JEDDAH, 23 November 2004 — Prince Sultan, second deputy premier and minister of defense and aviation, will open on Dec. 5 a four-day international conference on water resources at King Saud University in Riyadh. He also will award the Prince Sultan International Prize for Water to its winners.
The conference, organized by Prince Sultan Research Center for Environment, Water and Desert, focuses on four pivotal topics: Water resources, arid environment, desertification and the use of modern technology in studying desert environment. The conference will discuss research papers on important topics, such as integrated water-resource management, flood control, economical 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 as well as modern measuring systems and devices.
The winners for Prince Sultan Prize were selected from 152 contestants from several countries including the US, Germany, Japan, South Africa, Switzerland, Austria, India, Canada, Malaysia, Turkey and Britain.
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 also is American, hydraulic engineer Dr. Herman Bouwer, who won the award for his work on artificial groundwater 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 prize for Water Recourses Management 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 Groundwater from Agricultural Pollutants,” which illustrates the need for more research on this important issue.
The Prince Sultan International Prize for Water was instituted in 2002 to recognize outstanding research in the areas of surface water, groundwater, alternative water resources, water recourses management, and protection of water resources. Next year’s topics for the five branches of research will be announced at the conference.
