Water and society

No society, ecosystem, or life as we know it can function without water. Societies need water for drinking, sanitation, food, transportation, etc, while ecosystems provide many water-related services, such as water storage, pollutant retention, and local climate regulation. Societal developments like urbanization and other land-use changes, population growth and anthropogenic climate change, however, threaten the relationships between water and society. Sessions on this topic will relate to:

• Ecosystem Services by wetlands, rivers, mangroves, aquifers
• Water infrastructure for sustainable societies, e.g., in urban regions
• Health: water quality, water-related epidemiology, impacts of floods and droughts