Mine Water Network: Start-up Meeting
Lausanne, 1. – 2. Juni 2002

In Lausanne/Switzerland, the inaugural meeting of the M-WINE, the Mine Water Interdisciplinary Network of Europe, was held. The meeting was planned as a workshop about mine water pollution, during which an interdisciplinary network of geoscientists and microbiologists should be initiated. This growing network now responded to a call from the European Union for Expressions of Interests for the 6th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development.
The 72 scientists and PhD-students from 13 European countries came together to present a broad range of special case studies and detailed scientific questions in 27 talks. Prior to the workshop, a short course about “Bio-geochemistry of Mine Water Formation” was held with 35 participants for three days.
The meeting also gave the opportunity to present the scientific work as well as the facilities and future interests to an interdisciplinary audience. There was enough time to discuss the structure and the further development of the M-WINE network.
Up to now, 250 participants from 19 European countries want to contribute to this Network of Excellence. They cover a broad range of scientific areas, e. g. geology, hydrogeology, geochemistry, mining engineering, hydrobiology, microbiology, botany, and more.
Due to the size of this network, it needs to be structured into thematically-oriented research groups. Examples for such sections include underground mines, surface mines, pit lakes, acidified rivers, and uranium mining. Working groups about analytical techniques, quality assurance, modelling or risk assessment and expert systems could be an additional feature. The head of M-WINE will coordinate activities like seminars, summer schools, short courses and more in order to promote the exchange of knowledge and expertise in the field of mine water research.
If the European Union will accept the topic as a priority, the European Union might financially support the network in the 6th Framework Program.
The M-WINE is designed to be an open interdisciplinary forum for all scientists and small to medium enterprises (SMEs) working on mine water issues in the broadest sense. Therefore, everybody who is interested in this field and would like to participate in this network can request the Expression of Interest from the authors as a pdf-file.

Andrea van der Veen, Kurt Friese
UFZ-Centre for Environmental Research, Department for Inland Water Research
veen@gm.ufz.de or friese@gm.ufz.de