Overview of IUCN events at World Water Week 2018
SUNDAY 26 AUGUST
A new global initiative: the alliance for freshwater life
09.00-10.30 | FH Cabare | Side Event
The Alliance for Freshwater Life is an ambitious global collaboration to halt losses of freshwater biodiversity, and stimulate research, conservation and policy dialogue for the sustainable use of freshwater ecosystems.
An action agenda for green infrastructure
09:00-10:30 | NL 253 | Side Event
This event reports on progress made over the past year on an action agenda for green infrastructure. At the 2017 World Water Week, over 25 individuals representing 16 organizations held a dialogue to discuss action to catalyze greater uptake of green infrastructure as a critical complement to traditional gray water infrastructure.
Investing in freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity: a key development challenge
Session 1 |11.00-12.30 | FH 300 - Link
Session 2 |14.00-15.30 | FH 202 - Link
Session 3 |16.00-17.30 | NL Auditorium - Link
Conserving biodiversity and freshwater related ecosystem services is essential to help achieve the goals of Agenda 2030. Equally, ecosystems and the freshwater services they provide will be needed to achieve the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Tapping into collective wisdom: gender sensitive development and water ecosystems
14.00-15.30 | FH Little Theatre | Seminar
Water is key to combating poverty, empowering women and achieving sustainable development, while improving human health, livelihood, equitable economic growth and sustaining ecosystems. Water use and management systems reflect the social differences, power relations and values present in society that impact women’s empowerment.
Ecosystems in an urbanising world: Challenges and opportunities for symbiosis
16.00-17.30 | Room: FH 307 | Seminar
In 2014, 54% of the world’s population lived in cities – a proportion that is expected to rise to 70% by 2050. Urbanization pose serious challenges to ecosystem health and human well-being. Traditional approaches have proven insufficient in response to these major demographic trends.
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MONDAY 27 AUGUST
Water, biodiversity & development: a magic formula for the SDGs
14.00-15.30 | NL 357 | Side Event
The breadth of the sustainable development goals demands that collaboration for water, ecosystems and development objectives improves radically. Ensuring this happens will require a paradigm shift in how IWRM performs. Can conservation be better articulated – by the water and biodiversity communities-of-practice alike – as a key development issue – which IWRM can deliver?
Addressing challenges to unlock financing of nature-based solutions for water
16.00-17.30 | FH Little Theatre | Side Event
Market mechanisms for Nature-based Solution for Water (NbSW) include public subsidies, user-driven watershed investments, water quality trading and offsets, environmental water markets (Bennett & Ruef 2016). Current investment trends show growing public and private investments in NbWS however much remains to be done to achieve the scaling-up of these investments.
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TUESDAY 28 AUGUST
Safeguarding water-related ecosystems in the Mara River and Tonle Sap
09.00-09.30 | Sofa Session
The Mara River Basin (Kenya and Tanzania) and Tonle Sap Basin (Cambodia) are globally important regions of biodiversity that provide critical ecosystem services for human development and well-being. However, growing demand for water, food and energy in these two Basins driven by socioeconomic development and population pressure gives new urgency to the need for innovative approaches that build stakeholder collaboration to responsively plan and implement actions in the face of competing demands and future uncertainty.
UN World Water Development Report 2018 "Nature-Based Solutions for Water"
09.00-10.30 | FH Congress Hall A | Side Event
Water management is still largely dominated by human-built (i.e. ‘grey’) infrastructure, whereas the enormous potential for nature-based solutions (NBS) to address contemporary water management challenges across all sectors, and particularly regarding water for agriculture, sustainable cities, disaster risk reduction and improving water quality remains under-utilized.
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WEDNESDAY 29 AUGUST
Sustainable infrastructure for inclusive green growth
09.00-10.30 | FH Congress Hall C | Side Event
Recent estimates indicate that, globally, $1.2 to $2.4 trillion are needed annually for investment in water and sanitation development. A significant part of this will be built infrastructure. However, traditional built infrastructure often disregards natural capital and can often be, as a consequence, sub-optimal and unsustainable from an ecosystems perspective as it disrupts existing ecological processes.
Understanding the Forest-Water Nexus: redefining the narrative?
