI Advisory Board – an ISI governance body to oversee the preparation of the new ISI Strategy 2022-2029 and to later (when accepted by the IHP Council) implement it as an IHP Flagship Initiative, contributing to the IHP IX Program.