Would ’Polluted Water’ Remain an Unfinished Global Challenge ?

World economy is going through a difficult phase marked by sluggish growth in the developed economies, conflict of interests between developing and the developed world, further marred by regional economic strains, armed conflicts and challenging international economic cooperation. While the markets in the developing world including Africa, Asia and South America are waiting to be unlocked and tapped by the MNCs, the competition is getting more intense in the existing scenario. Policymakers are struggling to find ways to cooperate and manage the current economic challenges while preparing their economies to perform well in an increasingly difficult and unpredictable global landscape. Amid short-term crisis management, it remains critical for countries to establish the fundamentals that underpin economic growth and development for the longer term. The complexity of today’s global economic environment has been further confounded by concerns of social and environmental sustainability, diversity and inclusiveness. In the marketplace, e-commerce and the new market entrants are becoming exceedingly aggressive making destabilization of established players frequent headlines. The resultant dynamics call for a relook at the pertinent strategies for Global Competitiveness as well as Economic Growth in the developing and the developed economies. The conclave aims at bringing together academicians, corporate professionals, policy makers, practitioners and experts working in the field of business management, in order for exchange of information and to discuss diverse challenges and strategies related to global competitiveness and economic growth.

Several studies conducted by World Bank and other international agencies show that 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world population would be living under water stress conditions by 2025. As speculated by Fourth World Water Development Report, only 20% of the globally produced waste water is presently being reclaimed. Due to lack of infrastructure and well-regulated policies, a large volume of untreated waste water is getting mixed with good quality natural water systems, which is then subsequently utilized for irrigation, animal husbandry, industrial processing and household use.

ISSWM-2017 welcomes and invites researchers, academicians, industrial personnel, entrepreneurs, NGOs and policy makers across the globe to share their research findings, ideas, experiences, success stories on the development of sustainable, efficient, cost effective and robust technologies to decontaminate water from source of pollution to point of use.

“All the water that will ever be is, right now” (National Geographic)