András Szöllösi-Nagy, Director of the Division of Water and Secretary of the International Hydrological Programme of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Since 2000 he has also served as Deputy Assistant Director-General of the Natural Sciences Sector.

Mr Szöllösi-Nagy was born in 1949 in Budapest, Hungary. He holds a Civil Engineering Diploma (1972) and a Dr. Techn. (Summa cum Laude) in Hydrology and Mathematical Statistics (1975) from the Budapest University of Technology. He holds a Ph.D. in hydrology from the same university.

In 1972 he joined the Water Resources Research Center (VITUKI). Between 1974 and 1976 he was a research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria, working for the Water Project and later in the field of environmental research. His principle research fields were time series analysis, stochastic modeling, real-time forecasting and control of water resources systems using recursive algorithms.

In 1981, Mr Szöllösi-Nagy worked with IBM Italy on the Arno River Forecasting System. He was Visiting Professor at the University of Luleå, Sweden, where he taught stochastic dynamic hydrological systems and filtering techniques and in 1983 and 1984, lecturer on computer aided hydrological forecasting at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok, Thailand. During this period he worked as a consultant for WMO on hydrological forecasting in Bangladesh, Thailand and Indonesia. He also lectured regularly on hydrological modeling at various UNESCO postgraduate courses in Budapest, Belgrade and Delft and taught statistical hydrology at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. Between 1985 and 1989, he was a regular visiting research professor at the Systems Department of the University of Waterloo, Canada. From 1985 to 1989, he held the post of Deputy Director General at the Water Resources Research Center (VITUKI) in Budapest.

Mr Szöllösi-Nagy was awarded a Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) degree by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1991. In the same year, he was made a Dr. Habil. by the Budapest University of Technology. In 1992, he was made Professor HC at the Technical University of Budapest and in 1994 full Professor at the same institution. Between 1986 and 1989 he was the joint (founding) Editor of the International Journal of Stochastic Hydrology and Hydraulics (Springer) and Editor-in-Chief of the Hidrológiai Közlöny. He also served on the editorial board of Vizügyi Közlemények. Mr Szöllösi-Nagy currently serves on the editorial boards of Water Resources Management (Reidel), Environmental Systems, the International Journal of Water Policy (IWA Publishing), International Journal on Landslides (Springer) and the Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS). He has also served as officer of various Committees of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS), the International Association for Hydraulic Research (IAHR), the International Water Resources Association (IWRA) and the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP). He was Vice-President of ICWS/IAHS, Chairman of the Hungarian IAHS Committee and Chairman of the Hungarian WMO/HOMS National Reference Center. He was made an Honorary Member of the American Water Resources Association; the IWRA Ven-Te-Chow lecturer (1994); Chester C. Kisiel lecturer (1999) at the University of Arizona, Tucson; Colorado State University, Fort Collins, US, Hydrology Days Award (2004) and is the 2008 Tsinghua Global Vision Lectures speaker at the Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. In 2005, he was given the Distinguished Associate Award of the International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH). He has published several books and more than 150 technical papers. He is life member of the World Water Academy. In 2008 he has been elected fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences (WAAS).

Mr Szöllösi-Nagy joined UNESCO in 1989 as Director of the Division of Water Sciences and Secretary of the International Hydrological Programme. Between 1999 and 2002 he also served as Coordinator of UNESCO’s environmental programmes (MAB, IOC, IGCP and MOST) and was tasked with UNESCO’s preparations for WSSD. He also served as member of the Steering Committee of the Global Water Partnership and Chair of the World Water Council Publication Committee. He is a member of UN-Water, the Board of Governors of WWC and was co-Chair of the Political Processes Committee of the 5th World Water Forum held in Istanbul, Turkey in 2009.


