Topic Filters
Results: 795
9 May 2023
Death toll from floods in DRC and Rwanda mounts
Floods in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo have killed at least 400 people according to the governor of the South Kivu region where the floods occurred. Heavy rain commenced in the areas on the 4th of May and continued on the 5th of May, swelling the Cibira/Cabondo and Nyamakubi rivers and triggering landslides which swept through the villages of villages of Bushushu and Nyamukubi...
8 May 2023
WFP and UNEP sign agreement to boost food and water security
On the 5th of May, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) signed an agreement designed to strengthen cooperation around various aspects touching on water and food security. The agreement was the culmination of some two years of preparatory work towards collaboration between the two UN bodies, as well as the product of a learning process between two very different organisational cultures...
8 May 2023
Interview: Lesha Witmer
Tobias Schmitz: Looking back at the UN 2023 Water Conference, we had a 3-day window to catch up on the last 46 years since the last official UN water conference in Mar del Plata. So, it was a huge opportunity but also a big challenge to get the most out of it. From your perspective, how did you feel it was organised? Did we squeeze out of it what we could have? Lesha Witmer: Actually, it is quite intriguing...
3 May 2023
Lake Kenyatta: Lamu County and a Water Users Association work to protect a vital resource.
For 40 years, David Muiga, aged 72, has lived in Mpeketoni, Lamu County, Kenya, having moved there from the Rift Valley decades ago and joining thousands of immigrants. Mpeketoni started as a government settlement scheme in the 1970s for landless people drawn from other parts of Kenya. With water readily available from Lake Kenyatta, the area grew rapidly as agricultural production increased to supply local towns such as Lamu, but also to Malindi, Mombasa and even Nairobi...
27 Apr 2023
Study maps areas of the world at risk of heatwaves
A study published in Nature Communications on the 25th of April has identified which regions in the world are vulnerable to extreme heatwaves. Understanding vulnerability to heatwaves can be useful in the development of disaster risk reduction strategies and the planning of responses to such extreme weather events...
26 Apr 2023
Unseasonal heatwave and drought in Spain
The Spanish Meteorological Agency AEMET forecast a heatwave towards the end of April, with temperatures reaching 36-38⁰C. In some areas, the temperature was 10-15⁰C above average for this period of the year. On the 8th of May, AEMET reported that April 2023 was the hottest April experienced by the country since records began in 1961...
18 Apr 2023
The Five Dimensions of Water
Independently of the professional discipline from which we analyse water management - whether we are looking at water from the perspective of international water law, financial investments, engineering, or social equity – the current approach focuses too narrowly on ‘water’ as the liquid H₂O...
18 Apr 2023
Water for Nature, Nature for Water:
On the 23rd of March, a side event was held at the UN 2023 Water Conference to present international and national legal tools and local customary norms to mainstream the protection of rivers and other water-related ecosystems in decision-making and announce commitments for the Water Action Agenda. Initiated by the International Association of Water Law, the event was co-created by 45 participant organisations, and took the form of an intergenerational debate on improving the governance of freshwater biodiversity for the benefit of people and nature and for transformative change towards the achievement of the 2030 Agenda...
14 Apr 2023
U.S. Interior Department announces measures to protect the Colorado River Basin
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in the Department of Interior has drafted a set of three different options to preserve the water in the Colorado River Basin, which has been suffering from the impacts of drought since 2020. The water levels in the river’s main reservoirs in the river – Lake Powell and Lake Mead - have recently fallen to critically low levels...
14 Apr 2023
Humanitarian situation in Syria and Türkiye still critical
According to ReliefWeb, almost two months after the devastating earthquakes that struck in Syria and Türkiye, the death toll from the earthquakes has now surpassed 50,000 people. In addition, it is estimated that more than 5.9 million people have been displaced. The earthquakes, which measured, 7.5 and 7...
14 Apr 2023
Unicef: triple threat of disease, climate risks and unsafe WASH threaten 190 million children
According to UNICEF, 190 million children across 10 African countries are at the highest risk from a convergence between three factors, i.e. inadequate Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH) services, the resultant exposure to diseases, and the impacts of climate change. Many of these countries are also facing instability and armed conflict, further aggravating the insecurity of access to WaSH services...
13 Apr 2023
Six Current and Former Heads of State presented with Presidential Global Water Changemakers Award
Six serving or former heads of state have received the Presidential Global Changemakers Award at the UN Water Conference in New York. Of these heads of state, four are co-chairs of the International High-Level Panel on Water Investments in Africa: H.E. Macky Sall, President of the Republic of Senegal, H...