World Wide Water

World Water in the News

• Water news items in the Guardian newspaper - international edition.
• Water news from ScienceDaily, one of the Internet’s most popular science news web sites.
• World Economic Forum: water archive
• Water - an overview of articles from National Geographic.
• Topic Water - The Economist
• Carnets d'eau - the water blog of Le Monde Diplomatique
  Also from Le Monde Diplomatique: archive of articles, maps and reviews about water
• Der Spiegel - news overview on drinking water

Institutions involved in water and sanitation - governance

• UN Water
  Over 30 UN organisations carry out water and sanitation programmes. UN-Water’s role is to coordinate the UN response to water related challenges.
• FAO Water
  A subsite for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation FAO.
• World Bank - Water
  The World Bank is the world’s largest multilateral source of financing for water in developing countries.
  
  

Main international events:

• The World Water Council
  The World Water Council is an international multi-stakeholder platform, bringing people together through active hydro-diplomacy, exploring new ideas and concepts and discussing issues while encouraging exchanges and networking. It organizes the World Water Forums, every three years since 1997. Next World Water Forum will take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2027.
  
  
• World Water Week
  Organised every year in August by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI). It links researchers with policy makers and fosters partnerships among different actors in the water sector.

Data collections and indicators

• Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO): AQUASTAT is the most quoted source on global water statistis.
  AQUASTAT is FAO's global water information system, developed by the Land and Water Division.
  The data collections include:
  
  • AQUASTAT Database
  • Country profiles
  • The website also contains a practical Glossary of water terminology.
    
    
• Sustainable Development Goal 6: clean water and sanitation (but in fact much wider than that: also water quantity, governance, efficiency)
  
  • UN Water SDG 6 Data Portal
    The SDG 6 Data Portal brings together data on all the SDG 6 global indicators and other key social, economic and environmental parameters. Through maps, charts and tables, the portal offers tailored options for visualization and analysis of the data, including on interlinkages (description from the UN Water website).
    Particulalry interesting are the country reports, with a summary and detailed graphs.
  • SDG Monitoring
    About SDG 6 monitoring and reporting; support available to countries for each of the SDG 6 global indicators; country experience with SDG 6 monitoring and reporting.
    But also detailed information on the 11 different indicators for SDG 6 and the 2020 data drive.
  • FAO: Details on indicators 6.4.1 (Change in water use efficiency over time) and 6.4.2 (Level of water stress)
    
    
• UNICEF and WHO Joint Monitoring Programme
  This is the custodian of global data on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH).
  An interesting document is "Safely managed drinking water" (2017).
  
  
• World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) - Global Hydrological Data Centers
  • Global Runoff Data Center (GRDC): supports data collection and data management projects, disseminates information about national data holdings
  • International Groundwater Resources Assessment Center (IGRAC): supports efforts in groundwater monitoring and management as well as worldwide exchange of groundwater information and knowledge and capacity building
  • International Data Centre on Hydrology of Lakes and Reservoirs (HYDROLARE): establishes, develops and updates an international database on hydrological regime of lakes and reservoirs
    
    
• World Bank
  • World Bank Water Data is a meta-database portal that refers to online data sets. A very interesting and important new tool to find national and thematic data.
  • Open Data. Includes World Development Indicators, with water-related development statistics.
    
    
• United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD)
  Has a section on environmental statistics.

International Water Law

• The International Water Law Project is a website dedicated international water law and policy issues. It covers treaties, case law and institutions, and is very resourceful on articles and news updates related to international water resources.
• The Statement on water and sustainable development (1992), made at the International Conference on Water and Environment. In this "Dublin Statement, the principle of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) has been an accepted as the rationale to drive interventions and development in the water sector.