Summary
News
- The world celebrates World Water Day (22 March)
- Category II centre announces International Water Law Scholarship Programme
- DVD on international hydrology and water resources: 11,000 copies to be launched in India
- UNESCO Water Chair releases book Risk Analysis of Water Pollution
Events
Featured International Events
- PUB 2011 Workshop: P-3 - Putting PUB into Practice
- Cities of the Future: Sustainable Urban Planning and Water Management
- 34th IAHR Biennial Congress
Did you know?
Facts and figures about World Water Day (Water for Cities: Responding to the Urban Challenge)
e-Newsletter archives
Subscribe & Unsubscribe
Visit the UNESCO Water Portal
News
The world celebrates World Water Day (22 March)
.png)
International World Water Day is held annually on 22 March as a means of focusing attention on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources.
An international day to celebrate freshwater was recommended at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). The United Nations General Assembly responded by designating 22 March 1993 as the first World Water Day.
Each year, World Water Day highlights a specific aspect of freshwater. The objective of World Water Day 2011 is to focus international attention on the impact of rapid urban population growth, industrialization and uncertainties caused by climate change, conflicts and natural disasters on urban water systems.
This year’s theme, Water for cities: responding to the urban challenge, aims to spotlight and encourage governments, organizations, communities, and individuals to actively engage in addressing the challenge of urban water management.
Official World Water Day website
Find a World Water Day event in your area
Category II centre announces International Water Law Scholarship Programme
.jpg)
As capacity-building support to its Partner organisations, the IHP-HELP Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science, under the auspices of UNESCO, at the University of Dundee, together with the Global Water Partnership, will offer scholarships for 30 participants to undertake a module in International Water Law, in Dundee, August 1-19, 2011. Applications will be accepted from 4 March to 30 April 2011.
The module is aimed at persons working in water resources who wish to acquire specialist knowledge of international water law, especially as it relates to transboundary water challenges in the GWP regions.
Applicants to the joint GWP-University of Dundee IWL Programme should be from GWP Partner organisations and are required to be proficient in English, either as native speakers, or to a standard of an IELTS score of 6.5. A university degree is required in Hydrology, Environmental Science, Law, Agriculture, or related field.
Read more
DVD on international hydrology and water resources: 11,000 copies to be launched in India
.png)
UNESCO's Delhi office has just produced 11,000 (eleven thousand) more copies of the Dutch-funded DVD 'International hydrology and water resources', for India only. The DVD will be presented at an international workshop at ITM University, Gurgaon, India on 14 and 15 March 2011. The DVD contains all reports of UNESCO's International Hydrological Programme (IHP) and many reports of international water-related organizations, including UNECE, UN-Habitat, UN-Water, UNESCO-IHE, IWA, World Water Council, CPWC, Twente University and IPCC. The 11,000 new copies have kindly been funded by the Netherlands Permanent Delegation to UNESCO.
All Member States have received a copy of the DVD 'International hydrology and water resources', that was also distributed during the 19th IHP Council last summer in Paris. The special UNESCO edition of the MLU software for groundwater pumping test analysis has been updated since, and the most recent version is available for free at www.hydrology.nl.
A copy of the DVD can be obtained through your national IHP contact or through ihp@unesco.org.
UNESCO Water Chair releases book Risk Analysis of Water Pollution
.jpg)
Jacques Ganoulis, UNESCO Water Chair/International Network of Water-Environment Centres for the Balkans on ‘Sustainable Management on Water and Conflict Resolution’ at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece recently released the book titled Risk Analysis of Water Pollution.
This new edition of a classic text has now been extensively updated to include the latest developments in risk analysis and water quality assessment and management. It takes into account the role of ecological water quality in integrated regional and transboundary water resources management, according to the latest UNESCO programmes and the new EU-Water Framework Directive.
This practice-oriented textbook is a unique tool for identifying and evaluating local and regional environmental risks from pollution hazards in groundwater, river water and coastal seawaters. The book explains different risk-based probabilistic methodologies and fuzzy logic-based approaches and includes various mathematical models for water quality simulation and theories, such as the decision analysis, the utility theory and the integrated risk-based multi-criteria assessment and management, in order to thoroughly evaluate several case studies from the real world.
Questions testing the reader’s understanding are given at the end of each chapter, and a useful appendix provides hints for answering them as well the solutions themselves.
Purchase the book
Events
Featured International Events
PUB 2011 Workshop: P-3 - Putting PUB into Practice
10-14 May 2011: Canmore, Alberta, Canada
Cities of the Future: Sustainable Urban Planning and Water Management
22-25 May 2011: Stockholm, Sweden
34th IAHR Biennial Congress
26 June – 1 July 2011: Brisbane, Australia
Access a complete list of water events around the world
Did you know...? Facts and figures about World Water Day (Water for Cities: Responding to the Urban Challenge)
- 828 million people live in slums or informal settlements that are scattered around the world’s cities; the biggest challenge is to provide these people with adequate water and sanitation facilities.
- The urban poor pay up to 50 times more for a liter of water than their richer neighbours, since they often have to buy their water from private vendors.
- Due to rapid urbanization, cities face a growing demand for water and sanitation services. To meet this demand, cities are going deeper and further, which leads to over-exploitation of water resources.
- Pollution typically refers to chemicals or other substances in concentrations greater than would occur under natural conditions.
- Every day, 2 million tons of human waste are disposed of in water courses.
- In many cities, especially in the developing world, the lack of convenient wastewater treatment and drainage facilities lead to pollution of the ground-and surface water resources.
- Lack of convenient sanitation and safe water supply in cities leads to serious health problems.
- Inadequate sanitation facilities often cause contamination of drinking water.
- After heavy rain, stormwater washes human waste, mainly from informal settlements lacking minimum facilities, into the open drinking water sources of the poor.
- Contaminated drinking water results in cholera epidemics, faecal-oral diseases such as diarrhoea, and outbreaks of malaria.
- While malaria was often considered a rural disease, it is now among the main causes of illness and death in many urban areas.
- Leakage -loss- rates of 50% are not uncommon in urban distribution systems.
- Some 250 to 500 million m3 of drinking water gets lost in many mega cities each year.
- Saving this amount could provide an additional 10 to 20 million people with drinking water in each mega city.
The section "Did You Know…?" is taken from the UN-Water Decade Programme on Advocacy and Communication (UNW-DPAC) publication "Water and Cities: Facts and Figures".
UNESCO's Water Family consists of the following:
- 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
Archives
Access the UNESCO Water e-Newsletter archives (starting at issue Nº 85)
Subscribe & Unsubscribe
For contributions or comments, contact the editor at waterportal@unesco.org
UNESCO.ORG
