WATEC Israel 2009 – Where Water and High-Tech Converge

The issue of water and environmental technologies is gaining an increasingly central place in the world’s consciousness and economy. About 2 billion people around the world either lack access to sufficient quantities of water, or are supplied with water unfit for drinking. This shortage is going to worsen in the near future due to the rise of world’s population and to the redistribution of water resources among the world’s regions, which in turn stems from global warming.

The growing environmental awareness has resulted in an impressive boost in the development of new technologies for alleviating ecological problems, particularly for water purification and treatment, and in the corresponding increase of these technologies’ worldwide implementation and marketing.

A few facts highlighting the problem:

• The world water market stands today at approximately $504 billion, while other environmental technologies account for a further $200 billion.
• Two thirds of the Earth surface is covered with water, of which only 0.74% is sweet water fit for drinking.
• In 95% of the developing countries, almost 70% of sweet water is used for agriculture - to produce food.
• According to UN, 1.1 billion people around the world lack access to a minimum amount of sweet water for daily consumption.
• Although two thirds of its territory is defined as an arid area, Israel succeeds in overcoming the water shortage in a world-unique way.

WATEC 09 will bring together Israeli and international business executives, political decision makers and leading researchers, to foster substantive debate and insights on the key issues facing the world's water and ecological systems, and thus enable a critical appreciation of the challenges presented by the environment today and in the near and long-range future.