The First Virtual Arab Scientific Conference on the Sustainable Management for the Land Resources and Water Uses
Today, in the presence of His Excellency, the Syrian Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, Eng. Muhammad Hassan Qatana, and under the patronage of the Director-General of the Arab Center for the Studies of Arid Zones and Drylands ACSAD, the General Secretary of the Arab Engineers Union, and the FAO expert in the Land Degradation and Water Uses, Dr Yahya Bakour, and many international organizations and bodies, the First Virtual Arab Scientific Conference on Sustainable Management and Water Uses has been held physically and via online under the title of “Land and Water Resources are the hope of the coming generations let us keep on them.” This was for “World Soil Day”, in the participation of sixteen Arab countries.
Dr Obaid said in a speech at the conference opening via video conference:” Our scientific conference is held today on World Soil Day, at a time when the world is experiencing land deterioration like never before since the loss of arable lands is about (30 – 35 hectares) double the historical rate, as well as the drought and desertification, are in increasing every year, which resulted from the loss of 12 million hectares annually (23 hectares per minute) that it was possible to make use of them in cultivating 20 million tons of cereal to provide the basic needs.
He also assured that this conference is considered a vital contribution to achieving sustainable development goals for the land and water resources available in the Arab countries. He added that the participation of this great elite of Arab experts and presenting the applied research results, exchanging the experiences and modern scientific ideas of the land and water usages science are some of the main goals of the conference, which aims to unify the efforts of the workers and specialists in this field. In addition to sharing the applied success stories about restoring and managing the deteriorated lands alongside building the database for the land resources characteristics and determining their suitability for agricultural purposes to put at the disposal of the stakeholders to develop the agricultural plans, the application of safe uses of fertilizers, and benefiting from the untraditional water available for the safe uses for the agricultural purposes.
The ACSAD ‘s Director-General gave a brief presentation on ACSAD achievements since the establishment in growing the natural resources, improving the environmental conditions in the arid and semi-arid areas of the Arab World.
Many of the Arab and Syrian experts and researchers of high scientific and practical expertise in the agricultural science are shedding light on the most critical challenges that face the agricultural process in the Arab world, as well as the main methods to adapt to the climatical changes, global warming, drought, and more than forty research and workshops.
