ESTROM 2008 International Conference

The target audience for the conference was environmental scientists and engineers, water managers, and environment and health authorities. In addition, organizations dealing with the protection of water bodies, e.g., the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR), stakeholders, nongovernmental organizations, decision makers, and drinking water suppliers, were addressed. The Organizing Committee consisted of Walter Giger, Jurg Bloesch, and Jurg Zobrist (Eawag, Dubendorf, Switzerland), Nicolae Panin and Alina Pavel (Institute GeoEcoMar, Bucharest, Romania), Viorel Ungureanu (University of Bucharest, Romania), Elisabeth Schenker (Swiss National Science Foundation, Bern, Switzerland), and Paolo Demaria (Demaria Event Management, Zurich, Switzerland). Summarized oral reports of the nine ESTROM projects concerning contaminants in wastewaters, surface waters and sediments, and drinking waters of Romania, monitoring and mitigation of pollution, and implementation of respective measures were also presented. The conference was opened by Prof. Anton Anton, State Secretary of the Romanian Ministry of Education, Research and Youth and President of the National Authority of Scientific Research. He welcomed 120 participants from 17 countries (Fig. 1) and reflected in his lively speech on the special current situation of research activities in Romania. Dr. Simon Geissbuhler, Charge d’affaires of the Swiss Embassy in Romania, emphasized the importance of Swiss–Romanian cooperation by stressing that each side can learn from the other, also in the sector of scientific research and environmental protection. The conference was organized in five half-day sessions, of which each included one keynote lecture, two topic talks, and one or two reports of the ESTROM projects. During the whole conference, 46 posters were on display (ESTROM 2008; Fig. 2). The following sections overview the oral presentations of sessions 1 to 5 and the podium discussion. Detailed reports on the ESTROM projects are presented in separate articles contained in this Special Issue of Environmental Science and Pollution Research (see references). The presentations are also downloadable as digital files (ESTROM 2008). Environ Sci Pollut Res (2009) 16 (Suppl 1):S9–S13 DOI 10.1007/s11356-009-0206-5