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22 Feb 2023
Water Security: Issues and challenges for India
Water security in India refers to the availability of adequate and clean water resources to meet the country's growing water demand, while ensuring the sustainability of the water ecosystems. This is in line with the definition of water security provided by UN Water, which is a United Nations inter-agency coordination mechanism on all freshwater-related issues...
22 Feb 2023
Interview with Dominic O’Neill, Sanitation and Health Fund
Tobias Schmitz: The Sanitation and Hygiene Fund is a new UN entity on the international scene. Can you give us some background on the thinking around its emergence? Dominic O’Neill: Wash has always been the poor cousin of the engineering dimension of water infrastructure. While there are people who are passionate about sanitation, within wash it is the ‘Cinderella’ and menstrual hygiene doesn't even get a mention in the fairytale, ironically...
20 Feb 2023
Looming water shortage in Northern Italy
Images from the Copernicus Sentinel 2 satellites from February 15th show reduced flow of the Po River in Italy. This is the second year in a row that the Po valley has been affected by drought. According to the National Association of Reclamation, Irrigation and Land Improvement (ANBI), within the Po Basin, some 70 municipalities have already announced early warning status, and in some municipalities, tanker trucks are being brought in to ensure continued water supplies...
17 Feb 2023
Health risks in Türkiye and Syria due to lack of functional water and sanitation systems
The earthquake that struck in Türkiye and Syria on the 6th of February has destroyed water and sanitation infrastructure in a wide region. Since then, areas in both countries affected by the earthquake are in urgent need of humanitarian aid. In a media release on the 13th of February, Marielle Snel, the Senior Global Humanitarian Waster, Sanitation and Hygiene advisor for Save the Children, stated: “People in the earthquake-affected areas urgently need safe drinking water and latrines...
16 Feb 2023
People need Freshwater Biodiversity
A new paper compiled by a group of 22 scientists bundles together a range of high-level expert summaries of the critical benefits to humanity of maintaining freshwater biodiversity. The objective of the paper is to show how the present decline in freshwater biodiversity impacts people across the world, but especially indigenous and marginalised groups...
9 Feb 2023
AIP efforts towards financing water investments in Africa bear fruit
Africa's population is projected to reach 1.6 billion by 2030, which translates into a need to transform and improve the investment outlook for water security and sustainable sanitation for a prosperous peaceful and equitable society. Currently, the level of financing for water and sanitation activities on the continent is said to fall far below the level required to meet the targets of the Africa Water Vision 2025; the Africa Union (AU) agenda 2063; and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)...
9 Feb 2023
Auckland declares state of emergency following unprecedented rain
New Zealand’s largest city Auckland has declared a state of emergency after unprecedented rainfall led to widespread flooding, damage to infrastructure and evacuations. On Friday 27th January, Auckland received 75% of its summer rainfall in a period of 15 hours. By 1 a.m. the meteorological service had observed a record 249 mm of rain, breaking the previous record of 161 mm from 1985...
9 Feb 2023
Atmospheric rivers in California and their responses
Since the 27th of December 2022, following three years of drought which triggered exceptional cutbacks on water allocations throughout the Colorado River basin, the state of California experienced a series of intense moisture laden storms known as ‘atmospheric rivers’. Depending on the location, rainfall across California has been between 200% and 600% above normal...
9 Feb 2023
Wanjiru Defies Odds To Farm In Kenya’s Harsh Seasons
NYANDARUA COUNTY, KENYA – Situated just a few kilometers off Kenya’s Sasumua Dam is 58 years old Phillis Wanjiru a mother of four children who has defied all the odds to grow crops throughout the year in rather Kenya’s harsh dry conditions. The resident of Njabini Township in Nyandarua County on the South End of the Aberdare Mountains, Wanjiru grows Passion Fruits, Cabbages, Strew Berries, Pumpkins, Pawpaws, Guavas and Yams among others...
9 Feb 2023
The Netherlands the UN Water Conference and the role of the media
Water is a vital resource for human survival, and it is essential for economic development. As a country that is largely below sea level, the Netherlands understands the importance of water management and innovative solutions for flood protection and water supply. This is however a rather abstract statement, while dealing with water in the Netherlands (and the world) was, and is, also a story of real people...
8 Feb 2023
Satellite data show low groundwater levels in Europe
Satellite data have provided evidence that European groundwater is under pressure since the droughts of 2018, 2019 and 2022. In 2020, Eva Boergens and others, publishing in Geophysical Research Letters, quantified the water shortages in Central Europe caused by the droughts of 2018 and 2019. In 2018 and 2019, Central Europe experienced a deficit of 112 Gigatonnes and 145 Gigatonnes respectively (112 and 145 billion m³)...
8 Feb 2023
Ecologically sensitive urbanisation?
Researchers at the India desk of the World Resources Institute have published a working paper on the effects of expanding built up areas on water bodies, plant cover and permeable open space. Urban areas all over the world are expanding, leading to the expansion of built-up areas at the expense of natural infrastructure that supports the functioning if the water cycle...