Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, Second Deputy Premier and Minister of Defence and Aviation, will open a four-day international conference on water resources at King Saud University in Riyadh on 5 December. He also will award the Prince Sultan International Prize for Water.
The conference, to be held under the auspices of Prince Sultan Research Centre for Environment, Water and the Desert, will focus on four main topics: water resources; arid environment; desertification; and the use of modern technology in studying desert environment.
The conference will discuss research papers on topics such as integrated water-resource management, flood control, economic desalination technologies, advances in irrigation, and combating agricultural pollution. Other topics include legal and administrative water-resource issues, desert pollution, plant cover, conservation of biodiversity in arid environments, and global warming.
The conference will discuss modern means to combat desertification, sustainable development of natural resources and protection of wildlife in desert environments.
Papers also will be presented on remote sensing, geographical information and global positioning systems, biotechnology, and modern measuring systems and devices.
The winners for Prince Sultan Prize were selected from 152 contestants representing several countries, including the U.S., Germany, Japan, South Africa, Switzerland, Austria, India, Canada, Malaysia, Turkey and Britain, according to a report published by Arab News.
Cornell Professor Jery R. Stedinger of the United States won the Surface Water Prize for his paper on flood control methods. The winner of the Ground Water Prize is hydraulic engineer Dr Herman Bouwer, also from the U.S., who won the award for his work on artificial ground water recharge. The Alternative Water Resources Prize was shared by Dr Hisham Taha Abdullah El-Dossouky and Dr Hisham Ettouney of Egypt for their work on desalination. King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology won the Water Resource Management Prize for its work on new techniques for irrigation water conservation. The Water Resources Protection Prize was withheld due to a lack of nominees in the topic specified: “Protecting Ground Water from Agricultural Pollutants,” which reflects the need for more research on this important issue.
The Prince Sultan International Prize for Water was established in 2002 to recognize outstanding research in the areas of surface water, ground water, alternative water resources, water resource management, and protection of water resources.
Next year’s topics for the five branches of research will be announced at the forthcoming conference.
Source: SPA
