The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has a unique global water information system, AQUASTAT, developed since 1993 by the Land and Water Division. The main objective of the programme is to systematically select the most reliable information on hydrological resources and water use in each country, as well as to make this information available in a standard format for interested global, regional and national users.
Rapid urbanisation has led to widespread settlements of floodplains, resulting in widespread vulnerability of livelihoods. Since traditional approaches are no longer sufficient, a more integrated flood management approach was realised to adapt to changing social, hydrological, and environmental conditions along the nation’s major waterways. Furthermore, the Ministry of Water Resources prepared a national flood management strategy. The crucial lesson is that the key to flood risk management is learning to live with flood risks.
Oil-shale mining and oil-shale based electricity production has caused serious damage to ground and surface water in the Viru-Peipsi catchment area in Estonia. Action was taken to enhance the protection of the water resources through a project that set out a management plan. The project included data collection, monitoring and capacity building. Due to the success of this project, it can be used as an example for future developments.
Bratislava, 8 October 2012. Czech children have won the "International Danube Art Master 2012" competition, as the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) and GWP Central and Eastern Europe announced today.
GWP SA, on behalf of SADC is currently making preparations for the forthcoming SADC Water Weeks which have been slated from April – October 2014. The SADC Water Weeks are aimed at ensuring that the Regional Water Programme is well understood and embraced by stakeholders from various sectors at the national level. The SADC Water Weeks were last held in the year 2000 and led to the development of the SADC Water Vision for Water, Life and the Environment
Many climate change models predict that increasing temperatures, droughts, heavy precipitation and other extreme climatic events will have severe impacts on family farmers. Yields might be reduced by up to 50 percent in dry regions at the same time as family farming continues to be the basis unit of the agricultural economy in developing countries.
The Cuero River area is particularly susceptible to floods, making the communities living in the surrounding area vulnerable. This area was consequently chosen for implementation of an Early Warning System Project. Action was taken in three separate phases in three different areas. From the experience, the lesson learnt is that more effort should be devoted to training of a leader group that can promote and consolidate the system’s self-sufficiency.
On February 27-28, 2013, Global Water Partnership Southern Africa’s (GWPSA) Executive Secretary, Ms Ruth Beukman participated in the Post- 2015 Development Agenda Consultation on Water: Water Resources Management (WRM) and Wastewater Management & Water Quality (WWMWQ). Ms Beukman was invited by UN Water to be a panellist and was sponsored by UNECE to participate. The meeting was sponsored by the Government of Switzerland as part of the Thematic Consultation on Water, coordinated by UN-Water, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).
On Tuesday 8 November, GWP Eastern Africa was attending a partners meeting on gendered REDD+ strategies, Norwegian royal embassy, Kampala, Uganda, along with the First Secretary of the royal embassy of Belgium in Uganda, the Development Counsellor of the royal embassy of Denmark in Uganda, the programme director for natural resources of Icelandic International Development Agency in Uganda, the First Secretary of the royal embassy of Norway in Uganda, a representative of the European Union Commission in Uganda, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Bank, Makerere University and International Union for Nature Conservation.