Water Share Report

The choices we make today, and how we decide to manage our resources moving forward, will have long-term implications for nature and for people. This does not mean that we have to choose nature or people. The Nature Conservancy is committed to finding solutions that enable people and nature to thrive together—a world where we take care of nature so that nature can take care of us.

This report outlines a solution for managing scarce global water resources in a way that helps us meet the needs of people and nature. Today, irrigated agriculture accounts for a significant amount of our water consumption. If we can find ways to save just a small percentage of the water used on farms, it will free up a great volume of water that can be used for other purposes, including restoring depleted rivers and lakes. We believe that when water markets are paired with creative financial solutions, we can help provide a more water-secure future for cities, agriculture, industries and nature. 

Access Full Report: https://global.nature.org/content/water-share-report

See Where Access to Clean Water Is Getting Better and Worse

By Nicole Washington

Around the world, 663 million people don't have access to clean drinking water. That's about nine percent of the world's population.

The reasons for this range from lack of plumbing as with tropical villages built into mountains to escape heat to the sheer distance many people live from reliable water sources. Further, shifts in the weather some thought to be related to climate change have brought droughts in some areas and flooding in others: Natural disasters like this can wreck the water table.

The numbers aren't as bad as they once were, though. In 2000, the United Nations set out to halve the number of people without access to water sources that are protected from contamination, called “improved water.” It met the target in 2010. 

Read more: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/160301-global-potable-water-access-graphic-data-points/

Access to Water

As the world observes World Water Day (March 22) and the International Year of Water Cooperation, IDRC asked researchers: How do we ensure fair and equitable access to water?

Water will play a significant role in the next millennium due to fresh water shortages. To ensure fair and equitable access to water, we must protect our watersheds, the basic building blocks of the environment on which people, plants, and animals depend.

These contributions can be accessed at:

http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Resources/Publications/Pages/ArticleDetails.aspx?PublicationID=1176

Adapting to Climate Change: Assessing World Bank Group Experience

This evaluation report  draws from the World Bank Group experience with adaptation to both current levels of climate variability and ongoing climate change. It reviews the impact of longer-standing efforts to deal with climate variability, for instance throughdrought relief, sustainable land management, and flood control. The evaluation also looks at how, and how well, the World Bank Group has incorporated climate change risks into the design and appraisal of long-lived infrastructure. It assesses early lessons from a new crop of activities that explicitly grapple with climate adaptation at the national level.
This article is available at:

http://ieg.worldbankgroup.org/content/dam/ieg/climate_change3/cc3_full_eval.pdf