Publication based on selected presentations at World Water Week 2013 available

At the Confluence, Volume 2, Selections from World Water Week in Stockholm, September 1 – 6, 2013 is now available online.

We are living in an era of rapid and profound change. All kinds of information, knowledge and human interactions are accelerating in volume and quality. Barriers that used to block, delay or impede human interaction have been removed. Technologies and arrangements that ease and, indeed, stimulate contact and exchange of ideas, goods and services have taken over. These and other related revolutionary changes have made an imprint on the cooperation around water. Authors show that the understanding of the need for cooperation around water and development has significantly improved. And so has practice in terms of agreements, exchanges and partnerships.

But water realities are no longer what they used to be. Indeed, in the wake of global warming, revised and new knowledge is required which pays attention to changes in water and environmental parameters and how these presuppose changes in technologies and in the sound use of land, water and energy resources. A vital component of cooperation concerns data, information and monitoring.

Cooperation is about a desirable future. Not for some, but for a growing and more affluent world population but with lingering poverty and alienation, exposed to huge variations in the availability and accessibility of water and other resources. Policies, their formulation, financing, implementation, revision and evaluation need to be socially and culturally acceptable and adjusted, economically and technically feasible and environmentally sound.

No doubt, this is a daunting task. But it can and will be carried out in a context where human and other resources are historically unprecedented.

Read and download At the Confluence for the 2013 World Water Week.

To see At the Confluence for the 2012 World Water Week, click here.