Dr Prasad Modak

Dr Prasad Modak obtained BTech (Civil Engg-1978) and MTech (Environmental Science and Engg-1980) from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay. He received Doctor of Environmental Engg from Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand in 1984. Dr Modak joined Centre for Environmental Science and Engg at IIT Bombay as a faculty in 1984. Dr Modak left IIT Bombay in 1995 to set up Environmental Management Centre (EMC).

Dr Modak has worked with almost all key UN, multi-lateral and bi-lateral developmental institutions in the world. Prominent amongst these are United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Geneva, Paris and Osaka offices; United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), New York, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), New York; United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Vienna; Dept for International Development (DFID); London; Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) and Carl Duisburg Gesellschaft (CDG), Germany; Asian Productivity Organization (APO), Tokyo; Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), Embassy of the Netherlands, New Delhi; Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the World Bank (WB), International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Apart from Government of India and various State Governments, Dr Modak’s advice is sought by Governments of Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Mauritius, Thailand and Vietnam. He has been invited by several international agencies, public bodies, professional journals and Governments to serve as a Jury and a Reviewer. He has authored and executed more than 300 consulting reports and trained more than 5000 professionals across the World.

Since 1996, Dr Modak functions as a Corporate Consultant (Environment & Infrastructure) with Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS) Ltd. At IL&FS, Dr Modak oversees implementation of its Environmental and Social Policy Framework at the Corporate as well as at several of IL&FS companies. Dr Modak has done numerous assignments for ADB. Between 2006-2008, for ADB, he did evaluation of Country Safeguard Systems for India, China, Vietnam, Philippines and Kyrgyzstan focusing on the Environment Safeguard. A similar work was done for the World Bank for Royal Government of Bhutan in 2010. Dr Modak is presently a consultant with the World Bank on various assignments such as Ganga Action Plan-II, Hydrology Project-II, Capacity Building on EIA etc. He is functioning as an Advisor to the Environmental Master Plan to the State of Himachal Pradesh in India. He is Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Technology Alternatives in Rural Areas at IIT, Bombay. Dr Modak is retained by UNEP, Geneva as principal coordinating author for the Chapter on Waste Management & Recycling for the Green Economy Report. He is a member of the Task Force on Globalization and Waste Management of ISWA, member of the Advisory Panel to Secretary, Basel Convention on Waste Resource Linkages and Member of the Subsidiary Expert Group 3R Forum, Asia.

Dr Modak has worked on a number of assignments concerning institutional assessment and capacity building in the field of environmental management. His blend of experience with academic and research institutions, private sector and financing institutions, bi-lateral and multilateral development agencies as well as Governments has provided him an advantage to take a rounded approach.

Dr Modak has published books with UN University on EIA (translations in Chinese, Japanese), Tokyo; Oxford University Press; UNEP, Paris on Textile Industry and Environment and Centre for Environmental Education in India on Waste Minimization. In 1993, he coordinated learning materials on Air Pollution for UNESCO. He served as Hon Editor of the Journal of Indian Water Works between 1998 and 2004.

Dr Modak has received a number of awards and recognitions and his name has been listed in distinguished personalities on environmental management. He has been recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award of AITAA in 2010 for Significant Contribution to International Affairs.

Music, education, travelling and environmental movements are some of Dr Modak’s passions in life.


Professor Gang Pan

Professor Gang Pan had spent more than ten years in UK universities (UEA, Leeds, Imperial College) before joining the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2000. He won the ‘one hundred scientists (OHS)’ award of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2000, and the ‘distinguished OHS’ in 2003. He is the chief scientist of a Sino-UK governmental cooperation program on water science, deputy chief-scientist of a national key R&D program on lake restoration (45 M RMB) and project leader for three national key basic research projects (11 M RMB). He has successfully applied six NSF grants in physical/aquatic chemistry. He is a board member of the NSF assessment panel, vice president of Chinese Association of Aquatic Environment, board member of Chinese Society of Limnology and Oceanology, member of American Chemical Society, and member of editorial board of 5 peer reviewed journals. He has published more than one hundred peer reviewed papers and issued more than 40 patents. Since 2008, he has successfully conducted several large engineering practices at Lake Tai in algae bloom removal and ecological restoration using integrated modified local soil technology.

