Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=5/21/2003

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=I-A-E-A/WATER (L-O)

NUMBER=2-303472

BYLINE=MELANIE SULLY

DATELINE=VIENNA

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: A conference organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency is to discuss ways of using nuclear science in water management, including improved methods of marine-pollution detection and measuring the availability, and even the age, of this precious resource. Melanie Sully reports from Vienna, where the delegates are meeting.

TEXT: Almost 300 participants from 70 countries are meeting at the I-A-E-A headquarters to discuss the planet's water crisis.

Water is a scarce commodity in many parts of the globe, and competition could lead to international conflicts or tension.

In addition, floods wreak havoc each year in Europe, while elsewhere many millions of people have no access to water.

The I-A-E-A, well-known these days for its hunt for banned nuclear weapons, is also responsible for the peaceful application of nuclear technology in such areas as water management.

For decades it has been using what is known as isotope hydrology to achieve more efficient use of water.

Pradeep Aggarwal, in the agency's department of nuclear sciences, says this can give scientists important clues.

/// AGGARWAL ACT ///

As the result of the water cycle you develop fingerprints of water starting from the ocean and going into the air, to the clouds and coming down in different places, and basically isotope hydrology is a science to use those tracers and these fingerprints to trace the origin, or source, and movement of how the water moves in the system.

/// END ACT ///

The I-A-E-A has around 80 projects on water resources in 50 different countries, including Uganda, Ethiopia, the Nile River Basin, and the Dead Sea.

/// AGGARWAL 2nd ACT ///

In a lot of places the groundwater is very old, so you need to know how much is old, how much is new. When you pump the water you do not know where it is coming from. Some of it is replaceable, some of it is not, so in Africa, Asia, Latin America we have provided assistance and worked over the last 30 years, 40 years

/// END ACT ///

Isotope technology is in use to identify marine pollution, and I-A-E-A scientists are analyzing marine radioactivity resulting from nuclear weapons testing in areas such as French Polynesia. (SIGNED)

NEB/MS/ALW/FC/RAE