Baku - A three-day conference organized by IOM is taking place in Azerbaijan to look at how an ancient water supply system can be used to manage scarce water supplies in a world increasingly affected by climate change.

The kahriz, first developed in ancient Iran about 3,000 years ago to take underground water to the surface through simple gravity flow, had been used widely for centuries in Azerbaijan's autonomous republic of Nakhchivan to provide year-round water through a network of interconnected wells and underground tunnels that collect water from the hills. But the system had fallen into disuse during Soviet times, leading to drought and consequently, migration to other countries as people were unable to sustain a livelihood through agriculture.

An IOM programme that began 10 years ago with funding from the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has since been restoring kahrizes to provide sustainable drinking and irrigation water to isolated villages in Nakhichivan so that they were not forced to leave their homes and land. To date, 58 kahrizes have been renovated, providing drinking water to nearly 6,000 families and irrigation water to 4,500 families with another 35 structures currently under renovation.

The conference, which ends on 26 September and organized in cooperation with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the US State Department's Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration, Nakhchivan State University and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), brings together scientists from Azerbaijan, Iran, Japan, Oman, the USA and UK and other countries, as well as government officials and donor organizations.

With water crises already evident around the world and the poorest and most arid regions likely to be hit hardest by the growing impact of climate change, the challenge for scientists, governments, international community as well as civil society will be to find solutions to the problem.

Participants will be able to draw upon the IOM kahriz rehabilitation project in Azerbaijan as well as share experiences from other countries using the kahriz system in order to explore the potential of using such a system on a wider, more global scale to meet the water needs of future generations.

The conference would also put in place best practices on kahriz management and maintenance while encouraging more scientific research on the system.

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For further information please contact: Vassiliy Yuzhanin IOM Azerbaijan Tel: +99450 613 61 67 E-mail: vyuzhanin@iom.int