Urban water and sanitation conference held in Lao
The Southeast Asia Urban Environmental Management Applications (SEA-UEMA) Project of the Urban Environmental Management field of study Asian Institute of Technology jointly organized the a regional conference on Urban Water and Sanitation in Southeast Asian Cities in Vientiane, Lao PDR. Partners were the project's local facilitating partner in Laos, the Urban Research Institute, Ministry of Communication, Transport, Post and Construction, Lao PDR, the World Bank Water and Sanitation Program East Asia and the Pacific Office and Souphanouvong University of Luang Prabang. The conference took place 22-24 November 2006.
A total of 32 international and 41 local participants, observers and panel leaders attended. Prof. Sudip K. Rakshit, vice president for research, represented AIT while Dr. Somphone Dethoudom, director general of the Ministry of Communication, Transport, Post and Construction represented the Lao government. The main objectives of the conference to disseminate lessons learned from practical experiences in Southeast Asia and results from research and piloting activities implemented by the SEA-UEMA Project as well as other stakeholders in WSS were successfully achieved.
The event was organized as a panel of seven topics related to water and sanitation, with 30 papers presented. A majority of the authors were selected from open competition by submission of abstracts while some were invited based on their academic research or work in the field of urban water and sanitation in the region. A few demonstrated activities in the region by the SEA-UEMA Project network members were also presented to disseminate the lessons learned from the implementation of urban water and sanitation activities.
- The conference basically hinged on the following topics which were formed into panel for discussion:
- Water resources and supply: Technology and management issues;
- Environmental sanitation: Technology and management issues;
- Socio-economic and financial considerations, and community participation in water and sanitation;
- Communicating the Millennium Development Goals in water and sanitation;
- Gender and social equality concerns in water and sanitation;
- Urban water bodies and waterfront settlements and establishments as a major policy concern for conservation, livelihood, and pollution mitigation; and
- Sustainable water use with the emerging concepts of water reclamation, recycling and reuse
A volume of proceedings was distributed during the conference. After the technical review by the panel leaders and further improvement, the final version of the proceedings will be published as a book. A large amount of information exchange was seen during the conference which paved way for the achieving of the conference objectives of providing a platform of discussion and exchange of ideas as well dissemination.
As part of the field trips, participants visited the Vientiane City Water Treatment Plant and the Beer Lao Wastewater Treatment Plant. In the former, the entire water treatment train was explained to the participants. The source of water is the Mekong River and about 80,000 cubic meters of treated water is supplied to the capital city every day. The wastewater treatment plant at Beer Lao uses anaerobic system for the removal of organics before discharging the effluent into stabilization pond from where it is pumped into the canals. The biogas which is the byproduct of the anaerobic system is used as a source of energy for the boilers used for the production of steam. The manager of the plant said that 20 percent of the fuel requirement is met with the biogas. The entire plant uses cleaner production strategies to reduce water and energy use.
AIT and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) partnered in August 2003 for five years in the form of Southeast Asia Urban Environmental Management Applications (SEA-UEMA) Project. The project aims at the improvement of urban environmental conditions in Southeast Asia, where more than half a billion people live. The agenda of the national governments, regional institutions, international organizations, bilateral and multilateral donor and development agencies as well as non-governmental organizations has been to meet one of the most urgent needs for the improvement of water supply systems and provision of sanitation to the teeming millions in both rural and urban areas of the region. By organizing such a forum, this project seeks to improve the urban environmental management conditions in the region by contributing to the capacity building through education and training, demonstrations of good practices and innovative ideas and research as well as by the improvement of UEM policies and good practices in the region for fostering in sustainable strategies for environmental management.
For more information: http://www.sea-uema.ait.ac.th/ARL/Conf_Nov06_WSS/RegCon_WSS.html