| Description |
Introduction:
Just as water is such a precious resource in temperate countries, it is even more valued in arid places such as the Middle East where natural low rainfalls, increased frequencies of drought, water salinization, and flash floods increase the challenges of supplying sufficient fresh water. While these natural restrictions are all too apparent, the enormous rate of economic development in these countries, with their associated increases in water demand from both burgeoning populations and business activities, means that the demand side is on an increase trajectory far beyond that of supplies. Obviously one of the majors challenge facing water policy developers is how to develop sufficient water resources to ensure that there is no brake on this economic development. To tackle this issue, economic advantage and technology have so far been used wisely and to good effect. In this region the term water resource has taken on quite a different meaning with manufactured water, either through desalination and waste water re-use, contributing an ever growing percentage to the supply system. These technologies obviously come at energy, economic, and environmental cost, and with a growing consideration of carbon footprint, there has been an exploration of increasingly innovative ideas for building the capacity (Howari, and McDonnell, First Break, 2008).
Conference objectives:
The intent of the conference is to make water resources-related science in arid regions more relevant to high-priority policy issues and by doing so, strengthen the link between water scientific research and the needs of various countries and their consumer sectors. This requires involvement from water experts, and key decision makers to shape policy and input from them about what these priority issues are. Another goal of this meeting is to establish workgroups on water policy to follow up on the main themes of the meeting, and to provide opportunity for decision makers, scientists, young researchers, and private sector representatives to interact on this important topic for the arid regions of this world. The conference panels will focus on integrating concepts and scientific understanding from various academic disciplines and organizational partners to inform evidence-based decision making at multiple levels of governance.
Contributions:
Abstracts are welcomed in the following areas:
• Water resource availability and sustainable water technology
• Water resource policy, current policies, and their implications in the future
• Water and energy policy under conditions of economic and climate change
• Water and human use in multi-cultural societies
• Water policy, law, governance and institutional structures
Please send your abstract to fares.howari@beg.utexas.edu before March 30, 2008
|
|
