Roorkee: The National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee is conducting a five-day International Conference on Water, Environment, Energy and Society (WEES-2009) on Water Harvesting here from January 12.

The conference was inaugurated by Prof. Saifuddin Soz, Union Minister of Water Resources.

The conference is being organized with an aim to bring together educators, researchers, practitioners, planners, managers, administrators, social and economic scientists, policy makers from all over the world for discussion of problems pertaining to water and environment in arid, semi-arid, all tropical regions.

Addressing the conference Prof. Soz said, "Water harvesting should be taken as a National Mission or a Movement."

He also appealed to people to change habits of using water in judicious manner to save water and accept water harvesting as a national mission or a movement.

"Water problem should be treated as a movement not as a war", added Soz.

Referring to ground water table situation and deterioration in water quality, the Minister insisted to plan appropriate strategies on priority.

Prof. Soz cautioned that the per capita availability of water is reducing day by day as a result of population growth. The growing population coupled with industrialization and urbanization has resulted in demand for various uses.

He called upon the people to adopt the most appropriate measures for development and put an efficient management system in place for optimum utilization of water resources.

Prof. Soz expressed an urgent need for reliable assessment of the impact of climate change on water resources and planning appropriate strategies for mitigation at the earliest. Informing about the steps taken by India in this direction, Prof. Soz referred to the water mission which is one of the eight missions under the eight task force of climate change.

"In our country we have come across the situation where the over exploitation in certain areas has resulted in lowering of ground water table and deterioration in ground water quality. At the same time we have come across the situations resulting from unplanned development or improper planning in some cases. There are instances of over exploitation of available water resources or that of it's over use", he cautioned.

Earlier, Mr. Jai Prakash Narayan Yadav, Minister of State for Water Resources said, "The water is a priceless gift from nature and if not managed properly, it will be a curse on our society. Most of the countries are facing natural calamities like floods or droughts". He informed the participants about the River Protection Policy of the Government for integrated system of River basin Control.

About 300 delegates from 18 countries are participating in this five day conference and there are 36 technical sessions for exchange of ideas on subjects on efficient management of practices, planning, management of stakeholders etc. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Indo-US Science and Technology Forum, International Atomic Energy Agency (Vienna) etc. have sponsored the Conference.

Issues related to surface water, ground water, contamination, pollution, eco-systems, water resources planning and management, river linking etc. are being deliberated through more than 300 technical papers and poster presentations.

Solutions of the water related problems are also being discussed with consideration of challenges and direction for the 21st Century to reduce the environment related problems.