Water Future International Conference: September 24 – 27, 2019 in Bengaluru, India

To “ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all” (Sustainable Development Goal 6) without leaving anyone behind requires partnerships across academia, governments, intergovernmental, development organisations, foundations, and the private sector.

To support this through integrating research, stimulating innovation, and building capacity, the Sustainable Water Future Programme  (Water Future) of Future Earth is organizing an international conference titled “Towards a Sustainable Water Future” to be held September 24 – 27, 2019 in Bengaluru, India.

The conference is hosted by the Future Earth South Asia office located at the Divecha Centre for Climate Change of the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.

There will be 6 plenary sessions 90 parallel sessions, 20 special sessions and 6 high-level roundtable sessions to bring together available information, identify knowledge and action gaps, share lessons on viable instruments and approaches, facilitate networks for moving toward an accelerated action on the SDGs in the next decade.

This conference will create an opportunity for co-production of knowledge, incubate ideas involving scientists and different stakeholders and partners in the SDG implementation process, and develop knowledge-to-concrete actions and innovative solutions while implementing and monitoring the achievement of the SDGs.

More than 30 internationally reputed keynote speakers and as many as 700 participants from all across the globe are expected to attend the conference, thus giving a major opportunity for academics, water practitioners, policymakers, scientists, technologists, civil society and government officials to discuss the direction that the global science community should take in order to solve myriad of challenges affecting our water systems in real-time, and develop new frontiers for innovative solutions.

The topics in the conference will focus on the current state of Global Water resource challenges, future pathways and scenarios, and different technological, institutional solutions to accelerate the implementation of water-related Sustainable Development Goals and the whole 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with leaving no one behind.

Please register to participate at the conference

The conference will

• Address the unfolding global water crisis, as evidenced by issues such as increased water scarcity, widespread water pollution, and rapid declines in freshwater biodiversity.
• Explore different innovative frameworks, approaches, methods to determine the potential of natural and human-made infrastructure investment, and their complementarities to achieve sustainable solutions enhancing water
  security and resilience of the socio-ecological system.
• Discuss resiliency and risks related to water resource arising from, for example, water quality, extreme
  precipitation and urban flooding.
• Explore the notions of risk to be embedded within the SDG process and what are the requirements for integrated
  and adaptive risk governance to deal with interconnectedness during SDG implementation?
• Discuss existing global integrated modelling, the role of Artificial Intelligence, Big Data as well as Earth observations
  in monitoring and assessment of SDGs.
• Explore how long ‘business as usual’ scenarios can be continued for the global water system before we reach a tipping point where even drastic actions cannot reverse any of the negative trends?
• Explore how water targets at the global and regional scale can be defined considering the inherent links between
  biophysical and socio-ecological process in relation to W-E-F Security and their transgression prevented?
• Focus on the aesthetic, cultural and historical knowledge of water and its role in nature and society.
  Address other connected issues related to water, for instance, poverty, nutrition, health, education, gender, equity and productivity.
• Explore how can we leverage systematic knowledge and know-how, together with innovative, collective practices around water?
• Discuss the design, implementation and evaluation of water governance settings at different levels
• Address different ways to integrate gender and equity issues into policymaking and decision-making that will enable women to have an effective “voice” and engage in meaningful participation.