Melting polar ice caps, flood disasters, or droughts: Humans are facing major challenges when it comes to the topic of water. This "blue gold" is vital to sustaining life and climate changes as well as the ongoing population explosion and the expansionistic drive of people both have negative impacts: Mega coastal cities must prepare against flooding, while drought is a threat in other countries. In Germany, the sustainable use of the precious liquid has long ceased being nothing but political lip service and instead calls on all people equally to engage in new thinking and action patterns.
IWRM Karlsruhe - Integrated Water Resources Management - focuses on questions pertaining to this broad subject from November 21 to 22, 2012. The symposium with linked exhibition invites leaders from business, administration, science, and politics from all over the world to the Karlsruhe Congress Center to discuss the latest developments, technologies, and projects in the field of IWRM.
After the successful launch of the IWRM Karlsruhe 2010 with over 400 participants from 33 nations, participants can expect in 2012 an even more comprehensive program of lectures, consisting of a total of fifteen sessions with best-practice examples. Key topics include the following: Water management in urban areas, water and energy management, management of water catchment areas, sustainable use of water resources, climate change and water management, and socio-economic criteria for water distribution.
Top speakers from 20 nations, including Egypt, Australia, China, Kenya, and the U.S., provide a detailed insight into their work at IWRM Karlsruhe. Together with the participants, they discuss and develop the criteria necessary for successful implementation of projects related to integrated water resources management.
The NEO2012 innovation prize endowed with € 20,000 will be awarded on 21 November. The prize is for application-oriented work on innovative environmental technologies in the water sector with ecological assessments, ecosystems, water chemistry, and geophysics as fields of action.
A separate series of lectures, held on November 22, 2012 by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF), is going to be part of IWRM for the first time. Three sessions dealing with water quality management, transfer of water management technologies, and water management in agriculture, respectively, will present the latest findings and studies on projects in Jordan, Brazil, Indonesia, Palestine, and Mongolia.
Also on November 22, a poster session provides a good opportunity to exchange technical ideas. The current issues are discussed extensively and with hands-on examples, the high level of importance of the session is ensured by speakers from prestigious institutions such as the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research UfZ, the University of Dortmund, the TUs Dresden and Munich, as well as the Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences, the University of Mosul, and the Al al-Byet University of Jordan. The best three of the presented posters will be awarded the Best Poster Award.
The linked exhibition is ideal for the direct information exchange with suppliers, service providers, and researchers. The Business Forum, which offers exhibitors the opportunity to present their products and services, serves the experts as an additional communication platform.
