India is experiencing tremendous economic growth while concomitantly the pressure on the country's limited water resources is building. The sustainability and extent of India's growth is therefore closely linked to and possibly limited by access to secure and reliable water resources.

Historically, widespread pollution of water resources has accompanied economic success in many industrialized countries such as the United States. Over the past decades these countries have developed many innovative remediation technologies to clean-up their polluted water resources. India is now in a position where it can greatly benefit by taking full advantage of the know-how and the remediation technologies pioneered in the United States and other countries.

Water quality problems are especially prevalent in India's fastest growing coastal areas - broadly defined as the land stretching from the coast to about 50 km inland. The complex environmental challenges of actively remediating polluted water resources in coastal zones requires an interdisciplinary team of experienced scientists, private, and public sector partners. To promote such a cooperative effort, nine Indo-US partner institutions coe together in Goa (INDIA) on March 17-21, 2008 to pave the way for what was then known as the Indo-US Joint Center for Water Quality and Aquifer Remediation in Coastal Areas. An important outcome of this meeting was renaming our group to the International Partnership for Coastal Water Resources.

Funding in support of IPCWR was provided by the Indo-U.S. Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF). Established in 2000 under an agreement between the Governments of India and United States of America. the mandate of IUSSTF is to promote, catalyze and seed bilateral collaboration in science, technology, engineering and biomedical research through substantive interaction amongst government, academia and industry.

IPCWR focuses on drinking water quality and treatment, remediation of point- and non-point pollution sources, and water quality enhancement in coastal zones (broadly defined as the area reaching from the shoreline several kilometers inland). Conceptually, IPCWR is the umbrella under which each partner contributes their expertise towards solving specific environmental problems as identified by the public or a government agency (see Mission Statement).

Click here for the schedule of the meeting in Goa (INDIA) March 17-21, 2008. Abstracts of all presentations are available now.