Section Chair:

Prof. Dr. Athanasios Loukas, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Thessaly, 38334 Volos, Greece

Water has a critical role in sustaining human health, food security, energy production and ecosystem services. Population growth, climate, environmental and land use change increasingly threaten water quality and quantity. Successful management of water resources requires an integrative understanding of coupled human and natural system components that can be used to generate practical, scientifically sound, economically-efficient and socially acceptable solutions that are sustainable. Furthermore, adequate monitoring of water resources plays a key role for the understanding of the surface water and groundwater systems functionality. This session provides a forum for discussing the innovations in water resources monitoring, the advances in water resources systems analysis, planning and management to inform public policy, water resource allocation, conflict resolution, water governance, and sustainable development in a changing world.

Specifically, this session focuses on recent advances in science as well as in practical application, including:

- The development, analysis, and application of new data collection techniques, such as environmental sensor networks, satellite imagery and participatory data collection methods;
- New understanding of hydrological processes;

- The impact of climate and land use change on surface water and groundwater;

- Innovative water management strategies, such as the storage of reclaimed water or excess water from different sources in Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR);

- Methodologies for assessing the impact and cost-effectiveness of selected response measures toward an optimal water allocation;

- Best water scarcity and droughts indicators across a range of scales and develop specific targets regarding water efficiency, ecosystem services which allow their sustainability in the river basins;

- Studies on how different water allocation strategies in transboundary international basins could impact water resources.

Keywords: water resources management; water resources monitoring; climate change; land use change; water allocation; water efficiency; ecosystem services; sustainability

Section Chair:

Prof. Dr. Aleksandra Drizo, Professor in Water Technology, School of Energy, Geosciences, Infrastructure and Environment, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK

Water quality deterioration caused by population growth and continuous expansion of industrial and agricultural activities has become an issue of a global concern. Following "Water for Life" Decade 2005-2015 the United Nations recognizes eutrophication as the most prevalent water pollution problem globally. It is caused by perpetual nutrients loading from human activities (agricultural, domestic sewage, municipal, industrial and urban runoff) resulting in harmful blue-green algae blooms (HABs). Phosphorus loading has been recognized as the principal trigger of eutrophication. Over the past 6 years the number of coastal areas worldwide experiencing symptoms of eutrophication increased by nearly 85%. As much as 78% of the assessed continental U.S. coastal area and approximately 65% of Europe's Atlantic coast exhibit symptoms of eutrophication. The actual magnitude most likely much greater given that in many regions of the world (e.g., Asia, Latin America, Africa) it has just started to be researched. The situation is even more alarming for freshwater resources with over 50% of the lakes worldwide being identified as eutrophic. HABs are reducing potable water supplies and cause significant losses to the economies. Global Climate Change will promote cyanobacterial growth and exacerbate HABs at much larger scales.

Emerging contaminants (pharmaceuticals and personal care products, veterinary antibiotics and medicines) releases in the waters is becoming a problem of increasing concern as current conventional wastewater technologies are not equipped to provide treatment for this kind of pollutants. Rubbish thrown directly into oceans represents another concern. It has been estimated that worldwide every hour about 680 tonnes of waste gets thrown directly into the oceans, more than half of it is made out of plastic. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Pacific trash vortex, spans waters from the West Coast of North America to Japan covering an area size of Western Europe.

In recent years a number of innovative technologies have been developed that showed potential in reducing water pollution. There is an urgent need for a radical change in water policies and technology verification programmes worldwide in order to enable these technologies application at national, international and global scales.

Keywords: water pollution; water and wastewater treatment; municipal wastewater effluents; residential wastewater; agricultural effluents and runoff; industrial effluents; urban stormwater runoff; eutrophication; nutrients loading; harmful algae blooms; emerging contaminants; ocean trash and sea pollution; innovative technologies

Section Chair:

Dr. Jiangyong Hu, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore

As micropolluants issues have become increasingly important due to rapid population growth, industrialization, and so on, it would be of great importance to have such a chance to gather water professionals from all over the world to share technical expertise and solutions in micropllutants monitoring, treatment and management and to foster potential international cooperation. Emerging contaminants with known or unknown health effects, once produced, will find their own way to enter into the aquatic environments. Their fates and behaviours in the water environment are still not fully understood and their associated risks have not been clearly known. Removal of emerging contaminants still remains as a big challenge in today's water industry after the bulk pollutants such as carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus are successfully dealt with for decades. Regulatory framework relevant to emerging contaminants is still under early development stage. Water scientists and professionals are therefore urged to come together through this wonderful platform for an exchange of views and experiences on emerging contaminants.

