Toward water security and climate resilience
The Mekong is the longest river in Southeast Asia, beginning its 4,200 km journey in the mountains of the Tibetan Plateau, passing six countries and reaching the South China Sea. Policy reforms to adopt integrated water resources management had been initiated and water related laws had been developed. However, there were still major gaps in the supporting knowledge and information. IUCN and its program Water &Nature Initiative (WANI) supported to scale up so called Tai Baan research (villagers’ research) that enabled local communities to represent their own social reality and through media and public forum, this knowledge can be mainstreamed into water management research and implementation.
A case study on GWP ToolBox presents experiences from construction of reed bed waste water treatment plant in Vidrare village, central Bulgaria.
South Africa started its internal broad stakeholder engagement process on Water in the Post 2015 Development Agenda earlier this year. The first stakeholder workshop was held in Durban from 19-20 February 2013. A second workshop, was held in Irene, Gauteng on 4th April 2013.
At the core of food security is access to healthy food and optimal nutrition. Food access is closely linked to food supply, so food security is dependent on a healthy and sustainable food system. The food system includes the production, processing, distribution, marketing, affordability, and consumption of food.
GWP South America is working on the implementation of a new Latin American Training Programme on Water Legislation for International River Basins. This programme aims to encourage improved international cooperation and facilitate good water governance in the region. Its main outputs will be three training workshops, a manual to support training processes and a monitoring report which will identify knowledge gaps, capacity needs, lessons learned and follow-up needs.
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.
In Slovenia, water is extracted for drinking water, energy, fish-farming, irrigation and technological purposes. In order to avoid over-extraction, an Environmental Flow framework has been implemented, assessing within what limits water can be extracted, using hydromorphological, hydrological, hydraulic and ecological criteria. The case shows that it is important to combine policy decisions with expert evaluations.
The Upper Guadiana Basin provides a classic example of conflict caused by the intensive use of water resources in a semiarid region. Since the 1960s, uncontrolled abstraction of groundwater to provide water for crop irrigation in the area has lowered the water table in places by up to 50m, causing the main river channels to run dry and some wetlands to become desiccated. On the other hand, the abstraction has also supported a booming agricultural economy.
Come and join us for some celebrations, on the 19th of February, in Jinja around our great river!