IAWD is pleased to announce that the Micropol & Ecohazard Conference 2017 will be held in Vienna from September 17-20, 2017. The conference is the 10th Biennial Specialist Conference of the IWA SG ACHSW. The conference is organized by the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU) in co-operation with the Technische Universität Wien (TU) and supported by the City of Vienna as well as IAWD.

The list of contaminants was recently extended by UNEP in terms of POPs and by the EU in terms of priority substances. Nevertheless, there are much more substances of emerging concern including pharmaceuticals, other personal care products, steroid hormones, industrial chemicals, pesticides, hydrocarbons, solvents, and detergents. Additionally effects like endocrine activity or antibiotic resistance are of high importance. The effects of micropollutants in the water environment are complex, still not fully understood and their associated risks are difficult to assess. Bioanalytical tools are means to overcome that knowledge gap, but still need to be elaborated and accepted on a broader scale. The regulatory framework and control strategies relevant to emerging contaminants is still under development stage and new 3 R-tools (reduce, replace, refine) should be included into the evaluation.