Crown Prince Sultan on Sunday handed over Prince Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz International Prize for Water at the conclusion of an international conference on water resources and arid environment here Sunday night. The ceremony and the conference were attended by Netherlands' Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange and Chairman of the Advisory Commission of United Nations Secretary General for Water and Sanitation Affairs, SPA said. The prize which is awarded biannually, recognizes the work of scientists in the problems of provision of usable water, overcoming its scarcity and assuring its continual availability, especially in arid regions. Prince Khalid Bin Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz, Assistant Minister of Defense and Aviation and Inspector General for Military Affairs and Chairman of the award's council, called for an initiative to confront water piracy and deter it. He said although the world's focus is on terrorism, not much attention is given to the possibility that terrorism could change its strategy and target water resources. He said the world must realize the real threat posed by the terrorists to water resources and accordingly urged giving paramount attention to threats of biological terrorism. The Prince also called for convening a water summit similar to the financial summit hosted this week in Washington. He called on all countries to quickly develop strategies and action plans to mitigate the negative effects of the phenomenon of climate change. The Prince noted that the government of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques has given importance to water and assigned a separate ministry for it and it is now working in this framework to try to resolve the problem with the rest of the world and at the same time to educate the people of the Kingdom on the best exploitation and use of water. The surface water award was given to Professor Chih Ted Yang from the United States. Wolfgang Kinzelbach, Professor of Hydromechanics at the ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) won the ground water award. Prof. Abdul Wahab Muhammad (Malaysia) and Saline Water Conversion Corporation (Saudi Arabia) shared the award for alternative (non-conventional) water resources. The award for water resources and protection was shared by Prof. Zainul Abideen Abdul Mannan from Malaysia and the Decision Center for Arid Cities. __
