Home to a quarter of the world’s population, South Asia is endowed with vast water resources with potential for high economic development. However spatial and temporal factors in distribution subject the region to water related disasters such as droughts, floods and storm surges, which are increasingly compounded by climate change and global warming.
In April 2010, GWP Chile became an accredited Country Water Partnership.
The UN climate negotiations in Cancún, Mexico, will be an opportunity to take a sober look at the state of the world’s climate and our collective capacity to respond to the changes which are already visible: more extreme weather events, floods, droughts, glacier melting, polar ice caps shrinking, and sea levels rising, GWP Executive Secretary Dr Ania Grobicki writes in a publication issued for the COP16 delegates (click on link at right).
Agriculture: the major sector of water consumption
Intensive abstraction for domestic, agricultural and industrial purposes has led to depletion of surface and groundwater bodies. Overexploitation of groundwater resources in particular, has led to seawater intrusion in coastal aquifers. Over the last 50 years, water demand for all sectors of activity together has doubled to reach 280 km3/ year in 2007.
The Mediterranean basin ranks among the first in the list of the world top tourist destinations. Tourism activity registers annually around 250 million visitors and the number of domestic and international tourists should reach 637 million by 2025. It is estimated that every tourist consumes between 300 and 850 liters of water per day.
Sweden’s Ambassador to the UN Secretary General’s Global Sustainability Panel, Torgny Holmgren, inaugurated a Stockholm-based development hub on Wednesday, November 17.
The First Preparatory Meeting for Rio+20, which will discuss the substantive themes, will be held from May 17-19, 2010 at the United Nations ECOSOC in New York.
Interview with Ms. Zalilah Selamat, The National Hydraulic Research Institute of Malaysia (NAHRIM)