Monday, 11 August 2008
Water, Human health and the Environment
Coordinator: Olle Selinus, Geological Survey of Sweden (Sweden)
People's lives and livelihoods depend on water. Demand for clean water increases continually in line with world population growth. People in many areas of the world lack the fresh, drinkable water essential to their survival; if they are to prosper, more secure and low cost water supplies are needed. Maintaining secure water supplies for drinking, industry and agriculture would be impossible without groundwater, the largest and most reliable of all freshwater resources. In many areas most drinking water is groundwater - up to 80 % in Europe and Russia, and even more in North Africa and the Middle East.
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Geoscience program
08:30 Introduction
Olle Selinus
08:30-09:00 Groundwater - principles and perspectives
Bo Olofsson
Swedish Royal University of Technology, KTH (Sweden)
09:00-09:30 Cultural evolution and water-borne exposure pathways
Philip Weinstein
School of Population Health, University of Western Australia (Australia)
09:30-10:00 Arsenic and medical geology: A role for the earth scientist in
the assessment and prevention of health risk
Jose Centeno
Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Washington DC, (USA)
10:00-10:30 Coffee break
10:30-11:00 Fluorine - water, rock, human interactions - a global overview
Mike Edmunds
Oxford University Centre for Water Research (UK)
11:00-11:30 Radon and health risks of radon in groundwater
Don Appleton, Jon Miles,
BGS and UK Health Protection Agency, HPA (UK)
11:30-12:00 Natural organic pollutants in groundwater: Potential health implications
Robert B Finkelman, William H Orem
University of Texas, Dallas (USA)
12:00-13:00 Lunch
StatoilHydro lecture
13:00-14:00 A changing World: Will there be enough
water for all, including the ecosystems?
Ghislain de Marsily
University Paris VI (France)
Societal program
14:00-14:30 Climate change adaptation and water - examples of facing
multiple challenges from sea level rise to water scarcity from a planning
perspective
Philippe Schmidt-Thome
Geological Survey of Finland (Finland)
14:30-15:00 Risk management of groundwater contamination in the context
of water safety plans
Roisin Monica Rooney, Roger Aertgeerts
World Health Organisation, WHO, Regional Office for Europe, Rome (Italy)
15:00-15:30 Why is groundwater neglected in water management discussions?
Anders Berntell
Stockholm Internat Water Institute SIWI (Sweden)
15:30-16:00 Ethiopian groundwater resource management
Asfaw Dingamo
Ethiopia's minister for water resources (Ethiopia
16:00-17:00 Panel debate
17:00 One-to-one press briefing