11.00-12.30 | FH 307 | Side Event
Water security is one our greatest challenges. Trees and forests are imperative for water flows. Integrated land-water management, including the strategic management of forests and landscapes with water considerations, will be crucial for resilient water supply. Approximately 75% of available freshwater sources come from forested watersheds (MEA, 2005). Despite the importance of forests as natural infrastructure, water is not a management consideration for 75% of forests worldwide.
Easing the ecosystem squeeze: development opportunities in the source-to-sea continuum
14.00-15.30 | FH 307 | Side Event
More than half of the global value of ecosystem services is provided by coastal ecosystems, but much of it is jeopardized by human activities that take place upstream. Over the past 40 years, freshwater biodiversity has declined by 76%, marine biodiversity by 39% and around 70% of all wetlands have disappeared. Throughout the source-to-sea continuum, water connects ecosystems that provide critical services to humans and wildlife.
Connecting water security, peace and development through ecosystems
14.00-15.30 | FH Little Theatre | Side Event
Appreciation of the relationship between water insecurity and peace has been growing and is attracting increasing political attention. This is reflected in the focus of the recent Planetary Security Conference, The Hague, December 2017, reports published by OECD (State of Fragility), Wetlands International (Water Shocks), and the work of the Global High Level Panel on Water and Peace.
Global resilience partnership: building a sustainable flood resilient future
14.00-15.30 | NL 253 | Side Event
Floods cause more damage worldwide than any other type of natural disaster and cause some of the largest economic, social and humanitarian losses. This session will showcase the outcomes of the $10-million-dollar Water Window Challenge funded by Zurich Insurance through the Global Resilience Partnership (GRP).
Re-allocation in river basins: efficiency, sufficiency, sustainability
16.00-17.30 | NL 357 | Side Event
Water (re)allocation is perhaps one of the greatest policy challenges of our time - how to prioritise different river basin benefits and functions given increasing competition for limited water resources. River basins hosting large irrigation systems are at risk from patterns of water consumption effecting the hidden, inflexible and often informal allocation of water from agriculture to other sectors including ecosystems.
Share, Conserve, Develop! How do we do it all in Transboundary Basins?
16.00-17.30 | FH 202 | Side Event
How do the imperatives of water-related ecosystem conservation and those of water security for human socio-economic development become intertwined in transboundary basins, which provide freshwater to 50% of the worlds’ population? Water cooperation mechanisms have moved beyond the purview of state diplomatic offices to operate at multiple levels of governance that involve local to intergovernmental basin stakeholders.
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THURSDAY 30 AUGUST
Social acceptance: a turning point for nature-based solutions projects?
09.00-10.30 | NL Music Hall | Side Event
Nature-based solutions (NbS) are defined by the IUCN as “actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits”. NBS are cross-sectoral projects which, according to the IUCN, are implemented at a landscape scale, “maintain cultural diversity” and are “determined by site-specific natural and cultural contexts that include traditional, local and scientific knowledge”.
How is Nature contributing to SDG6?
09.00-09.30 | Sofa Session
There have been many attempts to conceptually map the SDGs against each other and the activities of different sectors such as energy or agriculture, but there have been few attempts to map the goals’ spatial requirements so that the interactions and trade-offs between them can be assessed.
Green landscapes for water security: nature-based solutions and water quantity
11.00-12.30 | FH 300 | Side Event
The relationships between source water protection and water quality are fairly well understood, with a number of good methodologies available to estimate water quality improvements from nature-based interventions. Not nearly as well understood, is how nature-based solutions affect water quantity, creating challenges in adopting appropriate solutions for sustaining water supplies and reducing flood hazards.
Resilient policies: achieving SDG and UNFCCC goals through water management
14.00-15.30 | NL Music Hall | Side Event
The SDGs and UNFCCC have developed as independent but necessary bodies of global and national policy to guide sustainable development across the 21rst century. However, many SDGs do not recognize the enabling role of water or the threat of uncertain climate impacts in reaching these goals, while the UNFCCC makes little explicit guidance about what indicators of economic development should be used to mark progress for both climate mitigation and climate adaptation.
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For more information on World Water Week, please visit website www.worldwaterweek.org
***This schedule lists all events where IUCN leads, co-organises or speaks at sessions***
