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water security

Tackling a crisis of too much, too little, too polluted

Guangzhe CHEN's picture
The world’s water problems have regularly made the news in 2018. And the scale of the crisis behind the headlines is stark. It is a crisis of too much, too polluted and too little. 

Too much because the devastating impacts of floods, exacerbated by climate change, is hitting poor people first and worst. Too polluted because so much wastewater does not get collected or treated. And too little because across the world today 2.1 billion people lack reliable access to safely managed drinking water services and 4.5 billion lack safely managed sanitation services, which means that a majority of the global population go without safe containment, emptying/collection, conveyance, treatment and reuse/disposal of their waste. All the while, water scarcity could cost some regions up to 6% of their GDP, spur migration and, in the extreme, spark civil conflict.
 
Tackling this crisis is one of the most urgent issues for the global community to address. That’s why a team of experts from the World Bank are attending World Water Week in Stockholm from August 26 to 31 to deepen knowledge, shape debates and amplify action for a water-secure world for all. 

Avoiding pitfalls between policy and pipes

Yogita Upadya Mumssen's picture
The “Water Flows” blog series showcases
examples of work funded by Global Water
Security & Sanitation Partnership (GWSP), 
a multi-donor trust fund. The GWSP gets
knowledge flowing to and from
implementation via first-rate research
and analysis.

What motivates poor policy and investment decisions? Why do supposedly good policies not translate into practice? And how can we avoid perpetuating pitfalls between policy and pipes?
 

Our new paper ‘Aligning Institutions and Incentives for Sustainable Water Supply and Sanitation Services’, produced with the support of the Global Water Security and Sanitation Partnership (GWSP), examines precisely these issues. Through research, analysis, and case studies, the report posits that genuine, sustainable progress in water supply and sanitation service delivery is complex, iterative, and multi-faceted. Whether it’s expanding access, improving efficiency, or providing better services – all reforms require their own unique blend of policies, institutions and regulations and all take place in the context of their own unique enabling environment.

Enhance transboundary basin management: Here are some useful tools

Taylor W. Henshaw's picture
More than 10,000 water professionals from 160 countries gathered in Brasilia two weeks ago at the 8th World Water Forum to discuss current and future water challenges. The Forum’s Declaration, “An Urgent Call for Decisive Action on Water”, issued by Ministers and Heads of Delegations, encourages transboundary cooperation based on win-win solutions in line with UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6. (SDG 6 Target 5  calls on the world community to implement integrated water resources management at all levels, ‘including through transboundary cooperation as appropriate’.)

Transboundary waters—which support the socioeconomic wellbeing of more than 40 percent of the global population, as well as the ecosystems on which they depend—were a regular discussion topic in special sessions and high-level panel events at the Forum. This is not surprising given the complex blend of human, environmental and agricultural water stresses that is putting a number of the world’s 286 transboundary river basins on a trajectory toward high risk of water scarcity, and several toward closure—where water demand exceeds supply seasonally or throughout the year—by 2030. The below map, depicting the relative risk of environmental water stress projected for 2030, illustrates the potentially dire future of the world’s transboundary freshwater basins.
 
Source: Global Environment Facility Transboundary Waters Assessment Program 2015. http://twap-rivers.org/

Ensuring a water and food secure future through farmer-led irrigation

Steven Schonberger's picture

How can we think in new ways about expanding farmer-led irrigation in support of global food security and poverty reduction? This was the question at the heart of the 2017 Water for Food International Forum. The theme, “Water for Food Security: From Local Lessons to Global Impacts,” was based on the premise that global breakthroughs are so often driven by local action.
 
Organized by the World Bank and the Daugherty Water for Food Institute (DWFI) at the University of Nebraska, and supported by several partners, the event showcased voices from farmer representatives, the private sector, national and regional policymakers, and major international financing institutions – galvanizing a coalition of support to legitimize farmer-led irrigation as a major development agenda, particularly for Africa.
 

Cucumbers growing in a greenhouse for hydroponics.
Photo: Sashko via ShutterStock

Innovate to irrigate: 19 innovations to increase food production without draining the earth

Brittany Scalise's picture
Also available in: Arabic, Chinese, French
Whenever you bite into a piece of food, do you think about where it comes from? How did it get from the ground to your table? Who are the farmers and entrepreneurs who cultivated and sourced it? It’s strange to think that this doesn’t cross our minds more often.
 
This issue is one we should be thinking about more and more often. As populations continue to grow, there needs to be new innovations to increase sustainable food production, without draining the earth. With factors such as climate change impacting water supplies and security, business-as-usual just won’t cut it.
 
For this reason, on January 29th, 2018, the Water for Food International Forum Innovation Fair: Innovate to Irrigate, gathered together 19 organizations who are leading the way in this challenge, through creative technologies that support farmer-led irrigation practices.

Water and War: The turbulent dynamics between water and fragility, conflict, and violence

Claudia W. Sadoff's picture
View the full infographic here

For the past two years, the rains have been poor in Somalia. What comes next is tragically familiar. Dry wells. Dying livestock. Failed harvests. Migration.  Masses of people in dire need of humanitarian assistance. The same is happening in Yemen, Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Nigeria. However, poor rains are not the only water problem that creates havoc. Floods, water-borne diseases, and transboundary water conflicts can all cause severe human suffering and disruptions to political, economic, and environmental systems.

Protecting our water sources brings a wealth of benefits

Andrea Erickson's picture
The journey of our water from source to tap is long, and not one we think much about. For most of us, our water starts high in the mountains, hundreds of miles away. From there, water flows across natural and working lands until a portion is channeled to water pipes that move water to our faucets, to farms, and to various types of businesses.

12 moments for water in 2016

Li Lou's picture

2016 has become the year for water. From the World Economic Forum, COP22, to the Budapest Water Summit, water has been widely acknowledged as a key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, and essential to the climate change solution.

Here are the defining moments of 2016 that put water security and sustainability on the global agenda like never before: 

Agriculture holds the key to tackling water scarcity

Rimma Dankova's picture

Agriculture is both a victim and a cause of water scarcity. Water of appropriate quality and quantity is essential for the production of crops, livestock, and fisheries, as well as for the processing and preparation of these foods and products. Water is the lifeblood of ecosystems, including forests, lakes, and wetlands, on which the food and nutritional security of present and future generations depends. At the same time, agriculture is the largest water user globally, and a major source of water pollution. Unsustainable agricultural water use practices threatens the sustainability of livelihoods dependent on water and agriculture.

Additionally, climate change will have significant impacts on agriculture by increasing water demand, limiting crop productivity, and reducing water availability in areas where irrigation is most needed or has a comparative advantage. A growing number of regions will face increasing water scarcity. Climate change will bring greater variation in weather events, more frequent weather extremes, and new challenges requiring the sector to take mitigation and adaptation actions.

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