Dongting Lake is the second largest freshwater lake in China and its basin is home to nearly 12 million people. Due to overuse, silting, sedimentation and decreasing inflows from the Yangtze River during the dry season, the environment is deteriorating, water shortages are more frequent and wetlands are shrinking.
In 2010 GWP Malaysia organised the second pilot national workshop on integrated flood management. This brought together staff from the Department of Irrigation and Drainage, the National Safety Council, Town and Country Planning Department, the Malaysian Remote Sensing Agency and town councils.
GWP Central Africa technical experts helped the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) draft the regional water policy aligning country water policies within a coherent regional framework.
GWP Ethiopia launched pilot projects in the Berki and Messena watersheds to promote IWRM, establish a framework for broader stakeholder participation, and enhance grassrootslevel water management practices.
GWP West Africa and GWP Ghana organised a regional training for journalists and representatives of basin organisations on the "contribution of big water infrastructures to the sustainable development of countries in West Africa" in Accra, 17-21 May 2010.
In Benin, four years of lobbying and workshops culminated in the adoption by the Government, in July 2009, of a new water policy based on the IWRM approach. GWP Benin led efforts, working with parliamentarians, ministries, civil society, local communities and water user organisations, and establishing a task force. GWP Benin also arranged for consultants to review the first draft of the policy and organised a national workshop to validate the final draft.
The Central and Eastern Europe region of the Global Water Partnership (GWP CEE) has called for pollution prevention and the regular inspection of polluter operations in light of the toxic sludge disaster in Hungary.
This demonstration project will focus on the identification of agricultural drought characteristics and will elaborate a monitoring method through the application of remote sensing data.
A programme of measures for forest adaptation, and for mitigating the negative effects of climate change, will be established in four GWP CEE countries, with the dissemination of results to policy- and decision-makers, stakeholders and NGOs.