World Water Day Celebrated by PCRWR, ECOSF and Partners March 20th 2017
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Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) and many other partners including the ECO Science Foundation joined together to celebrate the World Water Day on March 20th at PCRWR Headquarter, Islamabad. Mr. Muhammad Azam, Deputy Mayor of Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation of Pakistan (MCI) was the Chief Guest of the event. Mr. Muhammad Azam assured the participants that the city administration is making all its sincere efforts to manage the wastewater and provide reliable access to clean water in the capital city. The participants included water sector experts, academicians, students and civil society representative etc.
World Water Day is an event that is celebrated annually to take action to address water crisis and highlight the significance of Water in our lives. This year’s theme is wastewater in support of SDG 6.3 on improving water quality and reducing and reusing the volume of wastewater and treating it. The event included poster contest, presentations and speeches.
The vast majority of wastewater is discharged from residential, industrial and agricultural sector, which flows back to nature without being treated or reused. Thus, polluting drinking and irrigation water. Reducing the volume of wastewater, its safe treatment and reuse is important in all the sectors to protect consumers, environment; it promotes food security, health and improves quality of life.
Dr. Ghazanfar Abbas, Mr. Khalil Raza and Mr. Ghulam Abbas from ECOSF participated in the event. On behalf of ECOSF, Mr. Khalil Raza, Scientific Officer, made a presentation on “Science Education for an Effective Wastewater Management”. He presented a comparative analysis of wastewater treatment in Pakistan and OECD countries. Despite high water scarcity level in the country, only 1% of the wastewater is reclaimed or treated. Mr. Khalil emphasized the importance of science education and its applications to address one of the most complex global challenges, including water crisis. He underlined that science should not be considered merely a subject taught in the schools, rather science should really be a perspective, an outlook and the way of engaging with world so that one could have rational reasoning, and logic to discern the facts about this planet. The 21st century challenges, such as climate change, water scarcity, energy and food security all are scientific in nature. If the general public is not equipped well enough to deal with scientific ideas and the underlying scientific principles, it will be nearly impossible to respond to these challenges, he added. Mr. Khalil also presented a transformative approach of turning this wastewater into usable energy through a Fuel Cell technology.