Source: www.waswac.org
The 3rd WASWAC World Conference was held in Belgrade, Serbia, during the period of Aug. 22-26, 2016. The theme of the conference is “New Challenges and Strategies of Soil and Water Conservation in the Changing World, Sustainable Management of Soil and Water Resources”. This conference was organized by the World Association of Soil and Water Conservation, Sub-committee on Belgrade University – Faculty of Forestry. The cooperating organizations include 15 government agencies or academic societies distributed in Serbia, Spain, Italy, and USA. More than 200 participants from 33 counties or regions attended this conference.
Group Photo during the Conference
On the opening ceremony, Prof. Li Rui, the president of WASWAC, Miodrag Zlatic President of Organization Committee of WASWAC Conference gave the welcome speech. Besides the keynotes speech by Dr. Panos Panagos from European Commission in Italy Prof. Miodrag Zlatic from University of Belgrade, Prof. Guobin Liu from Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, China, Prof. Mingchang Shi from Beijing Forestry University, and Prof. Jose Luis Rubio from University of Valenciana, Prof. Rathan Lal in the Ohio State University, USA made video report with title “Conserving Soil and Water Resources for Climate-Resilient Agriculture”.
Dean of the Faculty of Forestry Belgrade University Prof. Ratko Ristid, State Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development Vera Dondur; Assistant Minister of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development Viktor Nedovid; Representative of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment Protection, Directorate for watersNataša Milid; Deputy Mayor of the City of Belgrade Andreja Mladenovid; President of ESSC Prof. Carmelo Dazzi; Secretary of Secretariat for Environment, Belgrade Goran Trivan; Director of Institute for Forestry Ljubinko Rakonjac; Director of Public Enterprise Serbian Forests Predrag Aleksid; Director of Water Management Institute “Jaroslav Cerni” Milan Dimkid; Director of the Institute for Nature Conservation of Serbia Aleksandar Dragišid; President of Organization Committee of WASWAC Conference attended the opening ceremony.
The three days conference provided an output of deep plenary sessions based on the issues collected following topics: new challenges to soil and water resources in condition of climate change, land degradation processes and mechanism, soil and water conservation measures benefits assessment, sustainable watershed management, social and economic aspects, and policies related to soil and water conservation.
Communication among young Scientists
The Award-winner for several awards set up by WASWAC has been released by thesecretary-general of WASWAC Prof. Duihu Ning. During the conference, the 2016 Outstanding Youth Paper Award (Datum) was also presented with a Certificate from the WASWAC and a $1000 (USD) honorarium for each winner. This year, there are 10 young scientists from 6 countries won the award.
Volunteers from the University of Belgrade
Most participants attended the post-conference tour on Aug. 26 to visit the center of the Agriculture Faculty–Radmilovac, vineyards and orhards on terraces.Measures to control soil and water loss were discussed and communicated.
In addition, during this conference, the council meeting was held on Aug. 23. President Li Rui introduced the work of council and main progresses. Prof. Ning Duihu, the secretary-general of WASWAC, gave a summary report on structure building, member management, conference, communication, publicity, publication and financial status. This reports showed clearly that what have been done by the secretariat in the last three years and what will be done in the following three years. The Nomination Committee of WASWAC pronounced the next term candidates of councilor, and Prof. Li Rui will continue to serve as the President of WASWAC. Finally, India was chosen to be the organizer of the Fourth WASWAC world conference, which will be held in India in 2019.
Council Meeting
