Summary and Conclusions 2000

Water security for a world under rapid change Since water represents a profound need of both organisms and society, a crucial question is how that need can be satisfied in a secure manner. There is something fundamentally wrong when we still, in what we call a modern and civilized society, are willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on building a space station, and exploring other planets in the search for water, while millions of people die each year due to preventable water-related diseases due to polluted water supply. At the millennium shift, the water management profession and society at large are facing a challenge, the magnitude and complexity of which no earlier generation has had to face. A key issue is to strive towards water security for everyone and to identify the innovative approaches needed to achieve this. Long-term challenges in water management are not so much linked to classical scientific and technical aspects as to institutional innovations. As the world is changing rapidly, so do water professionals, who have to keep up with such changes. Education and competence development is more important than ever.