View from the Congo River between Kinshasa and Lukolela, Democratic Republic of Congo. CIFOR/Ollivier Girard

Restoration

Top 5 takeaways from World Water Development Report 2018

Go beyond conventional approaches

March 22, 2018

by Monica Evans

BONN, Germany (Landscape News) — Five key points to consider in the new U.N. World Water Development Report.

Healthy ecosystems contribute to better water quality. Ecological processes driven by vegetation and soils play a big role in storing, moving and transforming water. Degraded ecosystems are a major cause of water problems worldwide.
Nature-based solutions (NBS) use and imitate natural processes to increase water availability and quality, and reduce risks from natural disasters and climate change.
NBS for water also create a number of important social, environmental and economic co-benefits, such as food and energy security, human health and livelihoods, sustainable economic growth, ecosystem restoration and biodiversity.
NBS include “green infrastructure”, which can substitute or work with built “grey infrastructure” to improve water management system performance and economy. So far, water management is still largely dominated by grey infrastructure, and the potential for green infrastructure alternatives is under-utilized.
Business-as-usual won’t provide water security or allow us to meet the water-related U.N. Sustainable Development Goals: we need to look beyond conventional approaches to water management, and approaches like NBS, while not a panacea, can contribute a lot to the development of more sustainable solutions.

Read the full report here:

Exploring nature-based solutions for source water protection on World Water Day

Q+A: Putting nature based solutions to work to protect water sources

3 things you can do on World Water Day (and beyond)

Article tags

global landscape restoration landscapes restoration restoration water world water day

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