A symposium on water resource management opens on October 28, 2019 in Morocco. The event, organised by UNESCO, responds to the problem of water stress faced by African and Middle Eastern countries. The use of software to manage irrigation, wastewater treatment and reuse and several other water-related topics will form the backdrop to this four-day meeting.
Save the date. From October 28 to 31, 2019, Morocco will host a symposium on the sustainable management of water resources, called the Open Water Symposium. It is organised by UNESCO and is intended for African and Arab countries. The event, which will take the form of workshops and seminars, will provide a framework for developing policies for access to water resources and the use of software to support their sustainable management. Participants will be introduced to the use of digital technologies, which will then be used for water management, including irrigation, flow management, wastewater treatment, mapping. The symposium will host a variety of profiles: policy makers, academics, students and a host of professional actors in the water sector.
The Rabah meeting has three main objectives:
– Present and develop access to and use of free and/or open source software to broaden the openness of content, technology and processes;
– Train the various actors in the water sector in software to improve water resources management, security and sustainable peace in the water sector,
– Expand access to information, knowledge and technology to support water resource management.
The Open Water Symposium is organised as part of the Global Open Water Network, which was established to promote research, development, development and education on open source software and open data for integrated water resources management. This network works to promote open source software and open data through training and cloud computing services.
According to UNESCO estimates, 14 of the 20 countries with the highest water stress in the world are Arab. However, according to the World Bank, water scarcity causes a loss of 6 to 14% of GDP in countries where the risk is highest.
Luchelle Feukeng
