The main theme of the XIII World Water Congress

GLOBAL CHANGES AND WATER RESOURCES:
confronting the expanding and diversifying pressures

The objective of the XIIIth World Water Congress is to enhance the world’s knowledge and raise global consciousness of the impact of global changes on water resources. The Congress contributes to the study of our planet’s water resources by bringing together wide-interest participation, conferences and communications. This Congress is an important occasion on a global scale for open dialogue between public and private partners, between users and decision makers and between developing, emerging and developed countries. To achieve these objectives, the Congress will organize numerous debates, presentations and exhibitions among key water stakeholders.

The interactions between water resources and global changes are numerous and complex. Much is at stake for the future. The global change concept is made of three interdependent fields:

1. The intrinsic natural variability of the environment is a permanent characteristic today as it has been in the near and the distant past. Water is a key player in this variability, acting all over the Earth’s surface as a medium of matter transport, a sculptor of landscapes and a source of life and evolution.
2. The impact of human societies that modify their environment to their needs, particularly for crop and animal production, industrial activities as well as urbanization. The monitoring and the integrated management of water resources represent decisive factors in these vital priorities for humanity.
3. Current climate change, visible since approximately one century ago, and its predominantly anthropological origins today receive general consensus from the scientific community. Global warming, a premier instance of global change, is strongly impacting the extent of glacier and snow cover; it also has a probable effect on precipitation and water flow regimes; and on the frequency and intensity of extreme events such as floods and droughts.

These three fields of climate change are undoubtedly inseparable. Recently however, tendencies have surged to set apart the third domain, climate change, from the two other fields, imputing that this alone is the cause of the adverse effects of global change. This is oversimplification. At a global scale, the water cycle is a complex system, where exchanges are always in flux, and where it is not possible to separate the impacts due to natural or anthropological influences, since a true state of equilibrium never exists. In reality, the stated dysfunctions of the water cycle and other related cycles are attributed to imbalances whose causes are varied and not just linked to climate change. The gap in the appreciation of water usage between the North and South is a real concern where perception and understanding of water uses differs. In the richest and most developed countries, water use issues relate to industrial needs and to the private consumer demands for leisure and domestic water. On the other hand, in less-developed countries, where economies and development are based mainly on agriculture, water uses and challenges relate mainly to crops and livestock.

In the future, water resources and the demands placed upon it at the local and regional scales, will become increasingly complex and disparities in access to water resources will grow. More than ever before, water will be a key issue for society and will drive mankind to undertake new initiatives to invent new approaches. However, the fundamental objective remains identical – to ensure that every human being has sufficient access to good quality water resources in the coming decades.

Congress topics

1. WATER AVAILABILITY, USE AND MANAGEMENT
   • Integrated water resources management
   • Water quality management: surface and ground water
   • Hydrological diagnosis and forecasting
   • Regional sessions (Africa, Mediterranean Basin, North America, Latin America, Asia, Australia and Pacific Islands, Europe; water management for monsoon countries)


2. TOWARDS THE FUTURE: WATER RESOURCES AND GLOBAL CHANGES:
   • Implications of assuring water, energy and food security
   • Impacts of trade and globalisation on the water sector
   • Technological development (biotechnology, desalination, etc.)
   • Population growth, urbanisation and economic development
   • Information and communication revolution
   • Human development, economic changes and water
   • Urbanisation, megacities, towns and rural areas
   • Expanding slums and informal sectors


3. CLIMATE CHANGE AND DISASTERS
   • Post-2007 IPCC Report: implications for the water sector
   • Linking climatology, hydrology and water resources management
   • How good is our knowledge base?
   • How to manage water under increasing climatic fluctuations
   • Earthquakes, cyclones, hurricanes and tsunamis
   • Forced migration


4. DEVELOPMENT OF WATER RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE
   • Food security, irrigation, food trade and markets
   • Urban infrastructure
   • Data, monitoring and information technology
   • Risk management: linking structural and non-structural approaches for flood and drought management
   • Environmental investments
   • Energy and water resources


5. WATER GOVERNANCE AND WATER SECURITY: 30 YEARS AFTER THE UN MAR DEL PLATA CONFERENCE OF 1977
   • Water governance: best practices
   • Managing water under conflicts and cooperation: Security threat implications
   • Multiple and multisectoral uses
   • Transboundary river basins and shared aquifers
   • Instruments for water quality management
   • Water access as a human right
   • Improving legal and institutional frameworks
   • Role of local authorities and civil society
   • Roles of bilateral, multilateral and professional global institutions


6. WATER CONSERVATION AND DEMAND MANAGEMENT
   • Economic instruments and water pricing
   • The social aspect of water
   • Water reuse and conservation technologies
   • Roles of the private sector
   • Education and public awareness


7. FINANCING WATER DEVELOPMENT
   • Private-Public Partnerships
   • Use of economic instruments
   • Roles of bilateral and multilateral institutions and donors
   • Innovative financial approaches
   • Role of micro-credit and local financing mechanism


8. CAPACITY BUILDING
   • South-South knowledge and experience transfer
   • New and innovative ways to build capacity at all levels