8th IAHS Scientific Assembly / 37th IAH Congress- A Joint International Convention September 5, 2009

The world scientific and professional community, policy makers, executives and the NGOs are all welcome to participate in the event.
Water resources are under an unprecedented stress globally inspite of the fact that many conservation and management strategies are in place in many nations. Inspite of realising the limitations of the concept of water resources as 'renewable resource', they are still being exploited far beyond their replenishable levels in the ever increasing demands in domestic, industrial and agricultural sectors driving their fate to extinction. In many parts of the world, water resources have already depleted and contaminated almost to a point of no-return. The challenges associated with water scarcity are becoming emerging risks that will impede the economic development and cause serious health hazards world over. The impacts are more rigorous and apparent in developing nations which contributes almost 95% of the world’s new addition to population.
The recent spurt in agricultural production supplemented by the monsoon failures due to climate changes has shifted the focus on to the ground water in the water resources regime to meet the additional demand of water supply. In this process even deltaic regions have witnessed rapidly declining of ground water levels leading to sea water incursions far into inland. The stress on groundwater has been much worse in hard rock terrain due to high degree of heterogeneity in the occurrence and dynamic behavior of the resource. Water quality, hitherto not considered as a serious issue, need to be given significant priority in all sectors of water usage and management. It is also timely that the virtual water costs in various development and production sectors with special reference to demand, availability and sustainability of the resources in the local and regional set ups need to be taken into account in planning and execution of all major and medium level developmental initiates. All this requires an appropriate scientific approach conforming to the national policies. More so the acceptability and involvement of end users and policy makers right from initiation till the end of execution of these activities is essential. The situation in the developing nations is more acute and sensitive warranting a special attention. A synergic approach synthesizing science, governance, awareness and educative policies can be handy to address many of these issues.

Official Website: http://www.appliedhydrology.org/iahs/iahshome.view