Dr Pan’s main research interests include:

1) Novel technologies in harmful algal bloom control, water and sediment improvement and ecological restoration in eutrophic shallow lakes
2) Environmental nano technologies and their application to natural waters and soils
2) Environmental interfacial processes and synchrotron radiation techniques


Dr. Jean Rogers

Dr. Jean Rogers is a Principal with Arup and leads the management consulting group in the Americas region. Jean has 20 years experience in sustainability and management consulting, working with clients to integrate sustainability into strategy and operations in order to reduce risk and improve performance across the triple bottom line. Jean has particular expertise in developing metrics for measurement of sustainability performance appropriate for use in trend analysis and benchmarking across a variety of sectors such as utilities, airlines, and real estate. She worked with the Global Reporting Initiative on development of the G3 sustainability reporting guidelines, and most recently partnered with the Initiative for Responsible Investment at Harvard University to develop a method for assessing the materiality of sustainability issues by sector, as a basis for determining sector specific KPIs. Internally, Jean led the integration of sustainability strategies into Arup’s 20 lines of business offerings across a broad range of sectors, from maritime to energy to manufacturing and infrastructure. Jean is currently leading the development of a sustainability strategy for SITRA, the Finnish Innovation Fund in Helsinki. Jean is also leading a project with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to integrate sustainability into their strategic planning process and operations. She is a former Loeb Fellow at Harvard University, and a registered Professional Engineer.


Robyn Stein

Robyn Stein is a Director at Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs (ENS) and has some 21 years of legal experience in advising South Africa's government and foreign governments, business, NGO’s and international organisations on the development and implementation of effective policy and legislative frameworks in the fields of environmental, water and sustainable development law and governance. Her practical legal experience in the fields of environmental, water, mining, energy and sustainable development law is multidisciplinary. It ranges from advising on environment, mining, energy, and water law issues arising in infrastructural development projects, due diligence aspects of mergers and acquisitions, project finance and corporate listings to legislative and policy drafting, permitting processes and litigation.

Robyn obtained a BA and LLB (cum laude) from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1987 and 1990 respectively. In 1990 she was awarded a Scholarship from the Attorneys Fidelity and completed an LLM (with Distinction) at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1992.

In 1996, Robyn Stein was appointed as a Special Advisor to the Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry in respect of the Water Law Reform Process and participated in drafting the National Water Act 1998, the Water Services Act 1997, the White Paper on a National Water Policy for South Africa and various accompanying Regulations.

Robyn Stein’s practical legal experience has afforded her an opportunity of gaining a key insight into the planning and implementation phases of water resources management as well as water supply and sanitation projects. She has also advised governmental and non-governmental sectors on integrated water management issues with a focus on the constitutional and national legislative imperatives of sustainable development. In the latter regard, her work has included advice on the national, provincial and municipal aspects of co-operative governance. Both nationally and internationally, she has gained experience and has advised on the legal and policy aspects of large-scale infrastructural development projects in the water sector particularly focusing on the social, ecological and economic pillars of sustainable development.

Robyn was has lectured LLB and LLM Students in Water, Environmental and Energy Law over the last 15 years. She has acted as a Visiting Professor in advanced Environmental, Energy and Water law at the University of the Witwatersrand, Deputy Chairperson of the Water Tribunal and Honorary Associate of the Centre for Energy, Petroleum & Mineral Law & Policy of the University of Dundee, Scotland. Additionally, she has chaired numerous environmental organisations such as the Endangered Wildlife Trust, the Dam Advisory Committee and is a member of IUCN (World Conservation Union) Commission on Environmental Law and the South African Environmental Law Association.

Robyn has written numerous published articles in the fields of water law and environmental law and most recently is the co-editor of the book "Rule - Reforming Water Governance 2009" published by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.