United Nations Secretary-General pledges action on water resources at World Economic Forum

On Thursday, January 24^th, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, stated that unless scarcities in water resources are addressed in the near future, the amount of conflicts in the world could rise. As a result, the United Nations will take action to confront water shortages through reaching anti-poverty targets set out in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

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HELP organizes International Workshop on Wetlands as World Wetlands Day is celebrated

On February 2^nd, 2008, the 27^th anniversary of the adoption of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands was celebrated. Each year since 1997, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and groups of citizens at all levels of the community have taken advantage of the opportunity to undertake actions aimed at raising public awareness of wetland values and benefits in general and the Ramsar Convention in particular. From 1997 to 2007, the Convention’s website has posted reports from more than 95 countries of World Wetlands Day activities of all sizes and shapes, from lectures and seminars, nature walks, children’s art contests, sampan races, and community clean-up days, to radio and television interviews and letters to newspapers, to the launch of new wetland policies, new Ramsar sites, and new programmes at the national level. Government agencies and private citizens from all over the world have sent us their news, often with photographs, and these annual summaries and 900+ individual reports, with more than 1200 images, make an excellent archive of ideas for future celebrations.

To commemorate World Wetlands Day, HELP (Hydrology, Environment, Life and Policy), a joint UNESCO and WMO (World Meteorological Organization) initiative, organized the International Workshop on Wetlands that took place between 31 January and 2 February 2008. Representatives of six of the HELP basins were present (Lake Champlain, USA; Lake Naivasha, Kenya; Fitzroy, Australia; Lake Peipsi, Estonia; Pays de Savoie, France; and Karjaanjoki, Finland) to illustrate a different thematic on wetland management (science, community involvement, governance, among others). The main output of the workshop was the creation of a sub-network between HELP basins managers and other partners to share techniques, tools and information on wetlands management issues.

World Wetlands Day website
HELP website

UNESCO-IHE releases pre-announcement for the International Symposium on “Cities of the Future – Strategic Planning for Water Sustainability

We cannot ignore that the world is changing. Most of these changes (climate, regulations, populations, expectations, and infrastructure conditions) mean real challenges for urban water managers and urban planners. Long term visions and plans are needed to safeguard a clean water environment, a safe city and reliable water services.

There are a whole range of innovative technologies and institutional set-ups are (almost) ready for implementation in cities all around the world. Application of these innovations may allow cities to make a big step towards a truly sustainable urban water system.

The SWITCH project is developing new strategies, both technical and institutional, to cope with global change pressures and aimed at achieving sustainable urban water systems.

This international symposium offers an insight into the Strategic Planning processes of major cities from Europe and beyond. Urban planners will present the planning process in their cities and their effort to achieve sustainability. Discussions and facilitated workshops will identify the success factors for strategic planning. The application of technological and institutional innovations in urban water planning for sustainability will be explored

Symposium website

Armenia launches International Hydrological Programme National Committee

The government of Armenia, in conjunction with the International Hydrological Programme (IHP) of UNESCO, has launched a National IHP Committee to contribute to the scientific and educational goals related to water resources management.

The Armenian National Committee, headed by Mr. Hovhannes Tokmajyan, the Rector of the Yerevan State University of Architecture and Construction and Head of the Technical Consultative Commission on Water Systems Operation and Maintenance, brings an experienced, multidisciplinary group of academicians, experts and scientists from a variety of Armenian institutions.

It is with great pleasure that IHP welcomes the Armenian National IHP Committee and looks forward to working with it in the future.

The Regional Centre on Urban Water Management – Tehran and partners hold successful International Workshop on Capacity Development for Water Journalists

Based on the rationale that the world’s water related problems are growing and need to be addressed urgently and that the importance of the role of media is crucial in this mobilization, the Regional Centre on Urban Water Management – Tehran in close cooperation with the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) and the United Nations Water Decade Programme on Capacity Development (UNW-DPC) organized the Workshop “Professional Journalists and the Water Sector (A Regional Perspective, Iran & CIS Countries)” in Tehran, Iran 26-28 November 2007.

Over 25 journalists attended the meeting, half of which were women, from over 10 countries in Central Asia (including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) and other Asian nations (China, India and Lao PDR).

The sessions included topics such as engaging media on sanitation, the impacts of media on water and environment issues in Iran and engaging water users (women, men, children and civil society), among others.

An important part of the workshop was field visits to the Jalalieh Water Treatment Plant, the Saad-Abad National Water Museum and Iranian National Broadcasting.

RCUWM website

Access a complete list of water events around the world

Data Requirements for Integrated Urban Water Management

Edited by Tim D. Fletcher and Ana Deletić
UNESCO-IHP Urban Water Series - UNESCO Publishing / Taylor & Francis holistic approach to solving urban water problems.

Integrated urban water management relies on data allowing us to analyze, understand and predict the behavior of the individual water cycle components and their interactions. The concomitant monitoring of the complex of urban water system elements makes it possible to grasp the entirety of relations among the various components of the urban water cycle and so develop a holistic approach to solving urban water problems.

