Tokyo - Member states of the Asia-Pacific region were
committed on Thursday to secure safe drinking water access and
cooperate in improving management of water-related disasters.
The working group committee members of the Asia-Pacific Water
Summit met in Tokyo to prepare for the first conference scheduled
December 3-4 in the southern Japanese city of Beppu.
At the December summit, participants from 49 nations and
territories are expected to discuss financial plans to develop
infrastructure for safe water, management of water-related disasters
and development of ecosystem to sustain sufficient water resources.
The committee members plan to produce a Beppu declaration at the
end of the two-day meeting in December.
Global warming was also brought up at the committee meeting
Thursday as it is a major cause of rising sea levels, provoking
water-related natural disasters, and of critical concern to small
island nations of the Pacific region.
Liqun Jin, vice president of Asia Development Bank, warned that
excessive extraction of underground water would result in serious
consequences in some regions.
The Asia-Pacific region must establish a monitoring system to
gather sufficient data, Hideaki Oda of the water summit secretariat
said. Some 670 million people in the Asia Pacific region were without
access to safe drinking water in 2004.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
USA
Your Talkback on this Story