The International Water Association’s World Water Congress & Exhibition 2024 comes to a close

A hugely successful week focused on ‘Shaping our water future’

The International Water Association’s 2024 World Water Congress & Exhibition drew to a conclusion yesterday at its Closing Ceremony. With the event running 11-15 August 2024 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, Canada, the ceremony marked the end of the hugely successful latest edition of IWA’s biennial flagship event.

Participants from around the world had convened to present and access latest insights on pressing water-related issues, networking and making connections to build partnerships to further change. Drawn by a comprehensive programme and a global exhibition, a total of 7,000 people attended the event.

An extensive programme driving participation

The World Water Congress & Exhibition programme featured 900+ presenters and 200+ sessions.

There were 5 dedicated forums throughout the week: the Utility Leaders Forum, the International Water Regulators Forum, the Emerging Water Leaders Forum, and forums on groundwater and on industry and water.

Plenary sessions with keynote speakers and panel discussions brought to the fore key water challenges and thinking on how to respond to them. Leading scientist, innovator, and communicator Dr Peter Gleick was keynote speaker in the Opening Ceremony.

Other keynotes included Professor Amy Pruden of Virginia-Tech, Batsirai Majuru of WHO, Saroj Kumar Jha of the World Bank, Henk Ovink of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, and Professor Juliet Willetts of the Institute for Sustainable Futures. The panel discussions convened by IWA featured participation of the leadership of key industry organisations from around the world, such as Water Services Association of Australia, AWWA, ESAWAS, WEF, DANVA, Australian Water Association, and ABES.

The Exhibition show floor featured an extensive Business Forum programme, with a variety of presentations from Exhibitors and Sponsors. The Exhibition itself hosted 250 exhibitors from around the world, including the various sponsors and a strong Canada pavilion. Other country pavilions included those from United Kingdom, Denmark, Malaysia / Sarawak, Netherlands, India, China, Tokyo / Japan, and USA. A special pavilion was dedicated to start ups and scale ups: the Innovation pavilion, organized with isle Utilities. In addition to all this, the exhibition hosted an Operations Challenge with 10 teams from Canada, USA and Europe.

With 2700 conference registrations, 900 exhibitor registrations, and around 3400 visitors to the exhibition, the Toronto edition had a total footfall of 7000.

A platform for recognition

The week-long event had started with announcement of Professor Joan Rose as the recipient of the Global Water Award, Sabrina Rashid Sheonty as the recipient of the Young Leadership Award, and Professor Juliet Willets as winner of the Gender Diversity and Water Award.

With the results of IWA’s 2024 Project Innovation Awards announced during the week, further recognition came in the Closing Ceremony.

Utility action on climate change was celebrated with the announcement of the results of the 2024 IWA Climate Smart Recognition Programme, sponsored by Xylem.

There was recognition for the outgoing IWA-Grundfos Youth Action for SDG 6 Fellows.

The Closing Ceremony is also when the winners of the Best Poster Awards are announced. With over 400 posters across the six themes of the conference, these Awards mark outstanding presentations. The awardees were:

Theme 1 Water Utility Management: Fugitive Methane Emissions At A Water Resource Recovery Facility: Preliminary Results From A Top-Down|Bottom-Up Field Campaign, Embrey Bronstad, USA

Theme 2 Wastewater Treatment & Resource Recovery: High-rate Nitrogen Removal Using HAP-PNA (partial Nitritation|anammox) Granular Sludge, Yujie Chen, Tohoku University, Japan

Theme 2 Wastewater Treatment & Resource Recovery: Identification And Environmental Behaviour Of Bacteria-Associated Enteric Viruses In Wastewater, Xiaonan Tang, The George Washington University, USA

Theme 3: Drinking Water & Potable Reuse: Understanding The Chemistry Of Brominated Disinfection By-Product Formation, Polly Grundy, Cranfield University, UK

Theme 4 City-scale Planning and Operations, and Theme 5 Communities, Communication & Partnerships: Beyond The Pipes: York Region’s Comprehensive Approach To Tackling ICI In Wastewater Systems, Faruque Mia, Regional Municipality of York, Canada

Theme 6 Water Resources & Large-Scale Water Management: Circularity Assessment Of High Value-Added Resource Recovery; Ectoine Production From Biogas, David Renfrew, Imperial College London, UK

Beyond the Congress

The end of the Congress marks the point at which the role of President of IWA changes hands. At the conclusion of the Closing Ceremony, Tom Mollenkopf AO stepped down as President. Professor Hamanth Kasan of South Africa is new President of the International Water Association.

With the end of the Congress, eyes also now turn to the next edition, which will take place in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2026.