Bhubaneswar: 8th edition of Odisha Environment Congress (OEC) is going to be held from 20th to 22ndDecember 2017 on the theme “Environment and Sustainable River Basin Management”.
Started in the year 2010, Odisha Environment Congress (OEC), as an annual scientific and civil society event on environment, has been providing a unique opportunity to academicians, researchers, scientists, planners, policy makers, students, practitioners, community members and civil society organizations of the state and outside for learning, interaction and dissemination of knowledge on different themes around environment. It also provides scope for publication and presentation on theme specific research based articles in the proceedings which is released during the main event.The themes of last 7 years were “Environment & Water Resources” in 2010, “Environment & Forest” in 2011, “Environment & Energy” in 2012, “Environment & Agriculture” in 2013, “Environment & Climate Change” in 2014, “Environment: Health and Nutrition” in 2015 and “Environment: Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)”in the year 2016.
The increasing threat on the health of the rivers across the country including Odisha demands a comprehensive and holistic approach of river basin management. With unset of climate change coupled with increasing demand for water, the need for sustainable river basin management is so urgent which was perhaps not felt earlier. With development of societies, water resources within a given river basins get increasingly controlled, diverted, and used. Water users and stakeholders find themselves increasingly inter-dependent through the water cycle and conflicting situations due to water stress are pervasive. Alterations of the water regime in terms of quantity, quality, sediment load, timing, or predictability have been posing new challenges for the users. Allocation of water among competing uses becomes a crucial issue. It is with this backdrop, the theme (Environment and Sustainable River Basin Management) of this year’s OEC holds lot of significance.
Apart from HDF-cDAR, CED and RMNH (main organisers) other institutions/agencies such as ICAR-IIWM, IILS. IMMT, SOA University, XUB University, FES, RCDC, Baitarani Initiative, Water Aid etc are going to be part of this mega event. Prior to the main event in December, there will be 11 river basin workshops and awareness building activities on rivers and river basin management among school and college students through various competitions. The winners of the completions in essay, debate, story writing and painting at district level on topic related to rivers and river basin management will join in the Children’s Environment Congress to be held at Xavier University Bhubaneswar (XUB) on 21st and 22nd of December 2017.
In previous years, various Govt. Departments/agencies have collaborated with this event and this year we are of the hope that Govt. Departments linked to the theme will be part of this mega event.
In earlier occasions many scientists, academicians, researchers, activists of repute from all over the country includingHonourable Chief Minister of Odisha Sj Naveen Patnaik, Ministers, senior Govt. officers etc had attended this important programme on environment. This year also we are going to invite them along with experts of repute on river basin management from across the country.
Odisha Environment Congress inviting all to be part of OEC 2017. Anyone can contribute a paper for publication in the proceedings and make presentations on the article, provided it is accepted by the editorial board.
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