When it comes to climate change, water is a resource not a risk

This blog from AGWA’s Kelsey Harpham originally appeared on the Sanitation and Water For All website as part of a series in advance of the upcoming Sector Ministers’ Meeting.


 

In the context of climate change, water is often considered a source of risk – linked to an estimated ninety percent of climate problems including flooding and droughts. 

Yet, as governments, civil society, academics, and the private sector come together for the Sector Ministers’ Meeting from 18-19 May, the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation (AGWA) wants to change the perception of water from risk to resource–key to the mission of “Building Forward Better for Recovery and Resilience.” 

In the water and sanitation sector, water supply and security are at the center of program development. Effective management of these systems ensures that economies, communities and ecosystems can adjust, thrive and prosper in the face of a changing climate. 

Responding to the triple crises of climate change, a struggling global economy and a pandemic, the Sector Ministers’ Meeting acknowledges that access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene are critical for sustainable development.  

Water in the context of the water and sanitation sector is only one piece of the puzzle. The Sector Ministers’ Meeting provides an opportunity to integrate action on climate change by bringing together stakeholders from across ministries, including those from the environment, economic and health sectors.  

Water is at the heart of our response to these interconnected crises. Explicitly seeing shared water resources as a linkage between sectors can ensure that our priorities about water allocation and sharing lead to reliability, sustainability and equity. 

Resilient water management can provide coherence and credibility across a wide range of sectors, governance levels and domestic and international issues. Resilience requires robustness to cope with the challenges of our changing world, as well as flexibility to be able to adjust and adapt to unknown threats in the future.  

Resilience also lies at the heart of AGWA’s work. As a global network of 2000+ members, AGWA has worked closely with both water and climate stakeholders and decision-makers since 2010 to mainstream climate resilience into water management — and to ensure that water is at the center of climate action.

Additionally, to support the goals of the Sector Ministers’ Meeting, AGWA is excited to share our "Water Tracker for National Climate Planning” tool, developed in collaboration with the Sanitation and Water for All global partnership (SWA), UNICEF, and the Global Water Partnership (GWP), with support from the Government of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management.

The tracker supports countries to take a cross-sectoral water lens when developing their national climate plans. This facilitates informed decisions about water allocation and tradeoffs. 

Its benefits have been seen worldwide. In Costa Rica, the tracker demonstrated the need to prioritize water and sanitation infrastructure, as well as climate risk assessment, as part of the country’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) – climate action plans which cut emissions and adapt to climate impacts. It also highlighted the importance of including climate adaptation actions in the country’s National Sanitation Investment Plan and National Wastewater and Sanitation Policy. 

Malawi has also put the Water Tracker to use on its NDC, identifying mitigation and adaptation needs in the water and sanitation sector, and including climate change planning within its national water policy.

By using the tools and language of water resilience to navigate and negotiate trade-offs between sectors, we can acknowledge how the water cycle will evolve under climate change and determine emerging usage and allocation patterns. When water is managed with resilience in mind, there are multiple co-benefits for the economy, as well as the health and wellbeing of people and ecosystems. 

We know there is still progress to be made on the inclusion of water and sanitation priorities in climate planning, as well as the consideration of climate risks in future progress towards water security goals. 

By placing water at the center of sustainable development, we can ensure more strategic and effective recovery and growth for all sectors.