The world’s water encompasses much more than what we can see around us in rivers, lakes and oceans. The hydrological cycle also includes water that we may not be able to see easily but which plays a crucial role in our pursuit of a sustainable future. The importance of this “invisible water” is one of the main topics to be addressed during World Water Week 2022 (23 August–1 September).
As the leading conference on global water issues for more than 30 years, serves as an important catalyst for change. It attracts leading researchers, decision makers, business representatives, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), students and international organizations from all over the world, and provides a dynamic format for collaboration, shared learning and joint action to tackle some of the greatest challenges of our time.
This year, World Water Week will once again feature an on-site section in Stockholm. Last year’s successful online event has become an integral part of the conference; it will also return with three scene-setting days of exclusively online content, followed by an opportunity to join and interact with the on-site sessions via the digital conference platform. In total, 4,000 participants are expected to join the conversation during more than 300 sessions and a range of other collaborative formats.
This year’s conference will place particular focus on what can be described as “invisible water”—groundwater, soil moisture and atmospheric water. Being invisible to the naked eye, these occurrences of water are often forgotten, even by experts in the water community, and their potential is therefore not fully explored. In the face of the global water crisis, this must change if we are to realize the Sustainable Development Goals and build an inclusive and better future for all.
Almost half of the world’s human population relies heavily on groundwater for survival, and as that population continues to grow, many more people will come to depend on this water source.
One of most urgent international challenges is the food crisis currently affecting many parts of the world. In East Africa alone, , primarily due to drought. Several European countries and almost half of the states of the United States are also reporting drought.
But according to a , drought can be tackled through land restoration and improved water management. The key is to restore and protect the moisture and fertility of the soil, for example, through smarter farming practices. The report argues that making this shift should be a top priority, since the frequency and severity of droughts have already increased by nearly a third in the past 20 years. By 2050, the problem could affect more than 75 per cent of the world’s population.
Following the pandemic years, World Water Week 2022 will honour the three most recent laureates of the prestigious Stockholm Water Prize. Two of the laureates have dedicated much of their lives to helping us better understand the importance and potential of invisible water.
The 2020 laureate, Dr. John Cherry, is one of the world’s most prominent groundwater experts. He has stated that the planet’s groundwater is being dangerously mismanaged, and that this poses an immediate and very serious threat to ecosystems and food production. Almost half of the world’s human population relies heavily on groundwater for survival, and as that population continues to grow, many more people will come to depend on this water source.
Dr. Cherry was awarded the Stockholm Water Prize for his pioneering research on groundwater contamination. His work has shown that contamination, together with over-abstraction (taking too much water from a ground source), is the biggest threat to the world’s groundwater supply.
The 2022 laureate, Dr. Wilfried Brutsaert, is also recognized for his work on invisible water, specifically groundwater and evaporation. Understanding evaporation is increasingly important in an era of growing water scarcity, as it helps decision makers assess how much water is available. Dr. Brutsaert, affectionately known as Mr. Evaporation in the hydrology community, is the world’s leading expert on terrestrial evaporation. His research has led to models of unrivalled accuracy that can help us quantify evaporation.
This information is of particular importance to exposed local communities needing to predict how much water is available today and how much will be present in the future. Speaking after the Stockholm Water Prize announcement earlier this year, :
“This is essential information to have when planning our societies. We must know how much water we will have in order to understand how much more a city can expand, or if we can allow industries to settle in a certain area.”
The programme of World Water Week 2022 is organized in three focus areas, each with a dedicated online day and on-site day. The focus areas are Finance and Economy, People and Development, and Nature and Climate. The organizer of World Water Week, the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), curates the programme; the sessions are hosted by a wide range of convening organizations.
SIWI is also organizing?a series of seminars tied to the overarching theme—“Seeing the Unseen: The Value of Water”—and serves as the backbone of the conference. The seminars are aimed at generating concise policy messages and solutions from cutting-edge scientific and practitioner debates on urgent topics. The content is relevant to decision makers around the world and framed to suit that audience, making the sessions an important part of the global agenda for a more water-wise world.
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