Water and Climate Change
The 2020 edition of the World Water Development Report (WWDR 2020) entitled ‘Water and Climate Change’ aims at helping the water community to tackle the challenges of climate change and informing the climate change community about the opportunities that improved water management offers in terms of adaptation and mitigation.
The scientific evidence is clear: the climate is changing and will continue to change, affecting societies mainly through water. Climate change will affect the availability, quality and quantity of water for basic human needs, threatening the effective enjoyment of the human rights to water and sanitation for potentially billions of people. The alteration of the water cycle will also pose risks for energy production, food security, human health, economic development and poverty reduction, thus seriously jeopardizing the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The 2020 United Nations World Water Development Report focuses on the challenges, opportunities and potential responses to climate change, in terms of adaptation, mitigation and improved resilience that can be addressed through improving water management.
Combining climate change adaptation and mitigation, through water, is a win-win proposal, improving the provision of water supply and sanitation services and combating both the causes and impacts of climate change, including disaster risk reduction.
” Dr Arvind Kumar, President, India Water Foundation while espousing the interlinks between Water and Climate Change calls for ‘Water is Climate Change and vice-versa’ much before the Foundation’s inception. “I believe water is not a mere sector but a connector, a socio-economic indicator & key component of sustainable development and ecosystems are linked with water”. Combining climate change adaptation and mitigation, through water is a win-win proposal, improving the provision of water supply and sanitation services and combating both the causes and impacts of climate change, including disaster risk reduction. For this, we need to raise capacities of the communities to tackle the challenges of water and informing the climate change community about the opportunities how an integrated approach towards water management offers, especially in terms of adaptation.”
- UN World Water Development Report 2020: Water and Climate Change
English | Français (pdf) - Executive Summary
English | Français | Español | Русский | ا لعربية | 中文 (pdf)
Italiano | Português | हिन्दी | Korean (pdf) - Main messages
English (pdf) - Facts and Figures
English | Français | Español | Italian | Portugese (pdf) - VIDEO: Narrated version of the UN World Water Development Report 2020 presentation
English
Source: https://www.unwater.org/publications/world-water-development-report-2020/