Richard Robarts is Director of the UNEP GEMS/Water Programme for global water quality monitoring and assessment hosted by the Government of Canada and centred within the UN in the Division of Early Warning and Assessment of UNEP. GEMS/Water is a multi-faceted water science centre oriented towards knowledge development in inland water quality issues throughout the world and was initiated in 1978. Dr.Robarts, an aquatic microbial ecologist, is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Applied Microbiology, University of Saskatchewan and in the Department of Biological Sciences, Napier University, U.K. He is an Associate Editor of the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Aquatic Ecology and co-Editor for Ecohydrology & Hydrobiology (UNESCO) and Editor of SILnews. Dr. Robarts is a member of the Interdisciplinary Committee of the World Cultural Council (Albert Einstein World Award (Science)). He is past President of the Safe Drinking Water Foundation, which supports research and educational programmes on safe drinking water in rural areas and raises public awareness. Dr. Robarts has done research in regions extending from the Arctic to the sub-Antarctic, including the tropics and subtropics. He spent 14 years doing research and teaching in Africa. Currently his main research focus is the wetlands and saline lakes of the prairies. He has published extensively on the ecology and production of bacteria and bloom-forming cyanobacteria in lakes and reservoirs and the impacts of man-made substances on biological processes in aquatic systems. He is currently working with Russian colleagues on a series of papers and books (Atlas of Russian Wetlands, Ecology of Russian Rivers) on water quality issues in the former USSR and present day Russia. Being responsible now for a UN programme he spends much of his time flying around the world!