The aim of this joint programme of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and UNESCO, created in 2002, is to facilitate the integration of isotopes in hydrological practices in the following ways:
- developing tools for better understanding specific hydrological processes and improving assessment, development and management of water resources
- supporting national, regional and international programmes in water resources using isotope techniques
- incorporating isotope hydrology as part of hydrologic curricula in universities worldwide
- integrating isotopic data in hydrological databases at national, regional and global scales.
New sets of high-resolution data from Earth observing systems and in-situ measurements at the basin scale will give more reliable descriptions of the processes governing the hydrological cycle. This will lead to new concepts for the representation of water resources and their associated fluxes.
JIIHP aims to cover scientific, practical and educational aspects of relevant hydrological and water resource studies and improve implementation and coordination of hydrological programmes of UNESCO, WMO, IAEA and other international government or non-governmental organizations.