Project Info

• Project Team: Anton Earle, John Joyce, Josh Weinberg
• Partners: Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection Foreign Economic Cooperation Office (MEP-FECO), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Wuhan University
• Co-finanaced by the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection Foreign Economic Cooperation Office and Sida
• Timeline: November 2012 – December 2013

With its vision for a “water wise world”, the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) recently produced its 2013-2017 strategy, placing its various programmes and activities within five thematic areas: Climate Change; Transboundary Water Management; Water Governance; Water, Energy and Food Nexus; and Water Economics. In this article, we highlight why we work with these themes and the key services we provide under each theme.

Article in Stockholm Water Front, issue no 2, 2012

Paper, published 2012.

Demographic changes cannot be separated from climate changes. In his reflections on some of the fundamental issues related to climate change, SIWI’s Mats Eriksson draws some arguments related to an increased focus on adaptation versus mitigation.

Erosion and sedimentation in China is assessed by Zhou Zhide and Tong Yuling, from the International Research and Training Centre on Erosion and Sedimentation, Beijing, China. They look into how natural pollution affects water quality globally, and the human equation in the process.

SIWI’s John Joyce reflects upon the effects of the international financial crisis on financial flows for the water sector in Africa, based upon a recently published SIWI report. The two main conclusions being that: (a) local governments and households (who are not well integrated in the international economy and therefore not heavily effected by the crisis) play a crucial role in financing water sector related infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa, (b) Chinese Arab investments may have played a stabilising role in Sub-Saharan Africa during the recent financial crisis. Therefore, the effects have not been as severe as what could have been expected.

And Mr. John Feighery, PhD candidate at Columbia University and winner of the Best Poster award during the 2010 World Water Week in Stockholm wrote for this issue of the Stockholm Water Front about his research on water quality in Bangladesh which won him this honour.

The Transboundary Waters Assessment Programme (TWAP) Programme will address this need by developing:

1. a partnership among organisations;
2. a methodology to assessment and track results for each of the five categories of transboundary water systems (transboundary groundwater; transboundary lakes/reservoirs; transboundary river basins; Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs); and open ocean areas) under the Transboundary Waters Assessment Programme; and
3. conduct a baseline transboundary waters assessment that may be conducted following completion of the MSP.

The periodic assessment will be sustained in the future through the partnership of agencies and organisations, and include data series collected by Global Environment Facility International Waters (GEF-IW) projects that would be useful to those agencies and to UNEP’s GEO process.

Project Info

• Project team: Anders Jägerskog, Anton Earle, John Joyce, Kyungmee Kim
• Partners: UNEP-DEWA in partnership with UNESCO-IOC, UNESCO-IHP, UCC-Water, SIWI, IGRAC, Finland, BMZ/BGR, ETH-Zurich, IUCN, ILEC, GRID-Arendal, LOICZ, GESAMP, University of Kalmar, University of Western Cape

The flagship report, produced by the World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP) provides an authoritative overview of the status, use and management of today’s world’s freshwater resources, and highlights the main challenges of tomorrow. The fourth edition of the triennial report will be launched on March 12 at the 6th World Water Forum, which will take place in Marsielle, France.

It will be available for download on March 12 at: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/environment/water/wwap/wwdr/wwdr4-2012

About the World Water Development Report
The WWDR4 aims to encourage all stakeholders both in and out of the ‘water box’ – water managers, leaders in government, civil society and businesses – to engage early in decision making processes to improve the quality and acceptance of decisions and the probability of successful implementation. It will highlight that more responsible action by all water users has enormous potential to lead to better outcomes – but will require political, social, economic and technical responses at all levels of government, businesses and communities, from local to international.

In the World Water Development Report series, the WWDR4 represents a milestone. While providing a comprehensive assessment of the world’s water resources it also introduces a strong thematic element. Building on the WWDR3 in the recognition of the externalities, the WWDR4 elaborates on the interactions between water and the drivers of change. The WWDR4 will describe the major changes, uncertainties, and risks taking place in the world and their links to water resources. It will give account of the status and the trends related to water supplies, uses, management, institutions and financing; highlight regional hotspots, and address issues such as gender equality, water-related disasters, health and the role of ecosystems.

SIWI’s John Joyce contributed to a chapter “Conducting cost-effectiveness analysis to identify potential buyers and sellers of water pollution control credits to initiate water quality trades”. p 298 – p 307.

The paper explains the general concept of water quality trading and an overview of the mechanics of a cost-effectiveness analysis and how such analysis can be used to assist buyers and sellers of water quality credits.

Download the book here (pdf, 14MB).

van Bochove, E, P.A. Vanrolleghem, P.A. Chambers, G. Thériault, B. Novotná and M.R. Burkart (eds.), 2011. Issues and Solutions to Diffuse Pollution: Selected Papers from the 14th International Conference of the IWA Diffuse Pollution Specialist Group, DIPCON 2010. Conférence sur la pollution diffuse 2010 inc., Québec, Québec, CANADA. 495 pages.