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The Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (IHP) of UNESCO and the International Water Resources Association (IWRA) are calling for abstract submissions for the UNESCO-IWRA online conference on “Emerging Pollutants: Protecting Water Quality for the Health of People and the Environment”, to be held on 17-19 January 2023.

This online conference will highlight ways to advance knowledge, research, and solutions for managing emerging pollutants to improve and protect water quality in a changing world.

Participants from all backgrounds (i.e., academics, water professionals, private sector practitioners and civil society stakeholders), who wish to present their work related to the theme and sub-themes at the conference, are invited to submit an abstract. Participants from developing countries, women, underrepresented groups, and youth representatives are especially encouraged to submit abstracts. Accepted abstracts will be invited either for an online oral presentation under the relevant sub-theme or a poster presentation.

The conference will provide a special submission category for young water professionals.

Abstract submission requirements

Deadline for submission: 21 October 2022

• Abstracts should address one of the sub-themes of the conference through a scientific or policy relevant research, or a case-study, or a best practice.
• Abstracts should clearly describe the research objectives, methods, findings, and its policy relevance in a maximum of 400 words, in English (with no graphs, references, or citations)
•  Authors must use the official template and provide information for all sections in the abstract submission template. Only word documents (.doc and .docx) will be accepted.
•  When submitting your abstract, you will be required to select one of the five conference themes (see below) within which your abstract topic must fit.
•  Submit your completed template to online.conference@iwra.org

Multiple submissions will be limited to two abstracts for each participant as presenting author for both oral and poster presentations (no limitation as co-author).

Please note that:

• At least one author of each selected paper must register and attend the online conference to present their work, if the abstract is accepted for an oral or poster presentation. Registration and participation in the conference is free for all participants, thanks to the generous support of UNESCO-IHP.
• Authors selected for oral presentation will be asked to prepare and submit a short PowerPoint presentation at least two weeks prior to the conference.
• Authors selected for poster presentation will be asked to submit a high-quality image of their poster at least two weeks prior to the conference.

Conference themes:

The overarching theme of the online conference is “Emerging Pollutants: Protecting Water Quality for the Health of People and the Environment”. This theme was selected to focus the conference on the intersection of the science-policy interface when addressing emerging pollutants, and steps and mechanisms that must be pursued to protect the health of people and the environment. The sub-themes of the conference are:

• Theme 1: Emerging pollutants in aquatic ecosystems
• Theme 2: Emerging pollutants and groundwater
• Theme 3: Emerging pollutants and managing wastewater and waste
• Theme 4: A circular economy approach: Lifecycle management of emerging pollutants
• Theme 5: “Priority” emerging pollutants in the hydro cycle: microplastics, nanomaterial, PFAs and PPCPs

For the full details on the sub-themes, please visit the conference's website.

Selection and review

• The International Scientific Committee will evaluate the abstracts and notify their acceptance by mid-November 2022.
• The International Scientific Committee of the conference will review the abstracts and select the best ones for online oral and poster presentation during the conference. Selection criteria include scientific and technical quality, relevance to the conference themes, and policy relevance.

For any questions or queries, please contact us at online.conference@iwra.org or visit the conference's website.

More information

• Conference website "Emerging Pollutants: Protecting Water Quality for the Healt…
• UNESCO Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (UNESCO-IHP)
• International Water Resources Association (IWRA)
• Emerging pollutants in water and wastewater
• UNESCO World Water Quality Portal

URL:

https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/call-abstracts-conference-emerging-pollutants-protecting-water-quality-health-people-and-environment