From the Water Week website (www.worldwaterweek.org) and press material:
About the Water Week:
At a time when billions of people are without sustainable access to safe drinking water or suffering ill health due to poor sanitation, when bioenergy demands are diverting water from food production, and when global climate change is affecting the overall water balance, the 2007 World Water Week in Stockholm (www.worldwaterweek.org) will gather 2500 top experts from August 12-18 to chart water sustainability initiatives that improve lives and protect the environment.
The conference, which has an overall theme of "Progress and Prospects on Water: Striving for Sustainability in a Changing World,"takes place at the Stockholm City Conference Centre and will address a wide variety of critical water-related topics. Leading professionals from business, government, water management, science, inter-governmental organisations, NGOs, training institutes and United Nations agencies will participate. Over 140 organisations are involved as co-convenors of the event together with the Stockholm International Water Institute, and a number of new reports will be released and announcements made.
World Water Prize
According to a poll on the British Medical Journal's web site, sanitation is the greatest medical advance since 1840 since it has improved the health of people and helped them live longer. The runners-up: antibiotics and anaesthesia. That should make Professor Perry McCarty of Stanford University happy. For the last 40 years, Professor McCarty has helped make the world's sanitary systems - wastewater treatment plants - more efficient and effective. He has combined deep knowledge in physical, chemical, biological and microbiological processes and transferred the results into outstanding technical development widely used all over the world as the basis for design and operation of wastewater treatment systems.
Moreover, if you are worried that your house is built on polluted soil or suspicious that your groundwater is contaminated, then you can thank Professor McCarty when someone cleans up the soil or returns the aquifer to a more pristine state. His work on the important problem of organic compounds and pollutants in wastewater and underground aquifer systems, and on polluted soils (bioremediation),is nothing short of groundbreaking.
For such efforts, Professor McCarty will receive the 2007 Stockholm Water Prize. The Stockholm Water Prize is a global award founded in 1990 and presented annually by the Stockholm Water Foundation to an individual, organisation or institution for outstanding water-related activities. H.M. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden is the Patron of the Stockholm Water Prize. The Laureate receives USD 150,000 along with a glass sculpture.