August 16, 2004 | Stockholm, Sweden
At a full-day seminar during the World Water Week in Stockholm, key features of megacities from the developing world were penetrated. According to a United Nations definition, a megacity is a city having a population of 5 million or more. Special attention was devoted to the challenges related to water provision and waste disposal and what policies have been pursued to deal with these basic and vital functions of city life. In excellent overviews, the rapid growth of megacities in the southern hemisphere during the last half century, their roles in development, implications in terms of resource pressure, environmental consequences, and management options were synthesized. Practical examples from Jakarta, Sao Paulo, Istanbul, Mexico City, Johannesburg, Dhaka, and Bangkok illustrated the breadth and depth of interactions in the water development environment.