Water Resources Programme Side Event Includes Old Water and New Information

A large audience attended the Water Resources Programme side event - held as an activity of the annual IAEA General Conference - and took the opportunity to taste 'old' water. The side event highlighted upcoming activities and exciting developments in the areas of water resources assessment and transboundary aquifers. Attendees of the event, held on 23 September 2010 in conjunction with the 54th General Conference (Sept. 20-23), got to taste million year old water, compare it to the taste of 'younger' water and find out how isotopes are used to determine the age of water. Vienna tap water (aged 5-10 years and dated using tritium) was compared to Austrian bottled water (aged 35 000 to 40 000 years and dated using radiocarbon) and African Nubian Aquifer water (aged about 1 000 000 years and dated using krypton-81). How does water move through an aquifer? Visitors were able to observe the movement of water through mediums of different porosity through a small scale simulation of real aquifers. Much discussion focussed on a new IAEA initiative, called the Water Availability Enhancement Project (WAVE), which will enable Member States to enhance the availability of fresh water through comprehensive, scientifically sound resource assessments. The project will assist Member States in identifying gaps in existing hydrological information and understanding to improve national capacities for collecting, managing, and interpreting water resources data, and to use advanced techniques to stimulate hydrological systems for resource management. Another topic of the side event was groundwater assessment - an area of focus for the Water Resources Programme - particularly of regional and transboundary aquifers. A large audience attended the Water Resources Programme side event - held as an activity of the annual IAEA General Conference - and took the opportunity to taste 'old' water. The side event highlighted upcoming activities and exciting developments in the areas of water resources assessment and transboundary aquifers. Attendees of the event, held on 23 September 2010 in conjunction with the 54th General Conference (Sept. 20-23), got to taste million year old water, compare it to the taste of 'younger' water and find out how isotopes are used to determine the age of water. Vienna tap water (aged 5-10 years and dated using tritium) was compared to Austrian bottled water (aged 35 000 to 40 000 years and dated using radiocarbon) and African Nubian Aquifer water (aged about 1 000 000 years and dated using krypton-81). How does water move through an aquifer? Visitors were able to observe the movement of water through mediums of different porosity through a small scale simulation of real aquifers. Much discussion focussed on a new IAEA initiative, called the Water Availability Enhancement Project (WAVE), which will enable Member States to enhance the availability of fresh water through comprehensive, scientifically sound resource assessments. The project will assist Member States in identifying gaps in existing hydrological information and understanding to improve national capacities for collecting, managing, and interpreting water resources data, and to use advanced techniques to stimulate hydrological systems for resource management. Another topic of the side event was groundwater assessment - an area of focus for the Water Resources Programme - particularly of regional and transboundary aquifers