World Water Day

Rising temperatures due to human-induced climate change – as well as changes in land use and water use – are accelerating changes in precipitation, evaporation, soil moisture, groundwater and streamflow (i.e. river discharge) patterns. Climate change is also accelerating glacier melt and other cryospheric changes, increasing the risks of hazards such as glacial lake outburst floods while also affecting the availability and timing of water resources for downstream communities. An increasingly erratic and unpredictable hydrological cycle is posing more threats to human well-being (through its impact on provision of food and water security, economic stability, public health, etc.), and to environment and ecosystem health. Intensified occurrence and magnitude of hydrometeorological hazards highlight the urgent need for adaptive, resilient and integrated approaches to disaster risk management (DRM) strategies . Extreme hydrometeorological phenomena primarily drive water-related hazards . H...

   The Rome Water Dialogue session on "Impactful Water Solutions" will bring together FAO Members, partners and water experts to discuss impactful solutions on water resource management for resilient agriculture and food security. This session will cover various aspects of water management, such as water infrastructure and investment, water science and innovation, climate resilience, and water-disaster risk reduction. Watch WD01 - Rome Water Dialogue: Impactful water solutions! Agencies, Funds & Programmes

 Over the period 2009–2019,  Floods  nearly 55,000 deaths (including 5,110 in 2019 alone), affected another 103 million people (including 31,000 in 2019 alone) and caused US$76.8 billion in economic losses (including US$36.8 billion in 2019 alone). Over the same period, Droughts affected over 100 million people, killing over 2,000 people more, and directly causing over US$10 billion in economic losses. Globally, Floods and extreme rainfall events have increased by more than 50% over the past decade, occurring at a rate four times greater than in 1980. Climatic variations is expected to further increase the  frequency and severity of floods and droughts .

  The development of overarching frameworks such as the 2000 European Union Water Framework Directive  demonstrates the increasing significance that is being placed on valuing water . Nonetheless, efforts to value water , especially in a transboundary context, remain limited in scope and often use different approaches. The discernible approaches to valuing water quantitatively in the transboundary context are more targeted on specific aspects of managing transboundary water resources , such as flood management , disaster risk reduction (DRR) , early-warning systems (EWS) and ecosystem services . Investment in data collection systems is recognized as being of vital importance and while it comes at an additional cost, that cost can be compensated by the benefits of effective cooperation. The 2017 joint Adelphi and Regional Environmental Centre for Central Asia study noted that “it is important not to neglect the indirect costs of suboptimal water management because they demo...