Water and environment news No. 21, September 2006

As this issue of the newsletter is being published, the 50th General Conference of the IAEA is meeting in Vienna. Isotope Hydrology has been a part of the IAEA's activities almost from the beginning of the IAEA fifty years ago. After making substantial contributions to the scientific field, the isotope hydrology portion of the IAEA's work acquired the status of a programme and was renamed the programme on water resources. This reflected both the importance of water in sustainable development and the wider role of the IAEA in enabling countries to develop their human and institutional capacity for using isotope techniques. Since then, the programme of work in water resources has focused to a large part on identifying and removing obstacles to a wider use of isotopes in water resources management. In this issue of the Newsletter, a number of contributions discuss the application of isotopes in coastal zones, managing aquifer recharge, groundwater contamination