Two days conference: Water and Climate

Climate change has recently become an additional challenge for water managers because its fundamental impact on the hydrological cycle. A recent article in Science’s Policy Forum argues that due to climate change “the assumption of stationarity is water resources no longer holds for the design and operation of water systems. The future is to fi nd ways to develop nonstationary probabilistic models to design and optimize water systems.” Increasing variability in water resources can be addressed by supply driven measures (such as increased reservoir capacity, additional use of groundwater, desalination, fl ood protection measures) or sometimes demand measures (such as awareness raising, pricing measures). The IWA Specialist Group on Water and Climate initiated sub Task Groups on particular climate based challenges e.g.
- adaptation of water utilities depending on snowpack water resources
- adaptation of water utilities in drying (arid or semi-arid) climate
- adaptation of utilities to sea level rise, increasing runoff and precipitation
IWA realises the importance of developing adequate coping measures for water management beyond the technical and structural activities which may include partnerships with municipalities on land use, insurance companies and the population on risk sharing and with governments on regulations and the private sector on investments. The goal of the November workshop is to discuss the building of partnerships and work out positions and practises on these. The two day workshop in Amsterdam is the opportunity for the sub Task Groups to meet together and work out the initial draft position papers into one document that will feed into the WWF5 process.