Data Requirements for Integrated Urban Water Management – issuing from UNESCO’s International Hydrological Programme project on this topic – is geared towards improving integrated urban water management by providing guidance on the collection, validation, storage, assessment and utilization of the relevant data. The first part of this volume describes general principles for developing a monitoring programme in support of sustainable urban water management. The second part examines in detail the monitoring of individual water cycle components. Two case studies in the final part illustrating attempts to deliver an integrated monitoring system help demonstrate the fundamental principles of sustainable urban water management elaborated here.

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You have only been at UNESCO a short time. What were you doing before and how did that help prepare you for what you are doing now?
I was involved in a number of international scientific research studies, education, teaching and project developments in the field of hydrology and water resources through various academic institutions in Israel, Japan and Nepal. I studied hydrology of the Blue Nile River in Africa, and developed flow forecasting models. My academic and professional endeavors in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East helped me to understand global hydrological processes and international water issues, which are very relevant to my current work. The studies and activities in various countries and regions also enriched me with the languages and cultures of those countries.

What projects are you currently working on?
Currently, I am working in the section of Hydrological Processes and Climate. My main responsibilities are to coordinate and develop programme and activities to address Global changes and impacts on hydrological systems. Global Changes brought on by climate change, urbanization, global population growth, land conversion, which are altering the Earth and the way it functions. Various studies indicate that the impacts on water availability from population growth and economic development are greater than previously estimated. Changes in glaciers in the world’s largest and highest mountain system also have most dramatic effects on very large section of human population. The loss of these glaciers would have a tremendous impact on water resources and the ecosystem of the region. Within the framework of IHP VII, we are addressing those issues of global change. I am also responsible for coordinating International Sediment Initiative (ISI). The activities of ISI are aimed at increased awareness about sediment dynamics and erosion issues in all spheres of water management and at the promotion of sustainable management of soil and sediment resources at local, regional and global scale.

In combining your two responsibilities at UNESCO, how will the Global Changes you mention affect sediment dynamics?
Various research study show that soil erosion is accelerating globally because of deforestation, and agriculture practices, while at the same time sediment flux to the coastal zone is globally decelerating. Those studies further estimates that 30-40% of the global sediment flux is trapped behind large reservoirs. From a global change perspective, the impact of reservoirs on the sediment dynamics seems to be significant but has yet to be fully understood. Moreover, the hydrological monitoring network is declining, and it is becoming more difficult to obtain reliable predictions as to hydrological variable resulting from global changes. That is why the ISI is coordinating case studies in several river basins to find ways to link our understanding and models of sedimentary systems with impacts on human environments including improvement of management options, hazard and risk assessment, and feedback into policy frameworks.

The Global Change that gets the most attention is Climate Change. What do you think it will take to bring political attention to the other three?
As I said earlier, the impacts on water availability from projected population growth and economic development might be greater than previously thought and it must be timely addressed. Those drivers of global change include population growth, urbanization and land conversions and others. Several estimates show that by 2050 there will be an additional 3 billion people. This growth will increase pressure on already stressed water and other earth resources. To face the global scale challenge of coupled economic improvement and environmental sustainability certainly needs political attention and will.

• The Saint John is a 700km long 7th-order river system that crosses the international border between the US and Canada in the upper third of the basin and forms the border between Canada and the US for >50km. It flows 673km from its headwaters in Northern Maine (USA) through the southeast corner of Quebec (Canada) and down the western portion of New Brunswick into the Bay of Fundy
• The Saint John River basin area is the largest in the region at 55,110km², and includes numerous important tributaries such as the Kennebecasis, Nashwaak, and Tobique Rivers in New Brunswick, the Allagash and Aroostook Rivers in Maine, and the Madawaska River in Quebec.
• Mean annual discharge for this large river is about 1110m3/s. Precipitation through the basin varies with an average annual rainfall of 90cm in the south and 64cm in the headwaters, although a larger portion of the precipitation runs off the headwater region (71%) than in the lower basin (64%). The precipitation is evenly distributed throughout the year.
• There are a large variety of types of stressors affecting the river system such as forestry, sewage, pulp mills, hydroelectric dams, etc., although water quality is still relatively good because of the size of the river and the relatively small population.
• Historically, the Saint John River has been considered one of the more disrupted river systems in Canada, and has been listed as one of the top receivers of contaminants. To date, much of our knowledge about the health of the Saint John River ecosystem comes from assessments of the dramatic decline in populations of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) that have occurred over the past 50 years.

The section “Did You Know...?” is taken from "Water and Ecosystems: Managing Water in Diverse Ecosystems to Ensure Human Well-being", a joint publication of the United Nations University’s International Network on Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) and UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB) and International Hydrological Programme (IHP).

- International Hydrological Programme
- World Water Assessment Programme
- UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education
- Water-related Institutes and Centres under the Auspices of UNESCO
- UNESCO Water-related Chairs

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For contributions or comments, contact the editor at waterportal@unesco.org