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Shortage of available water resource is a common problem in many regions of the world, such as north and northwest China , the Middle East, Africa and so on. One of the important measures to solve the problem is to use the treated wastewater for non-drinking purposes. Centralised wastewater treatment and reuse often needs a great investment and a sophisticated management and maintenance system, which may be unaffordable in less developed countries. Even in developed countries, efforts have to be made to reduce the cost for wastewater reuse. Comparing with the centralised system, a decentralised system shows its characteristics of low cost, easy operation and maintenance, and flexibility for wastewater treatment and reuse. In recent years, innovative technologies are being developed and practiced for decentralised systems. However, there are still many technical, operational, managerial, social and economic issues need to be studied. Global exchange of information and experiences thus becomes very important.
The IWA International Conference 2005, Xi'an (FUWWS-XIAN2005), with the topic of 'Future of Urban Wastewater Systems - Decentralisation and Reuse', will focus on innovation of conventional technologies and newly developed technologies for decentralisation of urban wastewater collection, transport, treatment and reuse. system design, operation, maintenance and management. The conference is considered to be one of the important events in China before the 5th IWA Congress to be held at Beijing in 2006.
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