Keywords: emerging contaminants; monitoring; fate and behaviour; treatment; risk; regulation; management

Section Chairs:

Prof. Dr. Marco Franchini, Department of Engineering, University of Ferrara, I-44100 Ferrara, Italy

Prof. Dr. Bruno Brunone, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (DICA), University of Perugia, I-06125 Perugia, Italy

The aim of this conference is to provide a forum for all those who are interested in water pipe systems: researchers—from Universities and research centres—and design and consulting engineers—from water authorities and companies. Moreover, the conference would like to serve as a bridge between research, engineering applications and management aspects. According to the web tremendous potential in terms of results spreading, this conference is a compulsory event for shearing experiences from people all around the world without shouldering the financial burdens imposed by the time-consuming participation in person to a "traditional" Conference.

Following successful international events in the field of distribution and transmission pipe systems, the main focus of this conference is on system modelling, water demand forecasting and characterization, leakage and energy management, water demand, roughness and leakage calibration under uncertainty, districtualization, real time monitoring and control, optimal pump scheduling, system surveying and performance assessment (with a particular attention on data management and advances in sensors), sustainable management, effects of climate change on management rules, water quality related problems, and “worst-case” scenarios (with a particular attention on transients).

Case studies, research papers, and authoritative review articles are welcome (particularly those dealing with paradigms for smart cities).

Keywords: water distribution systems; water supply systems; climate change; mathematical modelling; uncertainty; real time control; water system efficiency; leakage control and quantification

Section Chairs:

Prof. Dr. Julio Berbel, Department of Economics, Sociology and Agricultural Policy, University of Cordoba Campus de Rabanales, E-14014 Córdoba, Spain

Groundwater (GW) is one of the most valuable natural resources, which supports human health, economic development and ecological diversity. In water scarce regions, aquifers usually suffer pressures that are simultaneously quantitative (over extraction) and qualitative (chemical pollution, saline intrusion). Water scarcity is a global issue but its management is a local problem. Aquifers play a vital role in meeting water demands. Pressures of urban, industrial and agricultural water uses are both quantitative (over-allocation and illegal abstraction) and qualitative (chemical pollution and saline intrusion); moreover, they are transmitted to surface water and terrestrial ecosystems connected to groundwater systems.

Any GW management plan should be supported among others, in the following keystones: a) reasonable knowledge of the aquifer; b) satisfactory monitoring of aquifer evolution, the monitoring should use remote sensing, piezometric and aquifer control and voluntary user’s abstraction volumetric supervising; c) good agro-economic system knowledge; d) use of socio-economic methods to enhance stakeholder participation and aquifer governance. Negotiation and active involvement with participation of water managers, experts, stakeholders and representatives of the general public requires decision support tools (Environmental Decision Support Systems; EDSS) that build on transparency and flexibility in order to reach sound action plans and management instruments.

The objective of this session is to review the experience in technical, normative and economic instruments used for groundwater planning and management and to analyze the state of the art and breakthrough technologies that may improve GW management and guarantee the sustainability. Topics addressed will look for the analysis of human pressures, economic and environmental impacts of GW use and over exploitation and public and private responses, the analysis of the evolution of GW systems from open exploitation to closure, the socio-economic aspects of GW management and strategies for maximizing stakeholder participation and sustainable governance systems, the groundwater protection strategies and mechanisms for negotiation and managing conflict, use of Multiple criteria decision making models for GW management and other topics relevant for GW management and planning.

Keywords: decision support systems; remote sensing; groundwater vulnerability; groundwater management; public participatory modelling; multiple criteria decision making; common pool resources management; regulatory institutions; energy costs; irrigated agriculture; game theory; water economics

Section Chair:

Prof. Dr. Richard C. Smardon, Department of Environmental Studies, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, State University of New York, Syracuse, NYU 13210, USA

Wetlands, lakes and their watersheds, as aquatic systems, provide valuable ecosystem services such as fish and wildlife habitat, nutrient cycling and carbon storage. From a more anthropocentric view these ecosystem services may include food, water supply, waste assimilation as well as aesthetic, recreation and educational opportunities. But these same aquatic systems are heavily stressed by human induced water pollution, land use encroachment and reduced watershed flows due to consumptive water usage in both developed and developing countries. So high quality interdisciplinary aquatic science is needed to address both 1) the nature of such ecosystem services and functions, 2) the stresses on these aquatic systems, and 3) appropriate management strategies to reduce or eliminate such stresses. Climate change is also an increasing dominating factor inducing gradual long-term shifts impacting the health of these aquatic systems – so again we need to understand such shifts and their effects.

Keywords: wetland; lakes; watersheds; ecosystem services; aquatic science; stresses; management; climate change